Bourns Potentiometer Testing Results

[Tim Mason]

HI guys,

I recently tested out some of the Potentiometers by Bourns and i thought to share the input here:D

Firstly, the samples

[Tim Mason]

The first thing you may notice, there are a few sealed pots (Bourns® Model 95 Premium and
Model 82 Vintage Guitar Potentiometers) and a few standard(unsealed) pots.

The sealed blue and black pots have a washer with a tab that you use as a ground instead of the back of your pot, great for removing the pots and re-useing them without much risk of heat damage. Also being completely sealed it make it hard for dirt to build up inside and you also dont have to worry about solder running into the pot as you ground the outer lug. As you can see the unsealed pot has a slightly different lug settup(top pic) and the sealed 10% vintage/20%Modern pots (bottom pics) are built a little better with better quality washers/nuts.

[Tim Mason]

Here is the Modern Sealed pot, i found the main difference between these and the Vintage sealed pots were only minor.

They both ground the outer lug to a washer, but the modern 20% pot had a SLIGHTLY smoother rotation and the lugs seem a little more durable than the 10% vintage pot, although both premium and vintage sealed pots are VERY good quality and once the knobs were on, the rotation difference was gone and the rotation is smooth as silk:D.

[Tim Mason]

Ok, here is where these 2 sealed pots shine...the taper.

For gradual roll off and volume swells, i give a 9/10 for both. These are really easy to control your tone, using 50's wiring i were able to clean up and add dirt quite easily by rolling the volume back, no extreme jumps or loss of volume, just nice, smooth controlling. Clarity is very nice and no scratching anywhere in the 4 pots i sampled for each graph.

I made up the following graphs using a multimeter and a spreadsheet to help you get an idea of the different tapers. Each graph is the result given from an average of 4 pots. I did this with all models bourns sent me, the 250k taper is nearly identical to the 500k for each model, very consistent pot building

[Tim Mason]

Another thing i found really interesting is that the standard unsealed pots come in 3 different torque levels(how hard it is to rotate the pot). Not a bad idea really, if you dont use the tone pot much, a high torque would come in handy to prevent bumping the pot lightly and changing the tone setting you like

Low Torque - Easy to turn
Standard Torque - Med to Turn
High Torque - Harder to Turn



As for the Standard and push pull pots... also very good quality, though i personally find the CTS log pots to have a smoother taper thats easier to control. I found the RS super pots and CTS 10% custom taper have a similar feel to the Bourns sealed pots.

Well thats it for now, ill leave you with a graph of your standard log/audio and linear tapers to make a comparison with the Bourns Pots. I love how the Bourns sealed pots sit on 0-4k resistance at 1-3 on the knob, i like to use my volume swells for ambient playing and rolling off to claen up, for this... these pots are amazing.

[sebastiaan56]

This is very cool Tim!

Where do you get these puppies?

[Tim Mason]

They are US made pots, i have been chatting with some guys over there and will be getting a supply of the premuim/vintage and low-high torque soon, until then i know jonesy at tonemojo.com stocks them if you would like to try, he is a great guy and has very decent pricing/postage.

[Kim]

Thanks for the info Tim, good post.

Would like to see a graph comparison against CTS though, have you ever tested them??

Cheers

Kim

[Dominic]

Hey Tim, thanks for the info. Most of my electric guitars use EMG active pickups. They come with their own pots presumably to handle the small current but I have never really looked into it. Do you know if the ones you showed work with active pickups? I also have a couple with coil splitting push pull pots. I have had some issues with them in the past and like the idea of the sealed pots. No need for vintage on my guitars.
Cheers
Dom

[Tim Mason]

Hi Kim,

Your regular cts pots have the regular Audio or linear taper as posted in the white graph above, the custom taper 10% CTS pots have a different resistance curve, this graph comes from a freind, Jonesy in the US (it was sent to him from Ron at CTS)
Red - Linear CTS
Black - Custom CTS
Yellow - Audio CTS

I plan on doing the same thing for CTS and alpha so i can give clients a visual, i will add... no pot is better, but finding one that suits your playing style is the key. A guitarist that plays on 10 wont care much at all for taper variations.

[Tim Mason]

Hey Tim, thanks for the info. Most of my electric guitars use EMG active pickups. They come with their own pots presumably to handle the small current but I have never really looked into it. Do you know if the ones you showed work with active pickups? I also have a couple with coil splitting push pull pots. I have had some issues with them in the past and like the idea of the sealed pots. No need for vintage on my guitars.
Cheers
Dom

You need a 25k pot for actives and the ones that come with the EMG's are fine. The Bourns come in 250k and 500k. You may want to try capacitor variations though, i just threw a few Russian Polly .022's on an Active LP settup and the mid punch it produced was to die for(very meaty tone), many options available here, if you'd like to chat about what you'd like to do with your tone feel free to PM me

As for the Bourns Push Pulls...those are not sealed, but they are one of the best made push pull pots i have found to date, no rattle in the shaft at all, good taper and very smooth.

[Puff]

This is getting pretty close to shop front isn't it?

Hey Kim and Nick and Martin - is that restraint or what

[kiwigeo]

This is getting pretty close to shop front isn't it?

Hey Kim and Nick and Martin - is that restraint or what

Hi Puff,

I don't see any issues....Kim and Nick may have a different view. The way I see it, Tim responded to Seb's question about where do get the pots. Tim did mention that he is getting in a stock of pots but I don't see him advertising sale of same....I'm sure he's aware of the guidelines on flogging stuff on this forum and would seek Admin/Mod approval before doing same.

Cheers Martin

[Allen]

That's the way I read it as well Martin.

[Tim Mason]

Funny, i actually re-worded the post to avoid such a generalization, guess it was bound to happen. But yes puff, i posted for YOUR knowledge, no more

I hope you get some input out of the post, but with comments like that i see why i were reluctant to come back to the forum, thanks again puff

[kiwigeo]

Puff's observation has been discussed amongst the moderators and as far as we're concerned nothing in Tim's posts contravenes forum guidelines. The issue is now closed and further discussion should be steered back onto the topic of the thread...pots.

Thanks Martin