pots
I use a home made stepped attenuator, it is more transparent than any pot (expensive or inexpensive) it has 2db steps and
covers a 24 db range, (never required more attenuation),
The trick is to initially build it with fairly inexpensive metal film resistors, then when you've had it for some time you will probably have just a few positions that you regularly use, identify the resistor values at these settings and buy some high quality vishay or whatever is flavour of the month and use them to replace the resistors at your preferred settings.
Jules