Volume Control potentiometer

DIY pot

I have a few Noble pots and they are pretty darned reliable. Not certain if they are still readily available though. If you're prepared to do some calculations, resistor matching and plenty of soldering, see if you can get hold of a Plessey Type 72 quad bank rotary switch. They're not too expensive as I recall, and are extremely rugged. Ideal for making up a 2-resistors-in-the-path volume control. There is a spreadsheet available somewhere (just can't recall where I found it) to help with the calculation of the resistor values.
 

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You could work out the best switch-resistor by using a neural network (a back propagation would work). Simply make the values between the nodes only be of the set of resistor values available, then score for (a) correctness of of resulting resistance, (b) shortness of run (ie least number of resistors), (c) shortness of run through number of switches. You could even add the number of solder joints into it.
Let it rip and then it would iterate and narrow down the best score the value neural network which just so happens to have connections required to have the best switched attenuator.
Computer science helps the age old problem of volume ;)
 
I imagine with an ADC that has I²C or SPI output for 2 digital pots, it should be possible.

The ADC "reads" the value of analog pot, then send to the 2 digital pots the information to have same value on the 2 digital pots than on the analog pot.

However, I don't sure you will find an ADC and a digital pot which will have same protocole to communicate.

Using a µC is a solution. More complicated than a stereo pot except if you have already a µC in you design (for remote control or screen for example).

The PIC16F15213 could be a good choice because it exists in DIP8 & SO8 package. A dev kit is available: Welcome to MicrochipDirect

P.S : I prefer the stereo solution because digital pots carries more THD+N than analog pot. However, I think you can have a good sound with digital pots. Depend on your need.
 
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