Potentiometer sound quality

[N101N]

Thank you.

[tonescout]

Originally Posted by Zung

Ouch!!!
Sorry to hear about your Odyssey; must have costed you a grand, right?
Reminds me of a guy who posted a similar ripoff with his Threshold preamp, over at the PASS section I think.

Regarding scopes, it depends on where you're located, and how brave you are. I have a Tektronix 100MHz analog scope I paid about $100 on eBay; it wasn't really working, but it way an easy fix with half a can of contact cleaner. Before that, I had a Trio 30MHz I sold for $50 to make room for the Tek. So that's the ballpark.

Alternatively, there're many digital scopes on eBay and Aliexpress that look attractive, but I have no first hand experience with them. Hopefully somebody will chime in. In any case, buy a couple of 10x probes to deal with tubes.



Possible ground loop.
My suggested procedure (don't tell anyone):

1. Buy a life insurance, make me the beneficiary
2. Temporarily remove the ground wire of the power amp
3. If that fixes the prob, add a ground loop breaker in the power amp, and put the ground wire back

It's widely used, even in the ARC gears, but considered only OK-ish by the top guys. TKD's are supposed to be better

I have a TKD now to swap from my old scratchy 35 yr old ALPS and I would say it does sound better now the damn caps are running in :-)

Tried the ground out already on power amp no change :-(

cost me £500 for the work, I did get a new transformer installed I suppose.....found a fantastic supplier in the UK who made it to specification supplied from the ARC circuit for about £90 delivered. I was thinking it might not sound like ARC spec product which was an absurd price for parts. I think it sounded better but hey it definitely did not wound worse :-) Transformer Equipment Ltd. | Sandwich Kent all voltages spot on.

[JMFahey]

Originally Posted by Zung

Not only capacitors.
My Gustard AK4499 DAC sounds noticeably better after a full week of breaking-in.
No big deal, play of loop of music, switch off the power amp, and come back later. Here's how I break my PS caps. Eric Clapton’s No Reason to Cry works great

Mmmhhh, I see a mixed bag here.

Good ideas, mixed with clearly visible problems.

Good: those crocodile clips are maturing fine.

Not a single Green one visible.

Half are going through the yellow stage, fine.
They are developing flavour.

Half have reached mature Red sweetness, harvest them NOW, do not freeze them (Cryotreatment makes them stringy and bitter) , worst case keep them in the fridge for no more than 2 or 3 days.
My Family loves them, they disappear within hours

BAD :
You let 2 of them untouched for too long, now they turned BLACK!!!
Do not even TRY to taste them, they will give you bellyache.

Do not even feed them to your pets, they are UNSAFE by now.
Wrap them in aluminum foil , even better in lead foil in case they turned radioactive, and dispose of them in a safe manner.

GOOD: congratulations on your idea of wrapping caps tightly together with rubber bands, that way the breaking in marginal field does not go to waste, but preconditions those nearby.

This thread should be a stickie, chock full of useful Audio info.

PS: Eric Clapton´s Layla works even better, because it was recorded on a Fender Champ.
Gobs of single ended Tubyness.

[Zung]

Originally Posted by JMFahey

...
PS: Eric Clapton´s Layla works even better, because it was recorded on a Fender Champ.
Gobs of single ended Tubyness.

He recorded it with a tweed.
Sadly, mine is a lowly silver face.

PS.: yet another can of snakes: tone caps, carbon composition resistors, hemp cone, etc... You know what I mean if you're into the musical instrument stuff.

[Fenris]

Carbon resistors have their place. Of all the modern production resistors, they're the least like an ideal resistor, their resistance generally rises with frequency. This flaw can be a virtue - in a RC circuit it adds an increasing cutoff as frequency increases. This can be quite useful for dampening high frequency interference, radio pick-up, and other RFI effects. Plus, it's just cheaper than an inductor or ferrite bead plus resistor, and manufacturers are concerned about pennies that add up.

Hemp cones? Every cone material (and shape) is different (stiffness, weight, internal dampening) and will affect the sound. How and how much is debatable. Instruments can be finicky things and are a sum of all the parts, plus usually for instruments like guitar, distortion is preferred rather than avoided. And musicians are a VERY subjective breed, often prone to emotionalizing rather than rationalizing (I'm the engineer in a family of musicians).

[Zung]

I bought an Eminence Cannabis Rex (hemp cone) on a whim, just because I thought the name is cool. Now I'm monogamously in love with it and wouldn't play anything else. And I still think the name is cool.

[JMFahey]

Well, in this particular case there is solid Physics justification, besides any psycho-logical or psycho-enhancing overtones on its sounding different.
Big way, it´s nothing subtle.

Hemp fiber is *strong* and hemp fiber based ropes and cords are still much in use, 6 times as strong as cotton fiber, let alone wood fiber which is smashed, boiled and blanched while being turned into a paste, so any paper incorporating it will be way stronger, more rigid and as a side note, better self damped, so cone response will vary a lot.

Personally I don´t much like hemp cones for guitar (except, maybe Jazz Guitar) because to my ears it´s darker sounding.

But there measurements match perceptions

[Zung]

Originally Posted by JMFahey

...
Personally I don´t much like hemp cones for guitar (except, maybe Jazz Guitar) because to my ears it´s darker sounding.
...

But Billy Gibbons, Carlos Santana et al do. Of course, they have the $$$ and can afford the Tone Tubby. I have to make do with a licensed copy.

[sser2]

Originally Posted by Wavebourn

... vintage Siemens pots. They had a silver plated bronze spring with a hole, and a graphite "nail" in it. What a beauty they were!

And they also had mirror-polished resistive element, didn't they? I remember ripping out one of these from a pre-war Telefunken radio.