A word of warning against using vintage(used)pots in a build

[Charlie Wilson]

Hello, I know everyone says that the vintage CTS Fender pots have the "mojo" and sound better than the new production ones but using used old pots in my amp turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. I have been fiddling with this Low Plate Classic amp for over a year and I used vintage CTS pots out of Fender amps for the 1 meg pre and master volumes and a 2-35 250k for the treble. They were out of amps that were in good shape and they did seem to sweeten the treble in a nice way. The problem was that every time I played through the amp it sounded different. I finally noticed that if I spin the old pots a few times the sound would get better. I removed the treble and master volume pots and replaced them with 30% taper new CTS and the amp's sound was way more consistent. Recently however it seemed to lack mids and bass and I considered doing a Skyliner tone stack. I decided to replace the preamp volume with a new CTS pot before I changed the tone stack and all of the mids and lows were back. These pots were very carefully cleaned and looked to be in good shape. Maybe I was just unlucky with those particular pots. The thing is now you can get J-Taper 250kA pots from Fender and 30% 1 megs from Apex Jr. so maybe think twice about gutting a vintage Fender amp for pots. Also, I think the new CDE PS orange drops sound really good and I ended up taking all of the vintage Spragues out of my amp. Not trying to contradict anybody who has suggested using them in the past. Just saying you can make a great sounding amp and not have to use vintage parts.
CW

[martin manning]

Thanks for passing this info along CW!

[bluesfendermanblues]

I bought three pcs Fender 1 Meg J-taper (30%) from Angela Instruments.

Replacing regular Alpha 1M's in position "1" Volume. To be honest I can't hear tonal quality difference between the Fender's and Alphas. Only difference is the taper ergonomics. Before I used to have the pot at noon, now I have at 3 o'clock.

Here's a link to Angela's
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Real-Fender-CTS ... 1098878210

And here's for the 250 k treble pot:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Fender- ... 0621241520

PS: I have same experience with Fender Vintage pots in a ol' 63 Bassman head. You have to "warm up" the pots with a few turns to get them to work properly. Don't really believe the Fender CTS mojo.

[JazzGuitarGimp]

Hi Charlie,

The CDE PS caps, are these polystyrene? Where do you get them?

Thanks,
Lou

[Charlie Wilson]

Hi Charlie,

The CDE PS caps, are these polystyrene? Where do you get them?

Thanks,
Lou

Hello Lou, they are listed as being polyester in the CE Distribution catalog. They replace the SBE PS capacitors. I'm sure there are some great sounding NOS Sprague PS out there but the ones I had in my amp were dogs. I guess maybe it depends on how well they were stored over the years.
CW

[Duble]

Hello Lou, they are listed as being polyester in the CE Distribution catalog. They replace the SBE PS capacitors.

I've been using these CDE 6PS caps with a mix of 630v generic caps from CE Dist in my amps for the better part of a year and they're great. I've had zero issues and they sound great.

Rick

[JazzGuitarGimp]

Thank you, Charlie & Duble.

Cheers,
Lou