500k Pots for a Lil 59

Butch Snyder

ObsoleteChickenPickingologist
How many players do this instead of using the regular 250k pots in your Telecaster? What are the results?
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

Addendum - I'm going to install the 500k pots and pull the 250k because I'm going to add a full-size humbucker in the neck position. See my sig pic.
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

Well, I guess no one has done this so you're all waiting on me to do it first? Well, I did. So far, I have to say that the Lil 59 w/250k pots is great. When wired in parallel. It's even better.

Now, in series and wired with 500k pots, it's very very nice. I'll give a better review tomorrow after I actually use it in band play....
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

I'm going to install 500k pots in my tele because I have 2 humbuckers in it, one of them is a hot rails.
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

My rule of thumb is anything over 9K gets 500k pots, because these pickups are closer in output and tonality to humbuckers, than single coils. It doesn't always work, but it works enough that's where I start.
 
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Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

I quite like my 500K pot with my hot lead stack PUP though I did not hear it with a 250K pot (I changed both pot and pup at the same time). The parallel wiring works really nice too in my opinion - I like it better than the single coil sound + the hot stack in the humbucker wiring is lower in volume than in the single coil wiring
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

I used my used my 500k-equipped Tele this morning and it sounded better than with the 250k pots. I'm going to get some CTS pots though. They might have better tolerances than the ones I currently have. When I measured them (before installing), they both measured around 460k.
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

When I measured them (before installing), they both measured around 460k.
The tolerance on a lot of components is 10%, so if you take 500k x .10 = 50k. 500k - 50k = 450k plus a small margin of error for the measuring equipment.
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

One of my Tele's has a Little 59 at the neck and a Pearly Gates at he bridge. I use 500k pots and a .23 cap.
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

My rule of thumb is anything over 9K gets 500k pots, because these pickups are closer in output and tonality to humbuckers, than single coils. It doesn't always work, but it works enough that's where I start.

Interesting - I never really thought of that....
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

I use 500k pots with my Lil 59 tele, it works fine. No overly brightness at all. It's still humbucker sounding.
 
Re: 500k Pots for a Lil 59

As a follow up to this, I have a CTS 500k volume pot with my Little 59 bridge and Vintage Stack neck and it works fine. :)
 
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