I don't really need to wire in a tone capacitor do I?
I think that was the relevant statement.
After all the time it took to replace your pot, there is no way your ears could have made an accurate comparison. Your mind certainly did, however. There is nothing wrong with that if it makes you "feel and play better" (based on what you think/assume you are hearing).
I don’t think you can declare there’s no way anyone else can hear a frequency just because you don’t. There have been studies that show on average people of high school age can hear frequencies that people over 50 cannot.
For me, I owned and operated a recording studio for the better part of a decade, producing recordings. Through all those experiences, mentored by producers from other larger and sometimes well-known studios, I developed the skill to differentiate frequencies in sound pretty well. Even chasing a particular sound with guitars and wiring, things that do make a difference I can hear (e.g. cap values I can hear the difference, while cap types make no difference.) When I finally achieve a sound I was chasing, I can detect it. It might not be a big difference, but sometimes that last 1-3% of difference in the sound is precisely what I was chasing, and when I achieve it, I can tell. Part of the reason is last 1-3% of difference is what most of the years in the studio was spent on, because that is the job.
If it didn’t make a difference, I would be on here reporting my disappointment, like in the case of cap types. I chased that and cap type didn’t make a difference, though the actual values did. If you’re leaking any amount of signal to ground through resistors and caps, it’s detectable to the ear. Whether a particular person can hear it will vary. But I can hear it.
And by the way, I didn’t rewire everything and check separately after time passed. I typically make test rigs and switch the elements in real time before deciding how to wire it. I think you made too many assumptions there based on your experience, but not mine.
