Two things that define the premium pots - value and taper.jerryjg wrote:Waste of money iMO. CTS have perfect feel and even cheaper Alphas are very good.
Measure a stack of off-the-shelf CTS and Alpha 500K pots and I predict that none of them will actually be 500K or higher. That causes the pickups to load down a bit more and makes them darker. The RS pots (made by CTS as it happens), Dr Vintage pots (also made by CTS) and Allessandro will all have been specified with a far tighter tolerance on their value, so you should genuinely get a 500K pot. That will be an improvement in clarity for certain.
Secondly, the taper on CTS pots means you've got very little control in the low range of the pot. Not an issue if you play on 10 all the time but if you're using an amp like a Trainwreck you actually need to be able to get down to 1 or 2 to get different clean sounds, and most stock pots don't have any granularity down at this point so it becomes really hit-or-miss. The afore-mentioned pots all have their own custom tapers based off either old pots like Centralabs or their own specifications which give you more control at the extremities of the travel.
Now the taper may not make any difference whatsoever to you but the value will. You could always hand-pick the pots you want out of a big batch to get the right values, or you can pay a premium to have this done for you.
For me it's easier just to order the premium pots.
Those guys are great to deal with and always make outstanding products.
