Bare Knuckle 280K Stand. Shaft Split Pot

I got these for a P90 equipped guitar. I find 250k a bit low for P90s and 500k is way too high for my taste. I prefer audio taper so the linear 300k Gibson pots wasn't an option for me and I can't seem to find audio taper 300k pots anywhere.

These 280k pots seemed interesting. I ordered two and I hoped that with a bit of luck they would be slightly higher than 280k or at least not lower.

As it turned out one measured exactly 280k and the other one measured 281k. I had hoped they would be slightly higher but I can't really complain when they were EXACTLY as specified.

Of course I can't really say much about tolerance from such a small number of specimens but it looks pretty tight.

The quality of the pots is just like standard CTS pots (which means they're very good!).

Highly recommended if you want audio taper with slightly higher resistance than standard 250k pots.

It's a pot - what's there to say? Actually a fait bit.
I love Bareknuckle pickups, have a bunch of them, hand wound in Devon & have had a lot of contact with Tim way back in the early days. Great company and wonderful attention to detail.

Which brings me to this pot. 280k is just perfect for a strat imho - brings out a good deal of treble sparkle in the instrument which is somewhat tamed with a 250K pot (which could be a significantly less given pot tolerances). And this CTS pot adapted to Bareknuckle specs comes in right on the mark. Good turning resistance; neither too loose of too stiff for my tastes.

Now for the custom audio taper. It does a fair bit on the last bit of the turn of the pot (compared to an old 280K potentiometer I had, which got so scratchy that it couldn't be "repaired" with contact cleaner & had to go to that great potentiometer resting place in the sky). No issue with that top of the range taper; I've gotten used to it.

But I do have an niggle. Just as Joe Perkins had noticed, my pot is also silent on "1" rather than "0". This means that the 0 to 100% volume range doesn't go from 0 to 10 on the knob but from 1 to 10. So essentially 90% on the knob travel is effective, rather than 100%.
"Now", I hear you say, "Tremblox you are splitting hairs again. A volume pot is infinitely adjustable. The volume you get just depends on how finely you can twist the #*€+ thing!"
And I'd say that you are absolutely right. But it seems so strange to me that a company like Bareknuckle would define an audio taper from 1 to 10, rather than 0 to 10. And if Bareknuckle wouldn't, then it would perhaps point to a CTS quality issue. Questions, questions.

Perhaps all of this is academic. It seems like a good pot. The value is perfect for my strat. The volume taper is something I will absolutely get used to, ( I mean, how often do you play with your guitar volume on "1" anyway??). We'll see how long it lasts before it gets to crackle - hopefully many years down the road.

i think it's worth buying this for a passive strat based on it's total resistance value alone. So I would recommend it.
And Thomann, if you're listening perhaps you could consider stocking the VIPot product for the fetishists amongst us? I'm surely not alone.

Ich habe dieses Poti eingebaut um ein etwas älteres kratzendes zu ersetzten und wegen dem etwas höheren 280-ohm Wert ein wenig mehr "frische" in meine Strat zu bekommen. Leichtgängig ist es...aber leider hielt es nicht so lange und fing auch nach ein paar Wochen an zu "kunspern". Da ich nichts von "kontaktspray Reparaturen" halte (in der Regel hält das auch nicht lange und wird nur schlimmer..) musste ich es wieder ausbauen und habe jetzt teure Dunlop 250 Pots drinnen, die ewig halten sollen....das tun sie auch. Leider für Thomann diese Poti nicht....