Seems like no more good Pots for amps.........

[Eagle]

I really don't get the issue. They are board mounted because they are better than anything else available that isn't board mounted. The options are use a lower quality part that people can have a tug at photos online over, or something unnecessarily expensive. Pointless making an issue out of it if they are good quality, reliable and consistent parts (i.e. the exact reasons they are in the amp in the first place). Most amp builders would side with Dave, and especially those who are manufacturing on a larger scale than one off's by hand.

I'm sure if you wanted a PCB-less amp with the pots of your choosing, Dave (or any other builder) would happily build (and charge) you whatever you like. The vast majority of customers are never even going to look inside the amp, let alone know the difference. and given the choice I think they'd prefer something reliable, consistent, affordable etc.

The price is clearly the issue. You can specify what you want to CTS and they will make it for you.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

The price is clearly the issue. You can specify what you want to CTS and they will make it for you.

all of these businesses have to weigh up these kind of decisions, all it takes is one batch to arrived that’s bad/unusable. You’ve basically decided that these pots are completely inferior and inadequate purely because they’re PCB mounted and not a brand you like, and as if no one in charge of manufacturing hasn’t thought it through or thinks they can pull a fast one.

 

[GuitarBilly74]

View attachment 23081
This gut shot of a bog standard plexi reissue is starting to look a lot like a better deal. Note everything is chassis mounted and fly wired . This will take twice as long to build as the Friedman and costs considerably less. Uk made and the classic.

Looks just like my 2022 1987x. The pots are beautiful BUT I had to replace 2 of them in the first 3 months of use because one had a dead spot and the other started getting noise and static. Thankfully, Marshall covered it under warranty but still... So maybe Dave is not wrong.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

all of these businesses have to weigh up these kind of decisions, all it takes is one batch to arrived that’s bad/unusable. You’ve basically decided that these pots are completely inferior and inadequate purely because they’re PCB mounted and not a brand you like, and as if no one in charge of manufacturing hasn’t thought it through or thinks they can pull a fast one.

So we find board mounted tube sockets acceptable and “superior”?

Not that I had anything to do with the design and sales of amps. Oh wait I did.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

So we find board mounted tube sockets acceptable and “superior”?

Not that I had anything to do with the design and sales of amps. Oh wait I did.

View attachment 23100
View attachment 23101
View attachment 23102

it can be done well or it can be done badly, like anything else. Vox make HW amps that are anything but boutique. What I am saying is you shouldn’t assume PCB is bad, especially if parts have been specifically chosen to avoid problems.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

it can be done well or it can be done badly, like anything else. Vox make HW amps that are anything but boutique. What I am saying is you shouldn’t assume PCB is bad, especially if parts have been specifically chosen to avoid problems.

I just posted pictures of PCB constructed amps so clearly I have no issues with that.

I don’t even have issues with the pots but board mounted power tubes is a no go for me.

But let’s not assume that everything a manufacturer answers is Gospel, folks say funny things.

Let me put it like this, I have two Strandbergs, when I got the first 6 years ago € 2500 for an Indonesian guitar seemed nut as it was.
2 years ago I got a tru-temp 8 that was selling for 4400. Even nuttier.

Since then they raised prices, ok fair enough.
Ditched roasting the maple necks, and slapped maple veneers instead of tops on the bodies.
This was claimed to be done in order to improve the guitars.
All I see is a profit increase…jus’ sayin.

 

[TSJMajesty]

We're in a period of high inflation, and have been for a while. The guitars I've been watching for the last 6 months haven't been moving, and of the used ones I watch, that inventory has been steadily rising.

Look at food packaging- smaller boxes, with higher prices.

An HVAC tech friend of mine tells me he's seeing much higher failure rates in systems he works with.

Put all this together, and what I think is going on is manufacturers are getting squeezed by higher prices for parts, higher labor costs, along with slumping sales, so they're trying to hold the line on prices to the consumer as best they can, and looking for ways to cut corners on the product manufacturing side of things.

Didn't PRS recently start putting USA-made PU's in their S2 line of guitars? I'd bet they did this basically because they could (have plenty on-hand), and as a way of making the customer feel the price is a bit more justified, in hopes of that move to USA-made PU's helping sales a bit. Because the alternative, raising prices again, was most likely the last thing they wanted to do.

I say it's all inflation-based, and these companies just cannot simply raise prices, since there's so much cheap competition out there (more every day), so cutting corners gets approved, somewhere in the supply chain.

 

[GuitarBilly74]

So we find board mounted tube sockets acceptable and “superior”?

Not that I had anything to do with the design and sales of amps. Oh wait I did.

Both can be done well and both can be done badly. What's "superior" will depend on the overall quality of the design and parts.
Bugera made a plexi clone (1960) with chassis mounted sockets. I guarantee you it was not better built than the Friedman.

 

[Achilles]

RedSeven D100Pre uses “Manta” RV24 mil style potentiometers", whatever those are.
They feel and work bad-ass for what it's worth.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Both can be done well and both can be done badly. What's "superior" will depend on the overall quality of the design and parts.
Bugera made a plexi clone (1960) with chassis mounted sockets. I guarantee you it was not better built than the Friedman.

I didn’t say chassis mounted is superior design, I referred to the notion of just because Friedman does it the reason is quality rather than lowering parts and Labor costs.

 

[Eagle]

Board mounting everything is about cost. It depends how you do it from the overall quality perspective. I simply don't accept that you can't buy quality pots. Go to the manufactures and speck them yourself . This is available on the CTS website even .

 

[Piing]

Stepped attenuators. This is the way

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Stepped attenuators. This is the way

View attachment 23132
View attachment 23134

Thats cutting costs purely to line the fatcats pockets. THIS is what they should go for:

 

[GuitarBilly74]

I didn’t say chassis mounted is superior design, I referred to the notion of just because Friedman does it he reason is quality rather than lowering parts and Labor costs.

These 2 things are not mutual exclusive though. You absolutely can use a PCB to lower costs AND maintain high quality if you design the PCB well and populate it with high quality components.

Bogner has been using these pots on Flagship amps like the XTC and it's not an issue at all.

Conversely, you can also have something like this:

That's a $500 plexi clone from China. A handwired piece of shit loaded with the cheapest possible components.


Guaranteed that the Bogner is a better amp AND more expensive to make.

 

[Eagle]

These 2 things are not mutual exclusive though. You absolutely can use a PCB to lower costs AND maintain high quality if you design the PCB well and populate it with high quality components.

Bogner has been using these pots on Flagship amps like the XTC and it's not an issue at all.

Conversely, you can also have something like this:

That's a $500 plexi clone from China. A handwired piece of shit loaded with the cheapest possible components.


Guaranteed that the Bogner is a better amp AND more expensive to make.

And why exactly are those shit components and all the Chinese components in the Bogner better?

 

[GuitarBilly74]

And why exactly are those shit components and all the Chinese components in the Bogner better?

ok then

 

[Eagle]

ok then

I'm joking

 

[spawnofthesith]

Seemed out of character

 

[Eagle]

But we do need objective evidence and analysis . Amps may be the sum of their parts but cherry picking individual components and testing them is situ to see how they sound on an amp by amp basis was the MO of Dumble only . Plus the ability and experience to know what to change to get the sound in your head. Just getting tight tolerance parts still leaves plenty of scope for considerable cumulative impact. Plus remember practically all electronics components are mass produced in China. That just leaves pcb and build .

 

[Eagle]

A CTS 450 series 9% tolerance 250k pot is the same regardless of what you found it in.