Bourns Model 95 Premium Guitar Potentiometer, 500K Audio, Knurled Split Shaft

I purchased 4 of these Bourns 95's to replace the stock Gibson pots in my ES 359. Although the guitar was brand new I just did not like the taper on the neck pickup volume conrol. The stock pot was rather noisy and the taper was more linear with the last 30% of the volume increase coming at the very end of the shaft movement. The Bourns 95 is a different animal than traditional variable resistors found in most guitars. The casing unit is totally sealed from outside dust, dirt and corrosion which makes it the perfect choice for arch top style guitars that are a royal pain to rewire. It is very likely that they would never need replacing! They also use ceramic elements that make the taper silky smooth, even and consistent. The wiring scheme is a bit different and requires a slight rethink from traditional style pots. The terminals are lined up the same but they are staggered and not in line. You are also not required to solder the ground lug to the body as you do with other pots. All other connections remain the same.Once I had my complete new wiring harness soldered up and tested (with new pickups) I plugged her in and gave her a playing test. The improvement was astounding. The noise and the uneven taper issues were gone. The 95s perform far superior to the original Gibson pots and my volume and tone controls were much easier to adjust. I was able to get a much better "jazz" tone when rolling off the tone pot. I am very pleased with the 95's and will have these in most all of my other guitars in the future.One thing to keep in mind is the length of the threaded shaft. There are variations on these which allow for different thickness' of material that they are to be mounted in. Some guitars like Les Pauls, PRS', etc have a much thicker mounting surface than a Fender and most Arch Top Guitars. Make sure that you verify this before ordering or otherwise your knobs may be too short or protrude way above the surface of your instrument.

The lesson is, spending more money on a fancy pot doesn't mean it works or sounds any better. My guitar tech put this pot in for me, and it was noisier than the cheap import pots I have laying in my spare parts drawer. It also had a sharp drop at the very end of it's clockwise rotation.I was disappointed, considering the fawning reviews of this pot. It's even raved about on guitar forums. Maybe I got a bad one... regardless, they want nine dollars to return it, and I'm not wasting money to get another one. What I could hear through it was no better than the cheap pots I have laying around... and they all still work, in spite of being old and cheap. Lesson learned.

I used these while replacing all the wiring and pickups on my LP copy, installing new pickups.These conductive plastic potentiometers are by far the best available in terms of lowest noise (undetectible) and superb reliability -- other than the other sub-variants of Bourns conductive plastic pots models 95 or 82. Versions of the 95 with lower impedence are also available, and might be very nice when building or servicing amplifiers.These pots are a little unusual to wire compared to traditional metal-bodied pots most guitar luthiers will be used to. Especially re grounding; you must provide external ground connections rather than tying to connector metal body - as there isn't one. So plan this detail before starting to solder things.Bourns provides an app note on proper grounding but does not describe the details of how to do this, so if it is not obvious to you, seek instruction or choose a more traditional type of pot.Also the shafts are short on this version of the model 95, so make sure you can use short shafted pots before buying. You may also want to consider the model 82 that has larger loop-style connectors, making them easier to use for guitar wiring people. The 82 is also sometimes available for ten-ish dollars though not at the time I purchased these.I chose these for performance and price as I could get them for 10/ea rather than 20 or more for the other model variations.

Most products exceed your expectations but this potentiometer is full of noise across the full sweep. Out it goes as it is useless in audio applications.

There are some places where the compact envelope is quite useful. Very smooth operation.

Awesome seller & product! It arrived faster than I expected & packaged very safely.