Brown fender tone stack with tapped pot- experimental results

[octal]

I got curious about the effect of the 350K tapped pot on the brown Fender tone stack, so I did a little test.

I took the standard blackface tone stack and added a 68K resistor from the "bottom" of the treble pot though an .003 uf cap to ground. (This is a pretty accurate simulation of the 350K pot with a tap at 70K...the only difference would be if the treble control was set below the 70K tap--i.e. 8 O'clock or so; very unlikely.)

The results! Using a precision signal generator and an AC millivoltmeter, with the tone controls set at 12:00, there was less than 1dB difference in the curves of the brown vs black tone stacks. I feel pretty comfortable saying that there's no audible difference, at least around the straight up setting. I might try playing around with different tone control settings, but I doubt there's going to be a huge difference at any setting.

FYI,

Nathan

[txstrat]

Hi Nathan,

in the blackface circuit did you use the standard treble 250k pot? Why a .003 cap. Was it try and error? (just for my curiosity)

thanks

Matt

[MWJB]

I've never seen anyone play either a brown or BF treble control set at 12 o'clock.

There's not a "huge" difference, but there is a difference.

[txstrat]

Oh I see, the 6G4 uses a .003 cap. I've only looked at the 6G11 schem up to now where there's a .005 cap. Never mind me asking.

[octal]

I've never seen anyone play either a brown or BF treble control set at 12 o'clock.

There's not a "huge" difference, but there is a difference.

I don't think I ever claimed that there wasn't any difference period, but rather that there's no significant difference around 12:00.

Just out of curiosity, what's your idea of a normal treble pot position on a BF Fender? With a Jensen C12K speaker (as used in the Fender DR reissue) and my oddball Japanese guitar with single coils, 12:00 produces a pretty normal guitar tone- perhaps slightly dull/dark.

With the Jensen C12R, it'd be a bit too bright at noon- but overall, this speaker does not sound good at all with a DR. It's a better combo with amps with less mid scoop built into the tone stack.

I'll qualify my statement by telling you that I'm not a guitarist per se, so maybe I'm way off base here. Also, my DR copy does not have a bright cap, for what that's worth.

Nathan