Is it just highe end? (cable differnces)

[potatofarmer]

Sorry if that was over the top, I just thought Stan's tone was unnecessarily harsh. Daz wanted to know if there were other criteria besides capacitance for picking a guitar cable, everyone said "no, not really" and it devolved from there.

For the record, I wouldn't wager any portion of my income to mock someone just for asking a question. If they insisted on the tonal properties of wooden volume knobs, okay, that's worth $10 I guess. I tend toward hyperbole and I don't always get it across successfully. Which is why you've never heard my songs on the radio. :P

I'm sure Daz's cover of "Hey Joe" is great, or at least far better than mine, and while gear/technical fetishization can detract from time spent practicing, discouraging people from doing what they love is the wrong approach. While only 88% of us will become rock stars, the other 12% have different goals besides commercial success.

[The Dude]

True only when the volume control is dialed up full. As you dial it down you put one "leg" of the the pot's resistance in series with the pickup from the POV of the wiper/output jack/cable. Its path to ground is thru the pickup so add the pickup's Z to that R. Consider the pot set at its electric halfway point, 250K to ground at the grounded end 250K + Zpu at the other. At this point Zpu going to be negligible compared to 250k, at DC & low frequencies, so your resulting source is a pinch over 125K. At high frequencies the L component of Zpu is going to rise - a lot - with the pot set the same, now the resistance to ground thru the pot takes over, check at a high enough frequency & you'll be darn close to 250K



In case I had a brain fart, tried it myself: just measured my Guild Polara - has 250K pots. With one pickup selected I measure Rmax 68K with the vc at 7. Fits the model for resistance.



A whole winter's worth here plus dust bunnies by the shovel full. Not all of it is in my head. Where's Hazel when you need her?



With a couple henrys in a pickup coil, again looking at it from the pot wiper/output jack/cable the impedance on the pickup leg will rise with frequency, eventually the pot's leg to ground will dominate the calculation, and source Z will approach 250K with a 500K pot set at the halfway point.

All the more reason to have a buffer in or near the guitar if you want to preserve whatever hi frequency content you have. All hail Rick Turner's one-FET Strato-blaster. Spin Europe 72 one more time and enjoy the results.

Just had one of those "DUH!" moments! Thanks to both Leo and pdf64 for waking my a$$ up. Apparently, you were right Leo- there are some cobwebs. I'm going to have to fire my brain cleaner.
Yes, because of part of the pot being in series with the pickup when volume control is at some midway point, the resistance does actually go higher than the pickup value. My bad for stating otherwise and I take full responsibility for my temporary insanity. I am going to be deleting/editing my previous posts only for the sake of not misleading other readers- not for my own ego. As I said, I take full responsibility for my mistakes.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Just had one of those "DUH!" moments! Thanks to both Leo and pdf64 for waking my a$$ up. Apparently, you were right Leo- there are some cobwebs. I'm going to have to fire my brain cleaner.
Yes, because of part of the pot being in series with the pickup when volume control is at some midway point, the resistance does actually go higher than the pickup value. My bad for stating otherwise and I take full responsibility for my temporary insanity. I am going to be deleting/editing my previous posts only for the sake of not misleading other readers- not for my own ego. As I said, I take full responsibility for my mistakes.

YAY! I knew you'd have a breakthrough. Not to worry I've had lots of those duh moments & expect I'll have some more, that's how we learn. (put smiley thing here wearing college grad mortarboard hat)