[HD-5000]

.... No, not the pot you smoke, but the pot for tuning the volume. Is this a good pot?

The pot

I'm talking about the second one right below the Nobles, the "industrial grade 4-turn cermet trim pot". Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[Wodgy]

No, a four-turn pot is not appropriate for use as a volume pot. It turns around four times, which isn't what you expect, also it doesn't appear to have a logarithmic (audio) taper.

The Noble pots at the top of that page would be fine choices, if they were in stock. I don't recommend ordering from Welborne anyway, they're excruciatingly slow and overpriced. I once had them take three and a half weeks to ship me capacitors that were in stock.

For more info, see "Choosing a volume control" on Tangent's site:
http://www.tangentsoft.net/audio/meta42/advice.html
He lists places where they can be ordered as well.

 

[antness]

I've always had great service ordering from Welborne.

Welborne has been out of stock of the Noble pots for a year, so don't wait for them.

Percy Audio carries the Noble pot as well, however I have heard many times that Percy orders take several weeks to receive -- but i don't have any personal experience with Percy.

If you want to spend a lot, I recommend the Alps blue for $29 from Angela.com. Other than that, your choices are kind of limited. The Panasonic potentiometer for about $2.60 is very popular and can be board mounted if you're building a META42. Check it out at Tangent's website.

 

[Voodoochile]

I have not dealt with Welborne myself, but thanks for the tip.

Regarding M. Percy- I had heard he was slow, but the one order I have placed with him came in four days, including the two days for Priority Mail. Not bad at all, but perhaps this is not typical. It was right after Christmas. Considering that, I was impressed.

 

[Wodgy]

I've had better service from Percy than Welborne, but I've only ordered from each a couple of times. Usually the Percy orders come fairly quickly.

 

[tangent]

My impression of Percy is that because he's just one guy, he some times gets bogged down, forgets things, goes on vacation, etc. Now that I'm a one-man parts distributor, too, I can certainly sympathize. Percy's operation has to be a much bigger deal than mine, and I'm not sure the fact that I hold a day job is full compensation for that difference.

You just can't expect DigiKey-like service from us little guys. It won't happen. Sorry. What you get instead is flexibility. Some times too much flexibility, as in "maybe you'll get your order next week, maybe not."

 

[Voodoochile]

Bah.. I have not noticed any difference between you (tangent) and Digikey. Maybe they have a larger inventory, but the customer service is more personalized with Tangentsoft

.

 

[tangent]

It's nice of you to say that, VC, and probably in your case it's true. Most of the time, I ship on time and don't forget parts, so most of my customers have never seen me drop the ball. But I'm hardly perfect, so I sympathize with Percy.

DigiKey, by contrast, has never shipped one of my many orders to them late or got the order contents wrong. The worst I can say about them is that some times they run out of stuff and it takes them too long to get more. I won't even complain about their prices, since the service is commensurrately high.

 

[minya]

I have to say I'm quite disappointed with Welborne's service. Like Wodgy, I ordered some capacitors from them ($61 worth) and .... hmm, I think it's been nearly a month now since I ordered. Nothing. Meanwhile, orders from Digikey, Mouser, AES, and DIYcable (2 orders!) have all arrived post-haste.

- Chris