[ziggyphxaz]

My ra-1 clone just arrived and it makes my 325's sound awesome! However, I need to crank it up to the
3-4 o'clock position to hear a decent volume.

The person that built the clone did an outstanding job but he used a 50k alps pot, it is my understanding that a 100k is recommended for an ra-1?

What difference would a 100k potentiometer make? Thanks in advance for your feedback!

 

[tangent]

Going with a 100K pot won't change the volume level you get out of the amp. (Or at least, it shouldn't.)

Personally, I wouldn't worry about having to turn the volume up that high. It's a good thing. The pot is most linear in the last bit of the turn, and it means your signal-to-noise ratio is nearly at maximum. To get more volume at lower volume settings, you'd raise the gain of the amp, with two consequences:

1. It's not a true RA-1 clone any more, but now a "mutant".

2. You raise the noise floor, and get no real benefit as a result.

Now, if you changed to different phones and the gain was no longer enough, that is a good excuse for changing the gain. Just beware, if your amp builder used the same op-amp as in the RA-1, you have to change at least 4 resistors to change the gain, and often you have to change 6.

 

[ziggyphxaz]

Tangent, thanks a lot for your advice!

Do I understand it right, that a 100k pot wouldn't change the overall max volume but that it is more sensitive at the beginning. (i.e. that a 100k pot delivers the same volume at the 9 o'clock position that i.e. the 50k pot does at 3 o'clock?)

 

[tangent]

If the tapers of your (hypothetical?) 100K and 50K pots are the same, their division factors will be the same at a given rotation position.

The difference between the two pots is the overall resistance they present across the source. A 100K load is easier to drive than a 50K load (less current goes through the pot to ground and more goes to the next stage beyond the pot) but a 100K pot will also pick up more noise than a 50K pot for much the same reason (interference can induce a significant voltage across a higher valued pot easier).