Either I misunderstood, or things seem to have changed a bit since
the original announcement. So there is no problem with the current
pricing and availability of 149 pots??
Perhaps I don't understand the fine art of choosing between cermet
and conductive plastic. For example, the 490 uses cermet for
everything, but the 440 uses conductive plastic for FM and frequency,
and cermet for resonance. They both seem to work perfectly fine.
Regardless, the pots used in MOTM are way better than those by any
other synth manufacturer. For me, longevity and reliability are the
biggest issues.
As far as the audio mixers, the 101 slew, and maybe a few other
places, that use 100K log pots, perhaps the 248 would be a viable
option. I did a bit of googling and it seems that several vendors
stock 248 100K log pots. Sorry, I couldn't find any 148 100K log
pots. Even if the 248 100K log pots have to be "build
to print" it still might be better than having to redo the boards.
So the 248 pots have plastic bushings, but do they work just as
well?? Are they the same on the inside?? I think if you warn people
not to cross-thread or over-tighten the nuts, that should work. It's
not as though the panel needs to be disassembled and re-assembled
with any frequency, or that assembly requires a significant amount of
torque.
On 5/23/07, Paul Schreiber put forth:
>Just to clarify:
>
>a) The MOTM-300 VCO uses ∗no∗ Spectrol 148 pots. There are 5 149 cermet pots,
>and 1 Bourns pot. This pcb would ∗not∗ need a redesign.
>
>b) the MOTM-310 uVCO uses 1ea 148 linear pot in the SHAPE circuit.
>Could I use a
>149 as a replacement? Sure, would prefer not to because the cermet element is
>"grainer" and there is a possibility of some noise when turning.
>
>c) the 100K log pots are used for ∗audio inputs only∗ on the VCFs
>(420/440/480)
>and the mixers.
>
>d) I ∗prefer∗ to use 148 linear pots in some other modules but
>switching back to
>149 cermet is ∗OK∗. In fact, I didn't start using 148 linear pots
>until the '310
>shipped.
>
>e) I reason I stopped using the 248 pots is the plastic bushings/threads were
>easily stripped. But the issue is not 'conductive plastic', the
>issue is ∗log∗.