Why does my 1980 tone pot sound better than my 2000s?

[Jakeboy]

I bought my first vintage Hamer last summer...a 1980 checkerboard Special with vintage BL L-500s installed.

I also own a 2003 Monaco ELM and a Korina Artist HB from 2002. All great guitars that sound killer.

But, the 1980 Special tone knob is useable across the entire range...I mean differences in each little increment whereas not as much in the other two.

Did they use better/different tone caps back then? Or is it the pickups by chance? BLs are different, for sure.

Were the pots different. BTW it is a Hamer vintage pot....500K I am assuming.

Any ideas? Just curious....if I could get the other two to respond like the Special, I'd swap out whatever I had to.

Thanks!

Mark

[gtone]

No expert, but the tone cap values sound like they might be different. Betting there's a .010 in the Special by the way you describe the broad usable range of the tone pot. AFAIK, I thought Hamer typically used the .010 cap values throughout, but they might've waivered from that over the years (that or previous owners swapped 'em out).

[vortexx]

I bought my first vintage Hamer last summer...a 1980 checkerboard Special with vintage BL L-500s installed.

I also own a 2003 Monaco ELM and a Korina Artist HB from 2002. All great guitars that sound killer.

But, the 1980 Special tone knob is useable across the entire range...I mean differences in each little increment whereas not as much in the other two.

Did they use better/different tone caps back then? Or is it the pickups by chance? BLs are different, for sure.

Were the pots different. BTW it is a Hamer vintage pot....500K I am assuming.

Any ideas? Just curious....if I could get the other two to respond like the Special, I'd swap out whatever I had to.

Thanks!

Mark

The caps are probably different and the pots may have been made to higher standards in the 80's

[gorch]

Pickups, Pot and Cap build a unit.To give you an imagination without technique. On my Newport I swapped the Phat Cats in favor for P94s. The change had an effect on the tone pot.

Since the P94 are lower wound and don't sound as high as the Phat Cats the frequency range of the pickups had changed. With the pickup change the tone pot now reacts in the lower 3rd range as it was controlling full range with the Phat Cats. I would now need to change the cap to better match the frequency range of the P94s.

Possibly, one could help out and explain if a higher cap value would move the frequency range up or down or vice versa. I think it would help Jakeboy perfectly in his issue.

Technically, I am not fully sure, I think we have a low pass filter situation here right?.

[hamerhead]

The newer ones ('90s and up?) have a different taper, if I'm not mistaken.

[kenjones]

When I bought my first Hamer Special in 1981 I noticed that its tone pot set to 10 was much brighter than any other electric I had played with its tone pot set on 10. I quickly figured out that the Special needed to be on about 5 or 6 to match other guitars "brightness". I don't know very much about electronics, but I just always figured that the Hamer tone pot had a larger sweep or perhaps it had a resistor added to change its range.

[zenmindbeginner]

It's clearly the pickups. The BLs have a low inductance which gives them more highs.

The tone pots have more highs to work with and you get a better tone by messing with the tone knob.