The Art Of Tone CTS 500k Potentiometer for Guitar - Custom Short Split Shaft, Audio Taper, 10% Tolerance (4x)

This review is for "The Art of Tone or TAOT CTS Pots 500k Short, Split shaft". I always put what the item is in the headline and review because I've seen reviews for other products that are similar on the wrong product in Amazon repeatedly. If you have prime, the shipping on these are outstandingly fast....received in about a day. I can't praise Amazon enough for this....exceptional! I've read polarizing reviews for these pots. Most love them. Some really hate them. My experience with these is more on the love them side obviously from giving them five stars. They were installed in a 2021 Epiphone Les Paul Custom. In the pics for my review, the left pot is the original CTS pot that came with the guitar. The right pot are these obviously. These TAOT CTS Pots are virtually the same height as the stock CTS pots. I've had repeated issues with the stock pots....especially on the Bridge Volume. I have tried multiple pickups in this guitar since I've owned it. I recently was trying a different pickup and I slightly bent the hot lug on it and as you see in the pics the PCB board the lug was connected to broke. The only reason there's a slight difference in height in the pics is because the Original pot still has Solder on the back of it. I measured all four pots for resistance with my multi-meter. Two of them measured around 480k. One measured 512k and the last measured 518k. No issues with any of the "sweeps" when measured. I can say that the drop-off in volume is quite large when rolling down the Pot at around 6 or 7 knob-wise. All four in this pack came unbroken and in great condition. When I first installed before soldering, I was worried because there was barely any threads showing on the top of the guitar. At first, I thought they were smaller than the original pots. I can confirm they aren't. They fit perfectly in this guitar. I realized afterward that the original pots did not have "lock Washers" installed on top of the pot inside the cavity. This is the reason for the difference but even using the Lock Washers, there were no issues with getting the washer and nut installed on top of the guitar. Soldering to the pots was a breeze. Very easily accepted Solder on all lugs and back of the pots. One of the surprising benefits of using the lock washer was that the original Epiphone knob, when placed on the pot after I was finished soldering, sat more flush with the body than on the originals. I was highly pleased with this. The original pots have no lock washer installed with them, so the knobs sit quite high off of the body with a noticeable gap. If you use the lock washer, they're way more flush. There's still a gap but much smaller. You can see in the pics, the difference in appearance. These are honestly a steal for the price and seem to me to be same quality or better than the original CTS pots. No issues with noises from these TAOT CTS pots at all. They were around $38.00 so that's about $9.00 a pot. There are cheaper but are few and far in between on the web. Most I found on Amazon are more expensive at $12.00 per pot. I had no issues with them falling apart as other reviewers suggest. If I had to guess, they might be novices when soldering and got the part too hot and this may have resulted in the pot falling apart. These are just best guesses though. You only barely need to touch the iron to these pots for tinning and solering. I recommend tinning all lugs and the back of the pots before attaching the wires. To solder the wires to these pots, add a little more solder to your iron and it will cause the solder already on the pot(from tinning) to melt much quicker which means less heat applied to the part. Overall these CTS pots are seemingly great quality and for this price, I would not hesitate to purchase in the future!

Installed with no issues and in perfect working condition. Everything feels smooth and high quality. Just ordered a second set. If you want to put these into an import guitar, be sure to pick up a cheap tapered hand reamer to cleanly widen the holes so that these fit.

Nice quality . I always use CTS .

Good potatoes

Good pots but QC is off. 1 out of 8 pots was a dud. After taking it apart I was able to fix it but that’s why the one star was docked. They tend to separate when pressing on tight fitting knobs but if you hold the bottom of the pot while doing it then squeeze the retention tabs with a pair of needle nose pliers after they’ll be tight again. All that being said, they sound great and have a good positive twist to them. I would recommend for a good sounding budget pot.

I've played and built electric guitars for more than 35 years. These are the only control pots I trust. They last and don't get dirty. Great, solid, smooth sweep and feel. All my guitars have these, and when fixing other people's instruments, this is all I use. I have never had one go bad or get dirty after years of stage use. I've had pickups go bad, switches, but never a CTS control pot. Picture shows the size difference in a "stock pot" (on the right) that came out of and old Kramer guitar that's a 500k pot. The pot on the left is the CTS 500k pot ready for install to replace the stock pot.

They work well and feel good

Absolutely everything about these pots is great.. "But Be Careful" !!! Pushing snug tone knobs on the post , the tone pot metal body casing Bends Very Very Easy and will damage the pot,,,, made this mistake myself and ruined one of the tone pots.. Recommend only using the most minimal pressure you can to press on the tone knobs.. Otherwise they work very well , very smooth , no popping / crackling or dead spots..

The shipping took way to long but the pots at awesome and work very well

Horrible pots falling apart, horrible sweep do not waste your time buying they are poor quality.

I have no complaints with the pots. I just could have built them fast than the shipment!

Don’t waste your time or money on these CTS pots I bought 4 of them and they are all under 500k ,I think they are taking the highest value pots and selling them for more money and selling the lower value pots to people who don’t check the value, the value of the pots that I bought, the highest value was 480 and the lowest was 430, witch is under the 10 percent, I wish I would have read the other articles on these pots I wouldn’t have bought them and to send them back would of cost more more than the pots are worth.