I usually try to point out the good stuff about the products I buy, but I just seem to be getting the short end of the stick with my Allparts CTS potentiometers.
This is the second time I’ve bought Allparts volume pots. The first one was cooked due to my limited soldering skills... Silly me.
But one thing hasn’t changed: in both of my orders, the pots were scratchy. Turning them felt unpleasant, definitely not what you’d expect from a product costing over 9 euros. Rotating them back and forth didn’t really solve the issue either. If anything, it just made the scratchiness a bit quieter, that’s it.
Another issue worth mentioning is how easily they turn. I expected the pots to have some noticeable resistance, but they rotate smoothly, like butter... Even without the knobs attached.
On the positive side, the electrical resistance is quite accurate. The first pot measured around 503 kOhms (very precise!), and the second came in at 514 kOhms.
To conclude, perhaps it's just me who got unlucky with the product batch, but considering it's the second time I face the aforementioned problems (and the timespan between the two orders was 3 months), I'm convinced it's the lack of proper QC that's causing the drama.
Overall, it’s a decent product, it just didn’t fully meet my expectations.