A variety of Strat questions

[Mnemoflame]

It has to do with voltage drops. Long story short, the lower the pot resistance, the more signal is still pulled to ground even when you've got the volume all the way up. Depending on the pickup's impedance, it can be noticeable. But, there's a point of diminishing returns, where increasing the size of the pot doesn't drop any more signal across it rather than bleed it away. Also at that point, the response curve of the pot may be less than useful.

Usually, the volume controls for single coils are 250K pots, and 'buckers use 500K parts. Be aware that "noiseless" single coils are 'buckers. I can't imagine where a 1 meg pot would be useful. It would work, but it's unlikely you'd be happy with it. Also, volume pots should use log (audio) taper pots, while tone pots can be log or linear. Linear's better for tone, but it's a taste thing.

Yeah, I'd read that human hearing is logarithmic, which was why audio is the better taper for volume.  I'd intended linear for the tone but wasn't sold on the straight 500k/500k setup, given DiMarzio's notion.  Is there any particular advantage to mixing and matching the values?  I gather that there's an overall resistance to consider and it had seemed like the suggestion for a 1meg tone pot was to increase the range of sweep that actually impacts tone?

Short version:  why is a 1 meg pot less than useful?  What does the high pot value actually do (e.g. wider spectrum of resistances)?

 

[Cagey]

With too large of a pot, you lose the "perceived" linearity of its response as well as the range of control. For instance, even if they're both log taper pots on a 'bucker, a 500K pot will seem to be at half volume at half the travel of the thing ("5" on a "0" to "10" scale), while a 1M part won't. The response moves down the range, so that it seems everything happens between "0" and "5" (or less). In other words, it'll behave as if it's a linear pot, so you barely touch it and big changes happen.

 

[line6man]

What would be the advantages/disadvantages of using a 250k volume pot and a 1meg pot per DiMarzio's suggestion?  I don't quite understand how the tone and volume pot values affect sound.

For volumes, the lower the value, the more direct of a resistive load is placed against the signal, which shifts the resonant frequency downward.
For tones, the higher the value, the further removed the capacitor becomes from the circuit when you turn the pot all the way up. A 500k tone is identical to a 250k from 0 to 250k Ohms, however.

I would not use 1M pots unless there were a lot of pots in parallel to keep the total load from being too low, or the pickups had a really high impedance.
If you use pots with a resistance range too high for the signal impedance, the control is not going to work well. Also, people want to believe that a higher impedance load against the signal path will give them a hotter, clearer output, but most pickups are voiced to sound good with a load against them.

 

[Mnemoflame]

So, is there any reason not to go with the typical 500k/500k setup, given the nature of the beast I'm aiming at?  I gather 250k volume and 500k tone would result in a warmer sound?

Also, any particular recommendations for bridge?  The Schaller 475 is nice for being flat and keeping the 720 mod option open but I'm also fond of the solid, simple flavor of the Gotoh 510. Anyone got a favorite Strat bridge?  Opinions are good, particularly since my schedule for this project has moved up to within the next two weeks.