Meron Rigas wrote
The junkie do have parts, R55/5 way and R35/pots. The cheap chinese stuff, but it works. Blackbeard's den have the slightly better regarded alpha stuff (I think it's korean?). Much debate online about CTS vs Alpha vs Chinese brands. Personally I'm not much of a cork sniffer, but my strat does have top end bits and the others get by on Alpha/Chinese bit's. The one thing I have noticed is that the cheaper stuff has a bigger variance in resistance (up to 20%, a 500k pot might be 410k or 560k) and the feel isn't as 'nice' as the CTS ones. I'd expect the CTS ones to last a loooong time & withstand the rigours of sweaty gigs much better than the cheaper ones though.
There may well be other differences, but my ears don't pick them up. I did play test my SX tele (redone with CTS/switchcraft bits w/stock pups) vs a 100% stock SX tele and myself and the other player didn't really hear any difference. BUT...we had on different strings, mine was two years older, etc...plus, my ears are not the most educated, so there might have been something subtle I couldn't hear.
I think I'll springthe extra hundred and go with the Alpha's for now then. Again being uncultured I tend to leave my dials on full and do all the alterations on my amp so wear should be minimal. If they do suck I have another project guitar (a mini fender knock off) I'm eyeing that they can be chucked into when I upgrade to CTS's.
