Balance pot issues

[LeftyJ]

I own two Status S2 Classics, one older model with the Board 300 preamp and Hyperactive soapbars and one newer model with the Board 303 preamp and unlabelled soapbar pickups (current spec). My old one with the Board 300 has an issue where the pickups soloed sound really bright and open (and loud!), but when I blend both pickups they sound muffled, dark and only half as loud. The newer one with the Board 303 (a newer and improved version of the same preamp circuit) does not have this issue. I've had both for a couple of years now and it has always bothered me, but I could never find a solution except for always keeping the pan pot off-center. 

 

I'm thinking there must be some impedance issue causing this, or maybe a wrong spec panpot where the center indent is not both pickups at 100% but actually both pickups with the volume cut to 50%. Or could it be the classic case of lefty basses with the pots wired backwards? 

 

Does this issue sound familiar to other Status players who have the Board 300 in their bass, and does anyone have any clue on how to resolve this? 

 

What seems weird to me is that the bass uses a 200kOhm pot, whereas other basses with active pickups I've owned always had 25k pots. 

 

The pot is PCB-mounted, so I can't easily try another one and see what it does. It's the bottom right one, and the print on the board says "200k log / 200k rev log". 

 

Edited January 2, 2022 by LeftyJ

[itu]

Well, one detail is good to understand here and now: the signal from the pickups goes first to the balance pot. This is very common.

 

In other words, the high impedance signal from the pickups is blended before the opamps (or: the active / lo-Z circuitry), and therefore the balance pot has to be high impedance.

 

You want to try something made for this, try either of the Bourns MN pots. They have the tracks continuing to the centre point only.

 

In case you want to make the preamp a true mixer, you need to add an active blend, like Noll Mixpot before the Status circuitry. I did this to my former Modulus Graphite Quantum. The bartolinis started a new life.

[LeftyJ]

Thx! 

 

I posted my question to a Dutch forum as well, and someone asked for a picture of the Board 303 for comparison. I thought I'd post it here as well, so here it is:

 

 

Most notable differences to me are the trimpot for the preamp gain, and the common ground for both pickups rather than soldering them to separate ground tabs. Could the latter be of influence? 

[itu]

I don't think, that the ground tabs are making any significant difference. My guess is like I already wrote about Bourns. They are great value and available. If you want to invest slightly more, Mixpot is not so friendly to solder, but works well.