Revitalising a 1979 Gibson "The SG"

[Simon Barden]

Thanks, Simon. Sounds likes it's worth a try to change the pots. I have to wonder why Gibson chose to use the lower resistance pots on this model. Was it purely a cost cutting measure? If so, how much could they possibly saved by this?

I have no idea. As you say, there's no cost reason to do so. Maybe it was a Les Paul influence to give the guitars a warmer jazzier sound, or maybe their buyer messed up and bought a whole load of the wrong pots they couldn't return so felt compelled to use them. I don't know what the T-top bridge pickup sounded like, but web reports seemed to indicate that it was quite thin sounding (just found one sound clip and it does sound thin and bright) so maybe the pots were selected to give it a bit more bass than 500k pots would do. All I know is that the neck T-top sounded really nice with 500k pots.