Yep, these are certainly 5 ohm pots, which was pretty much the standard fare for Infinities of this time. I guess Arnie and Christie managed a great deal on a bulk buy of them. :scratch2:
I had mine all pulled apart for cleaning and these must be pulled apart and manually cleaned as even DeoxIt can't help the center contact (some silverish metal that has a hard, black non-conductive oxide) for the wiper not too long ago. I ended up cleaning up and reassembling 5 (3 from one Quantum 2 and two from a pair of RSbs) and measured them after cleaning, all swiped from just above 0 ohms to 5 ohms on the mark. The two contacts on the side will measure the resistive element directly at 5 ohms and the difference between 5 ohms and the reading at the center contact with the shaft turned all the way to the right, just short if the bump (hitting the rivet holding the element in place) will tell you how corroded everything is.
To answer the other comment, the flat setting for these is actually right in the middle of this impedance, so jumpering is not an option unless having the highs 2-3dB higher than flat is to one's tastes.
The pots themselves are a simple affair. While the back of the housing is ceramic, it acts only as an insulator to the resistive element. That element is just a loose spiral of resistive wire arranged in an arc inside the housing that a wiper contacts on one end with the other going about a pizza cutter of a central contact. Nothing fancy, but I suspect it all is a bit inductive, which was likely taken into consideration by Infinity since they made such excellently designed crossovers and subsequently may cause a change in sound with replacement. All in all, unless the wire is broken (no conductivity at all between the outer contacts), these are super easy to clean and rebuild to last. They've lasted 30 years thus far and should last just as long after a cleaning, these aren't whimpy l-pads. If there is a bit of scratch afterwards despite doing more than just spraying some contact cleaner in there, then maybe a product like Caig's Pro-Gold will do the job?
- JP
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Doh! This was a paleo-thread. Well, Jim, most likely you can clean those pots up just fine and get your Quantums going again without the need for replacing them. Just mosey on over to
this post where I describe how to do it. It's really quite simple as these pots are incredibly easy to take apart and reassemble, which is more than can be said for most.
