These old Sovtek Mig50s have the somewhat cliched reputation of being "built like a tank." And for the most part, that's true. They are hand built, well laid out, and sound great. But there is a gap in their armor; a weakness that can be exploited by the enemy, and cause your dreams of rock stardom to be brought down in punishing defeat. The control pots are hot garbage. The plastic, color coded potentiometers are cheap, unreliable, and difficult to replace. They are installed poorly and don't match any modern pot as far as size. Maybe they're metric? Maybe they are some alien unit of measure the cosmonauts learned about when they colonized Mars (google it.) Either way, most solutions involve running a bunch of jumper wires for each pot and drilling out the chassis so that they fit. I decided not to go that route, and after some delicate work with a needle nose these 16mm long lead pots fit just right. Now we can enjoy the simple things in life, like turning way, way up.