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I've got a couple of Brian's PCBs on the way, the Mysterioso and Neutrino. I'm also going to build a Ross-type compressor; being a rabid hater of noise in audio circuits, I've been researching components with low noise floors, and it's led to some questions.

First, just to confirm...metal film resistors seem to be a common suggestion for those looking to reduce the noise floor thru component selection. 1/4 watt seems to be the standard recommendation, all reasonable and sensible. How much larger are the 1 watt resistors, and would they not reduce thermal noise?

Second, I've always heard good things about Vishay capacitors, their and their effect on guitar audio circuits. But, they're spendy, and some folks say they're irrelevant outside of the signal path. There's no good reason to just use Vishays throughout? Any good reason NOT to, outside of price?

Third, thermal noise being one of those issues that can only be defeated with blunt force/size...wouldn't 24mm pots be quieter than 16mm pots, all else being equal? I have plenty of room in my enclosures to use the larger pots, any good reason not to?

Thanks for takin the time!

Just wanted to introduce myself, my name is Lefty Phillips. I'm a working blues musician, just finishing up a months-long effort to gear up for electric after playing acoustic gigs for the past few years. Most of my adventure is documented over at Mylespaul.com under the same nickname.

In the past 6 months I've done alot of things I never imagined doing, like repairing and modding my vintage Deluxe Reverb, engineering a 4-coil humbucker, and building a TS clone, the GGG ITS8; at this point, my rig is functional, and I've been in rehearsals for the past few weeks, but I'd like to get things set up just right to my liking, so at least couple more pedal builds are in the works: The Mysterioso Jr., and a Neutrino to interact with my ITS8.

I'll be posting both builds here on Brian's forums for yall's entertainment, and asking alot of fundamental questions along the way; over 20 years of building, repairing, and modifying vintage jeeps has left me with plenty of fabrication skills, but I still can't read a schematic! I also like to think outside the box, which tends to make for some unusual ideas. Looking forward to lotsa fun here, and much respect to Brian for doing what he does!