potentiometers are widely used as user controls, and may control a very wide variety of equipment functions. The widespread use of potentiometers in consumer electronics declined in the 1990s, with rotary incremental encoders, up/down push-buttons, and other digital controls now more common. However they remain in many applications, such as volume controls and as position sensors. Audio control Low-power potentiometers, both slide and rotary, are used to control audio equipment, changing loudness, frequency attenuation, and other characteristics of audio signals. The 'log pot', that is, a potentiometer has a resistance, taper, or, "curve" (or law) of a logarithmic (log) form, is used as the volume control in audio power amplifiers, where it is also called an "audio taper pot", because the amplitude response of the human ear is approximately logarithmic. It ensures that on a volume control marked 0 to 10, for example, a setting of 5 sounds subjectively half as loud as a setting of 10. There is also an anti-log pot or reverse audio taper which is simply the reverse of a logarithmic potentiometer. It is almost always used in a ganged configuration with a logarithmic potentiometer, for instance, in an audio balance control. Potentiometers used in combination with filter networks act as tone controls or equalizers. In audio systems, the word linear, is sometimes applied in a confusing way to describe slide potentiometers because of the straight line nature of the physical sliding motion. The word linear when applied to a potentiometer regardless of being a slide or rotary type, describes a linear relationship of the pot's position versus the measured value of the pot's tap (wiper or electrical output) pin. Television Potentiometers were formerly used to control picture brightness, contrast, and color response. A potentiometer was often used to adjust "vertical hold", which affected the synchronization between the receiver's internal sweep circuit (sometimes a multivibrator) and the received picture signal, along with other things such as audio-video carrier offset, tuning frequency (for push-button sets) and so on. It also helps in frequency modulation of waves. Motion control Potentiometers can be used as position feedback devices in order to create closed-loop control, such as in a servomechanism. This method of motion control is the simplest method of measuring the angle or displacement. Transducers Potentiometers are also very widely used as a part of displacement transducers because of the simplicity of construction and because they can give a