Choosing the value of an audio pot
simulate this circuit &ndash; Schematic created using CircuitLab

Figure 1. A potentiometer between a pre-amp and a power amplifier.


A lower pot resistance will load the output of the previous stage. When DC blocking capacitors are used the combination of the capacitor and pot (C1 - R1) forms a high-pass filter. In most cases the higher the pot resistance the better as the cutoff frequency will fall. (Cut off frequency = \$ \frac {1}{2 \pi \cdot R C} \$.
On the input to the next stage a lower source resistance is better as it will better drive the next high-pass filter formed by the input DC blocking capacitor and input impedance. Note also that R2 in parallel with R1 loads the audio taper somewhat so as R1 increases I would expect the taper to be somewhat skewed. This would only be significant if trying to make a linear fade-in or fade-out while doing DJ at your workplace.


In the end the designer makes a trade-off and 10k is a reasonable value.

I would be surprised if you can hear any difference other than, perhaps, a slight bass roll-off.