I've built a preamp (DCG3) and currently have a 20k Alps blue fitted - as recommended.

My usable travel on the pot is around 1/4 - 1/3 of full rotation. Measuring the pot gives 18.4k ohm when fully closed in the 7 o'clock position to 17.8k ohm at the 10 o'clock position and that's getting pretty darn loud.
Gain is set as 2X and can't be set any lower on the DCG3 although Salas has suggested using a voltage divider on the output to get more travel on the pot.

The Alps Blue was always just going to be a stop gap for evaluation purposes and the end goal was to use a stepped attenuator. Can any of you guys who have used a Khozmo tell me how many usable steps that would be the equivalent to when using a 25k ohm Khozmo or is it too few to be worthwhile? I'm loathed to buy a Khozmo and find out I've only got about 15 usable steps out of 48!