Anyone with experience breaking in capacitors out of circuit?

[tomchr]

As a discerning audiophile, I tap with a very ornate and expensive ivory fountain pen(impregnated with eagle's blood).

But, but.... Is it a CRYOGENICALLY treated fountain pen? Makes a difference, you know.

~Tom

 

[M Gregg]

In general, you can't distinguish between different caps in a very good amp as the amp performance will not be set by the caps but by the feedback resistors. I think he may be saying that the sort of people who worry too much about caps (beyond normal engineering issues such as known non-linearities) would not wish to listen to a very good amp anyway.

This is very interesting,

I have thought alot about your comments! I think you may be correct!

I guess that when you buy a record deck you would listen to the sound of the tone arm and cartridge, or when buying a CD player you would listen to it demonstrated first, tuner etc etc. You would not just look at the spec (You would as a first thought). However the choice would be the presentation of the music. I believe you would choose in the same way.

If a system measured excellent and it sounded cold and sterile would you buy it and put up with the sound because it measured well, or would you change components so it measured well but sounded good to you?

I think you have a point about listening to our prefered distortion. All systems have it! So are we using the component audio signature like tone controls for sonic performance? Taking into account speakers source cables etc.

The bottom line is if a recording of a bird singing sounds closer to a bird in real world with tone shaping then is it better or worse, because the system should sound as close to real life sound as possible. If a perfect system cannot do this it is flawed.

Just a thought,

The room that the music is playing in is full of non linear sound so without feedback from the room the circuit is linear to itself not presentation of sound!

Regards
M. Gregg

 

[tomchr]

The room that the music is playing in is full of non linear sound so without feedback from the room the circuit is linear to itself not presentation of sound!

Bingo!! The room has a BIG impact on the perceived sound quality. I measured the response of my speakers with the speakers about 85 cm out from the wall (measured from the front of the speaker to the wall). The measured response had some rather deep (15~20 dB) notches around 400 Hz, 800 Hz, etc.
I flipped my furniture around so the speakers are now closer to the center of the room and the distance from the speakers to the nearest wall is about 180 cm. The notches at 400, 800, etc. Hz are now gone and the total variation in the frequency response is less (was 10 dB, is now 5 dB AFAIR). It sounds cleaner too...

Room interaction and psychoacoustics... Fun stuff.

~Tom