Elna Silmic II are indeed a fine audio cap. Better than two Nichicon showed here...
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Sorry I don’t agree. The BP has got a very good sound & you miss out KZ. Frankly the above caps all aren’t bad but it really depends on where you use them on. For me I don’t like the sound of Silmic ll cause the trebile isn’t realistic but I found good success in using Silmic ll over other caps as main ps cap for digital stuff on digital side.
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Oddly enough, on a distortion analyzer, the Silmic II has the lowest distortion of any aluminum electrolytic I've measured. No 3rd harmonic can be measured and 2nd harmonic just barely rises about the -160dBc noise floor of the APx-555, and only if you DC bias the tested cap to 22V. With 17V bias or lower, i can't measure 2nd harmonic at all.
By comparison, Panasonic FR at the same drive level (+15dBV into 100Ω into the cap to ground) shows -150dBc 2nd harmonic and -130dBc 3rd harmonic. FM is a few dB better, as is FC. The UCC KZN series is the best performer among the low impedance long life caps I've measured: -155dBc 2nd and -147dBc 3rd.
Sure, these numbers are way way down there, but there are measurable differences, and I'd like to think that these measurements correlate to what we can hear.
The KZN are very good caps, too. They outperform any Panasonic electrolytic, including the FM's.
By the way the FM's tends to go down in value after a while. Not long standing, you need to buy a value above, say 270uF instead of 220uF to have the cap standing longer.
Sorry Karl its inside the machine. Anyway the outer wrap is gloss Black with Gold printing. From what I gather, for domestic Japanese market it seems that some stuff that they have are of even higher quality then export items.
Food for thought, since we discussing cap sound, let me ask you guys why. Im tweaking my SdTrans 384 now. The regs are all super low noise by Acko audio & yet I hear sound differences when I try different main ps caps that supplies power to the FGA. So what does this say, that the regs aren’t as quiet & still letting noise from the PS through & why does the FGA affect the sound ?
Food for thought, since we discussing cap sound, let me ask you guys why. Im tweaking my SdTrans 384 now. The regs are all super low noise by Acko audio & yet I hear sound differences when I try different main ps caps that supplies power to the FGA. So what does this say, that the regs aren’t as quiet & still letting noise from the PS through & why does the FGA affect the sound ?
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