I think capacitor dielectrics are as prone to fashion as any other component constituent. Some people (including Audionote apparently) eschew current fashion trends and love polyester.
In his book, Morgan Jones reckons it doesn’t measure all that well as a dielectric (say in comparison to polystyrene, polypropylene and teflon), so it obviously has little merit in capacitors: viz Audionote are taking consumers for a high priced ride; audiophools to the slaughter a la Black Gate; a classic triumph of spin over substance.
As for high prices and fancy cases I have no idea – I haven’t auditioned them. However, if I did, my brain would probably implode trying to reconcile whether my positive (shiny / expensive) or negative (polyester) preconceptions should dominate what I think I hear. I always need a nice simple set of consistent prejudices to achieve an accurate conclusion.
In his book, Morgan Jones reckons it doesn’t measure all that well as a dielectric (say in comparison to polystyrene, polypropylene and teflon), so it obviously has little merit in capacitors: viz Audionote are taking consumers for a high priced ride; audiophools to the slaughter a la Black Gate; a classic triumph of spin over substance.
As for high prices and fancy cases I have no idea – I haven’t auditioned them. However, if I did, my brain would probably implode trying to reconcile whether my positive (shiny / expensive) or negative (polyester) preconceptions should dominate what I think I hear. I always need a nice simple set of consistent prejudices to achieve an accurate conclusion.
About the foil start end - easiest way is just connect 'em up and see if reversing them makes any difference - didn't notice anything with the K73-16 anyway and the POIs don't seem to mind. Strangest thing is the poi's do sound better if you get them hot - I have a pair of those giant green monsters (K75-10, 10uF/250v POI) across the o/p cap on the F3 and they sit directly on the heatsinks (about 50*C+) with flying silver wire and when hot, sound "cleaner and better detail" - wonder if they'll die that much sooner?!
I also got some of the metal can K40Y-9 (1uf?200v MKP) but haven't done much with them at all - and also some small rectangular green plastic K71-7 iuF things that are pretty ordinary sound - cost "bugger all" tho, so ...
The only thing that comes to mind is that they do prefer more volts, rather than less, applied across them and many Xovers don't have big voltages (low power, efficient drivers) and the caps can sometimes seem quite "vague" and lose focus.
In my Xovers (6db, generally about 1 -2 watts) I have them mixed up with some Clarity SA caps, AmpOhms, etc and they seem to hold their own, no problems at fairly low power use.
On thr 2nd Cap of the (R-C-R-C) power supply, a 33,00uF Siemens Sikorel, I have another smaller Siemens cap (found some 680uF axial B41590s and some newer ones called B41684 - seem okay.) in // plus a // 10uF/63v K73-16 - the added the snubber combination of Rifa peg124 220uF + 1.8R series resistor across the lot - reads a ludicrous combination, looks bloody spagetti mess but sounds rather good. The rail voltage on the 2nd cap (known as the power cap is about 48volts - just right for the 63v rooshin' cap
And yes, the K73-16 are here to stay! Best "bang for buck" out there.
Sorry for the delayed reply - my 2cents
I also got some of the metal can K40Y-9 (1uf?200v MKP) but haven't done much with them at all - and also some small rectangular green plastic K71-7 iuF things that are pretty ordinary sound - cost "bugger all" tho, so ...
The only thing that comes to mind is that they do prefer more volts, rather than less, applied across them and many Xovers don't have big voltages (low power, efficient drivers) and the caps can sometimes seem quite "vague" and lose focus.
In my Xovers (6db, generally about 1 -2 watts) I have them mixed up with some Clarity SA caps, AmpOhms, etc and they seem to hold their own, no problems at fairly low power use.
On thr 2nd Cap of the (R-C-R-C) power supply, a 33,00uF Siemens Sikorel, I have another smaller Siemens cap (found some 680uF axial B41590s and some newer ones called B41684 - seem okay.) in // plus a // 10uF/63v K73-16 - the added the snubber combination of Rifa peg124 220uF + 1.8R series resistor across the lot - reads a ludicrous combination, looks bloody spagetti mess but sounds rather good. The rail voltage on the 2nd cap (known as the power cap is about 48volts - just right for the 63v rooshin' cap
And yes, the K73-16 are here to stay! Best "bang for buck" out there.
Sorry for the delayed reply - my 2cents
I am a recent convert to these caps. I got the 10uf. What I hear is not what I expected due to all the previous stuff I've read regarding polyester caps. These are really frickin' good. They are as least as good as my Jantzen Superior Z. Kind of like a cross between them and a PIO. But better. I am soooo glad I gave this a try. They are also in my gear for good...
tune to taste
I sometimes become confused with the camps that say polyester doesn't sound good because of specification wise, it's not as good as PP,PS, Teflon ETC. Then some of them say you should use you ears to tell the difference between the better PP,PS Teflon ETC, and the Polyester types. What if you like the sound of polyester types better? Back off boys! What you like is what its about. If you are a PP,PS Teflon type, enjoy.
I have two caps in the signal path of my system. Yes, I can hear the differences in tubes, caps, critical resistors, interconnect cables etc........ I just re-installed the Polyester/foil caps in between driver/output position(265vdc across it) in the tube monos. The other cap is a Mundorf SIO(output of cd player). I have used PIO, PP, MKP, mmk and philips 5% PIO, even Staubo MF-Kondensator. Poly/foils give the smooth mid while leaving the high there for my system. I don't know the technical reason(EE by profession) and I explain it away by SYNERGY of the components. The others just didn't give me the sound that I wanted. Forget the Specification scene. Use what does it for you.
I sometimes become confused with the camps that say polyester doesn't sound good because of specification wise, it's not as good as PP,PS, Teflon ETC. Then some of them say you should use you ears to tell the difference between the better PP,PS Teflon ETC, and the Polyester types. What if you like the sound of polyester types better? Back off boys! What you like is what its about. If you are a PP,PS Teflon type, enjoy.
I have two caps in the signal path of my system. Yes, I can hear the differences in tubes, caps, critical resistors, interconnect cables etc........ I just re-installed the Polyester/foil caps in between driver/output position(265vdc across it) in the tube monos. The other cap is a Mundorf SIO(output of cd player). I have used PIO, PP, MKP, mmk and philips 5% PIO, even Staubo MF-Kondensator. Poly/foils give the smooth mid while leaving the high there for my system. I don't know the technical reason(EE by profession) and I explain it away by SYNERGY of the components. The others just didn't give me the sound that I wanted. Forget the Specification scene. Use what does it for you.
I have Siemens PETP and they rocks. Not top end caps, but very good good for blending with softer, less open sounded caps.
They are really analytic and balanced, but a little edgy at higher signal power.
For all of my system, tweeters and tube caps, also for all anti oscillation caps in tube DAC and tube amp, i use add on Vishay 1837 anti oscillation mkps s to make tweeters and tubes even more sonically open with more pace. Others similar MKP caps, like Epcos, cant compete with those.
More about those little wonders, here.
Humble Homemade Hifi
In a way Siemens PETP are like one my favorites, Janzen Superiors, which i like for their evenness and great depth, but the most sonically similar ones to them, generally speaking, are Mundorf Supreme.
But i was surprised when i added to Superiors Russian K42-2 PIO, the smoothest cap i ever heard.
Mundorf Silver in oil cant compete with charm of this mixture. I used 50-50 and 75%-25%, both were, you wouldn't, believe, ok.
Superiors really needs only a day or two to burn in, K-42-2 needs much more.
So, i assume that PETP and K42-2 mixture could result in a kind of audio "marriage made in heaven" just for few cents.
After that i read this about similarity of top end of K42-2 and Superiors.
The Grounded Grid preamplifier
Yes.
They are similar in smoothness, evenness(in evenness Superior is a champion) and speed, but, K-42 adds huge "oilers" charm to very musical Superiors, which are not "oilers", but they are double coil very stiff winded high tech MKPs.
Depth of stage and even depth of instruments of both caps is just tremendous, precision and articulation is totally lay down, niiiice, but not ever lacking a "bite" where is recorded so and speed of both and clarity is fantastic.
Try Russian "oilers" in power supplies, for that they were made.
I putted them in my DIY PSU for Squeezebox Classic instead of WIMAs 10 and it was a kind of revelation.
I m talking of 100% difference.
I read in the past some online debates about Russian PETPs and some Russian guy said that he likes them more than "oilers".
So, for my next project, KEF B300 woofers combined with dipole bending wave transformers and dipole ribbon horns, i will try them both, for blending.
They are really analytic and balanced, but a little edgy at higher signal power.
For all of my system, tweeters and tube caps, also for all anti oscillation caps in tube DAC and tube amp, i use add on Vishay 1837 anti oscillation mkps s to make tweeters and tubes even more sonically open with more pace. Others similar MKP caps, like Epcos, cant compete with those.
More about those little wonders, here.
Humble Homemade Hifi
In a way Siemens PETP are like one my favorites, Janzen Superiors, which i like for their evenness and great depth, but the most sonically similar ones to them, generally speaking, are Mundorf Supreme.
But i was surprised when i added to Superiors Russian K42-2 PIO, the smoothest cap i ever heard.
Mundorf Silver in oil cant compete with charm of this mixture. I used 50-50 and 75%-25%, both were, you wouldn't, believe, ok.
Superiors really needs only a day or two to burn in, K-42-2 needs much more.
So, i assume that PETP and K42-2 mixture could result in a kind of audio "marriage made in heaven" just for few cents.
After that i read this about similarity of top end of K42-2 and Superiors.
The Grounded Grid preamplifier
Yes.
They are similar in smoothness, evenness(in evenness Superior is a champion) and speed, but, K-42 adds huge "oilers" charm to very musical Superiors, which are not "oilers", but they are double coil very stiff winded high tech MKPs.
Depth of stage and even depth of instruments of both caps is just tremendous, precision and articulation is totally lay down, niiiice, but not ever lacking a "bite" where is recorded so and speed of both and clarity is fantastic.
Try Russian "oilers" in power supplies, for that they were made.
I putted them in my DIY PSU for Squeezebox Classic instead of WIMAs 10 and it was a kind of revelation.
I m talking of 100% difference.
I read in the past some online debates about Russian PETPs and some Russian guy said that he likes them more than "oilers".
So, for my next project, KEF B300 woofers combined with dipole bending wave transformers and dipole ribbon horns, i will try them both, for blending.
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I just replaced the tantium 10uf caps in the output stage of a Valab DAC luxury edition.
After reading this thread I had to have a crack at these PETP's. It's not pretty sight as they hang out of the DAC like serious pyles. However, it made a considerable difference to the overall sound quality. Very happy. Thank you for the tip audiojoy. Spewing I bought 4 mundorf silver in oil's before I knew about these caps.
After reading this thread I had to have a crack at these PETP's. It's not pretty sight as they hang out of the DAC like serious pyles. However, it made a considerable difference to the overall sound quality. Very happy. Thank you for the tip audiojoy. Spewing I bought 4 mundorf silver in oil's before I knew about these caps.
petp for high quality sound?, i wouldnt listen to them with your ears. i've only ever used them to any effect in switching power supply sections as they are cheap, i will never use them in signal path again, i found thev to be awfully gaussian in the upper mids and reading the beginning of the thread where you rated these highly, but BG was placed above polypropelene film and metal foil and teflon film and foil types sealed the deal, i wont try these ones either.
Sorry PETP film will never get a place in my setup. This is really low end.
I will not use any MKP either.
It's not low end. You have not tried these particular caps. This thread is regarding specific petp caps on Ebay, so your post isn't helpful. No one is talking about MKP either.
Given the cost comes down to just a few dollars per cap for 10uf for instance, it's not nearly as big a risk as the cost for 10uf in Teflon, Paper-in-oil, Copper Foil, etc. I read plenty of complaints about $xxx Teflon caps that are too bright, or too detailed, too plastic-y, too long to burn in... THAT is throwing your money away.
I'd like to thank Audiojoy for the scoop on these capacitors - dirt cheap and far better than many more expensive caps I've heard IMHO (Jensen, Black Gate, Cerafine, Silmic, Jupiter etc etc). Ordinarily PETP caps haven't got a reputation for sounding great, and I wouldn't consider them for signal path use. However there's exceptions to every rule and these would appear to be it - buy some now before the prices go up! Extremely neutral sounding - I really can find nothing to complain about; no obvious sound signature at all really. Get's out of the way and lets whatever preceds it to determine the audio quality... just what you want from a signal path cap really! Perhaps the variety of cap (i.e. polypropylene, polystyrene, polyster etc) is actually less important than the construction quality... these K73-16 appear to be very well made indeed.
Whatever the reasons (and I'm grasping at straws to find a reason), ignore these at your peril - they have absolutely NO business sounding this good, particularly at these giveaway prices. Well worth a try folks! (what's to lose?)
Whatever the reasons (and I'm grasping at straws to find a reason), ignore these at your peril - they have absolutely NO business sounding this good, particularly at these giveaway prices. Well worth a try folks! (what's to lose?)
What do you call it when you revive an old thread?
So is this true, I've been reading the whole thread without mention of bass quality, and then somebody askes and that's it thread over!
So is this true, I've been reading the whole thread without mention of bass quality, and then somebody askes and that's it
thread over!- Status
- Not open for further replies.