I can't agree more.
After replacing bipolars in my loadspeakers crossovers with PP counterparts I've heard improvements but tonal balance was impaired.
I've asked on the costruirehifi italian forum about it and, initially, I've had skeptic answers (it's skeptic oriented forum..
).Then I've demonstrated with some calculations and help from forumers that, particularly in parallel to drivers, replacing a NP with a PP cap could lead to 1-2 dB difference in frequency response...
To re-balance my speakers, and retain the performance improvement, I've had to compensate for the ESR and impedance difference with series resistors.
This leads to the possibility that some subjective evaluations on replacing NP with PP caps can be influenced by the ESR and impedance difference.
BTW back to Tony Gee caps page... I consider it a really useful resource, particularly for finding new caps to evaluate, but his results are not to be considered universal, I've often found that my results were different.
As always with subjective evaluation a grain of salt must be used...and you must try for yourself.
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No grain of salt will be allowed for Mr Tony Gee and his followers, salt grains are carefully used and distributed by vetted club members, Plebs outside of the nebulous will have to tow the line and follow rules pertaining to scientific discovery as outlined by the one's ....
This post confirms you have learned that guessing is not any good.I can't agree more.
After replacing bipolars in my loadspeakers crossovers with PP counterparts I've heard improvements but tonal balance was impaired.
I've asked on the costruirehifi italian forum about it and, initially, I've had skeptic answers (it's skeptic oriented forum..
Then I've demonstrated with some calculations and help from forumers that, particularly in parallel to drivers, replacing a NP with a PP cap could lead to 1-2 dB difference in frequency response...
To re-balance my speakers, and retain the performance improvement, I've had to compensate for the ESR and impedance difference with series resistors.
This leads to the possibility that some subjective evaluations on replacing NP with PP caps can be influenced by the ESR and impedance difference.
BTW back to Tony Gee caps page... I consider it a really useful resource, particularly for finding new caps to evaluate, but his results are not to be considered universal, I've often found that my results were different.
As always with subjective evaluation a grain of salt must be used...and you must try for yourself.
Some science has now been included to help explain what you are hearing.
Well done on making that important change.
Now that you have, at least in part, found that science can explain, you can use it to guide the next steps.
As I said a few times in the past, guessing at components changes is not a sensible way to modify for improved performance.
Agree Andrew guessing is not science, but for a moment i thought we were going to take this deeper and explain how capacitor esr is different from resistor , what about ESR with parallel multiple caps vs one, capacitor Esr vs Freq, especially with lytics and how the ESR changes with age...
What about electrode skin effect ..?
What about Proximity effect of PP vs lytic ..?
Are we only hearing ESR when upgrading ...?
Solid wire vs stranded ..?
ESR METER anyone ..
I do prefer to measure vs freq, checking xover TF is also desirable ....
Brings us to another weird suggestion , break in time when comparing , OMG ...
What about electrode skin effect ..?
What about Proximity effect of PP vs lytic ..?
Are we only hearing ESR when upgrading ...?
Solid wire vs stranded ..?
ESR METER anyone ..
I do prefer to measure vs freq, checking xover TF is also desirable ....
Brings us to another weird suggestion , break in time when comparing , OMG ...
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Thanks Andrew,
I've learned that particular lesson in 2009... I fear that from your point of view I've still to learn a lot... since I still believe in parts upgrading, preferred direction and so on
BTW I'm always been a science supporter, which is different from supporting a dogmatic interpretation of science.
Reviving an old thread here, but just to share my experiences FWIW...
I made the jump from the "low rent" Jantzen capacitors (the blue and black ones), to Claritycaps SA, and unless these have some sort of magical break-in period, things are not sounding as I expected them to...
True, all traces of harshness are gone, but the sound got so dark, so devoid of detail, transparency, spaciousness, transients got so slow that... that I'm starting to wonder if this is what hifi is supposed to sound, and all the ethereal effects that I was previously hearing were the "wrong" qualities to enjoy in music...
After 8 hours of continuous play, things marginally improved, but it is still kind of unbearable!
Just my two cents...
I made the jump from the "low rent" Jantzen capacitors (the blue and black ones), to Claritycaps SA, and unless these have some sort of magical break-in period, things are not sounding as I expected them to...
True, all traces of harshness are gone, but the sound got so dark, so devoid of detail, transparency, spaciousness, transients got so slow that... that I'm starting to wonder if this is what hifi is supposed to sound, and all the ethereal effects that I was previously hearing were the "wrong" qualities to enjoy in music...
After 8 hours of continuous play, things marginally improved, but it is still kind of unbearable!
Just my two cents...
Now we know when it comes to passive components we are limited to three elementry characteristics in circuit design, that is inductance,capacitance and resistance.
As all circuit design involves these three elements, each to a greater or lesser value, but with the combiation of all these three there can form a resonant circuit that may peak at a frquency outside the normal range of human hearing. Now that inaudible resonance may also produce a rise in harmonic distortion at frequencies well below its resonance and audible to the listener.
Of course differing values of capacitance due to tolerance differences would likely give different results when comparing different capacitors of the same standard value.
Play that effect into the differences in personal hearing from day to day and we have the vagaries of personal preferance arising, as well between individuals.
While I believe there is very little difference in sound quality between all quality designed audio capacitors of equal measured capacitance, the variation in driver design and quality control is more likely to effect the end result than the minor differences in audio capacitor manufacture.
Short of a redesign, improving one's drivers if one can, particularly the midrange will give the better return for one's money.
C.M
As all circuit design involves these three elements, each to a greater or lesser value, but with the combiation of all these three there can form a resonant circuit that may peak at a frquency outside the normal range of human hearing. Now that inaudible resonance may also produce a rise in harmonic distortion at frequencies well below its resonance and audible to the listener.
Of course differing values of capacitance due to tolerance differences would likely give different results when comparing different capacitors of the same standard value.
Play that effect into the differences in personal hearing from day to day and we have the vagaries of personal preferance arising, as well between individuals.
While I believe there is very little difference in sound quality between all quality designed audio capacitors of equal measured capacitance, the variation in driver design and quality control is more likely to effect the end result than the minor differences in audio capacitor manufacture.
Short of a redesign, improving one's drivers if one can, particularly the midrange will give the better return for one's money.
C.M
My now vague memories of Clarity Cap SA was of a closed in top end as you describe. They will not change from that characteristic from my experience.
I think they melded well with my speakers at the time as they were single drivers with a sharp rising top end, so the SA mated well.
If you want more openness and liquidity try Mundorf silver oil...not too bad on the hip pocket.
Have fun!
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I think they melded well with my speakers at the time as they were single drivers with a sharp rising top end, so the SA mated well.
If you want more openness and liquidity try Mundorf silver oil...not too bad on the hip pocket.
Have fun!
ad
I agree with most of the comments in the last page.
Replacing parallel bi-polars can be much more dangerous to a crossover than series caps. Especially nasty since they can affect the response in a different crossover section, so hard for most to find. The low ESR in a shunt cap causes the impedance above the Xover point to drop, and most amps to therefore drop the FR at that location. Then DIY'ers try to fix the next section up from the cap that's actually causing hte problem.
Clarity SA caps are dark.
Mundorf IS more open, but some can add a sheen, or scintillation to the top end that is just not natural to my ears at all. For this reason I tend to stick with the Mundorf MKPs if I use Mundorf at all.
Still, B&W and Magico swear by them all.
Best,
E
Replacing parallel bi-polars can be much more dangerous to a crossover than series caps. Especially nasty since they can affect the response in a different crossover section, so hard for most to find. The low ESR in a shunt cap causes the impedance above the Xover point to drop, and most amps to therefore drop the FR at that location. Then DIY'ers try to fix the next section up from the cap that's actually causing hte problem.
Clarity SA caps are dark.
Mundorf IS more open, but some can add a sheen, or scintillation to the top end that is just not natural to my ears at all. For this reason I tend to stick with the Mundorf MKPs if I use Mundorf at all.
Still, B&W and Magico swear by them all.
Best,
E
Many years ago l tried the Clarity SA caps
At the time my impression was they were an improvement over polyester caps and non polarised electrolytes
To the uninitiated user the highs are recessed which tends to make the mids the focus
Great for metal domes
I then tried bypassing Auricaps 0.01
This bought back the overall balance and makes a very good value capacitor
The Mundorf are very transparent but can be too live in some systems
The Auricaps are neutral but not the last word in transparency
The Hovlands are a great overall caps
They excel in delivering purity of tone and detail against a low noise floor
Their winding seem to contribute less chatter or noise than other capacitors
At the time my impression was they were an improvement over polyester caps and non polarised electrolytes
To the uninitiated user the highs are recessed which tends to make the mids the focus
Great for metal domes
I then tried bypassing Auricaps 0.01
This bought back the overall balance and makes a very good value capacitor
The Mundorf are very transparent but can be too live in some systems
The Auricaps are neutral but not the last word in transparency
The Hovlands are a great overall caps
They excel in delivering purity of tone and detail against a low noise floor
Their winding seem to contribute less chatter or noise than other capacitors
does it care when you have a serie cap + resistor in shunt position ? I mean : you can putt a MKP instead of an electrolytic bipolar but it will see always the resistor in front of it !
I saw T. Gravsen now likes to use premium parts for the // parts of the filter : good MKP and MOX resistor. Is it so ufellul or just a brand marketing ?
Btw : with filter aging and electrolytuc caps : there is an ESR loss after some years (> 10 years ?), but is there also a loss in the capacitance value ? ( a reason for some to cross the bridge towards more expensive caps in their speaker filter ?)
I saw T. Gravsen now likes to use premium parts for the // parts of the filter : good MKP and MOX resistor. Is it so ufellul or just a brand marketing ?
Btw : with filter aging and electrolytuc caps : there is an ESR loss after some years (> 10 years ?), but is there also a loss in the capacitance value ? ( a reason for some to cross the bridge towards more expensive caps in their speaker filter ?)
So the Claritycaps are kind of dark... Should have explored this forum before buying the capacitors.
I haven't measured anything yet, but I'm hoping the tolerance values on the caps aren't wreaking havoc on the crossover. That would mean fine tuning again, which is not good fun when I just want to enjoy my music and relax.
These Claritycaps would work great with speakers plagued by a rising response, maybe I should put these on hold...
But it's not all bad news though. I was enjoying my speakers with the Jantzen caps, but always felt like there was an obvious difference in tonality between the woofer and the tweeter, they were somewhat bright. I messed around with the woofer to try and bring it more in line with the tweeter without success, but switching to these darker capacitors made the sound much more homogeneous, and yes, the mid range got more intelligible, so it solved my main gripe with the project.
But the ribbon tweeter isn't liking the Claritycaps... it's lacking in "air" big time.
I have some 0.01uf Vishays to try as bypass caps, maybe it will work out ok.
I haven't measured anything yet, but I'm hoping the tolerance values on the caps aren't wreaking havoc on the crossover. That would mean fine tuning again, which is not good fun when I just want to enjoy my music and relax.
These Claritycaps would work great with speakers plagued by a rising response, maybe I should put these on hold...
But it's not all bad news though. I was enjoying my speakers with the Jantzen caps, but always felt like there was an obvious difference in tonality between the woofer and the tweeter, they were somewhat bright. I messed around with the woofer to try and bring it more in line with the tweeter without success, but switching to these darker capacitors made the sound much more homogeneous, and yes, the mid range got more intelligible, so it solved my main gripe with the project.
But the ribbon tweeter isn't liking the Claritycaps... it's lacking in "air" big time.
I have some 0.01uf Vishays to try as bypass caps, maybe it will work out ok.
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