First you should define which measure and which instruments (with an 8 bit DSO you can hardly see any difference...).
A microphone, a decent sound card and ARTA, nothing else is needed. You then measure the frequency response and distortion. Possibly the impedance of the circuit too if you feel it is necessary.
This is semantics.
Yes exactly, but boutique manufactures are still around and they can hardly be considered decent money makers, yet they are still here. Ergo if those special boutique caps actually did anything special some company out of the audio sector would have homed in on it and would be building similar quality caps for significantly less. But as SY said, it is a lot easier to take a standard cap, relabel it and then sell it off for several times the price as some audiophile magic cap.
Very scientific...
Similar to the approach of people that judjed Galileo...
This coming from someone who was previously informing me that I needed to try out boutique caps subjectively with my ears before I can comment on the validity of other peoples subjective impressions?
You can't praise objectivity and science as a way of trying to argue against me, yet use subjective impressions to sing the virtues of boutique caps yourself.
I didn't overlook anything.
The ESR and dissipation factor basically mean what losses you can expect when using the cap. If these are going to be significant in any way then you can measure them easily, either pre loudspeaker, by measuring the filters transfer function, or post the loudspeaker by measuring its frequency response.
If any particular cap causes a deviation from what was predicted then you either replace the cap as faulty or alter the circuit to correct for the problem.
No they don't, they do not have a very different sound signature. If they did then moving from an active set-up, that has a cap, to one that doesn't, should bring about changes so large that it should seem as if the heavens opened and the ground shook beneath me. This doesn't happen, the difference is tiny at best.
if you can't hear that you're deaf.
Wow that old chestnut. A subjectivist claims an objectivist is deaf, whatever shall I do.
Yes, but not audible!
Sounds kinda complicated. I may actually try this (revised) test circuit.
The idea is if you tap the test cap on the table, you might hear something out of the tweeter.
This is actually not dissimilar to the old idea that if you dunked iron filings in copper sulphate, they get coated in copper. This was accepted for 100 years.
Someone (a teacher, I believe) actually looked at the brown coating and found it was not copper but copper oxide, which kinda threw accepted chemistry into a tailspin.
Attachments
Dang, just typed a long reply then lost it!! Must be the high-ESR caps in my mouse!
Hate when that happens....
I am not so sure that piezoelectric and microphonic effects are insignificant. Try using misc film caps as a speaker. Plenty of them will play audible tones.
Microphony with soft pliable films and imperfectly wrapped caps seems like an unavoidable problem at some level but unknown if it can be heard in a speaker.
There are some good points in Bateman's articles:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf/Cyril_Bateman/Bateman_Notes_Cap_Sound_3.pdf
Capacitor Sound
and Stephie Bench's page
The "Sound" of Capacitors
All of which hint that caps are way more complicated than see if it measures the proper value and that the FR of the filter is correct as predicted.
I am not seeing much that will lead me to abandon my subjective testing in favor of a measurement-based approach.
But right now, to psychologically recover from ths scars of my typing accident, I shall now open a Flying Dog "Raging Bitch" Belgian style IPA 8.3% ABV and fire up the grill!
Hate when that happens....
I am not so sure that piezoelectric and microphonic effects are insignificant. Try using misc film caps as a speaker. Plenty of them will play audible tones.
Microphony with soft pliable films and imperfectly wrapped caps seems like an unavoidable problem at some level but unknown if it can be heard in a speaker.
There are some good points in Bateman's articles:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf/Cyril_Bateman/Bateman_Notes_Cap_Sound_3.pdf
Capacitor Sound
and Stephie Bench's page
The "Sound" of Capacitors
All of which hint that caps are way more complicated than see if it measures the proper value and that the FR of the filter is correct as predicted.
I am not seeing much that will lead me to abandon my subjective testing in favor of a measurement-based approach.
But right now, to psychologically recover from ths scars of my typing accident, I shall now open a Flying Dog "Raging Bitch" Belgian style IPA 8.3% ABV and fire up the grill!
Well, Joe, I'm not going to give those boring links more than a cursory glance. I prefer your own experience.
But if you say that capacitors can act as loudspeakers, and I have heard evidence that they can SQUEAL, then it is not surprising (a FARCRY...) they act as microphones too.
Fer crying out loud, somebody do some actual simple testing. Totally bored with debate, TBH. Like I mentioned, someone can overturn accepted ideas just by doing some simple stuff.
Er, sorry to rant!
But if you say that capacitors can act as loudspeakers, and I have heard evidence that they can SQUEAL, then it is not surprising (a FARCRY...) they act as microphones too.
Fer crying out loud, somebody do some actual simple testing. Totally bored with debate, TBH. Like I mentioned, someone can overturn accepted ideas just by doing some simple stuff.
Er, sorry to rant!
"I am not so sure that piezoelectric and microphonic effects are insignificant. Try using misc film caps as a speaker. Plenty of them will play audible tones.
Microphony with soft pliable films and imperfectly wrapped caps seems like an unavoidable problem at some level but unknown if it can be heard in a speaker."
I suspect that your suspicions are correct! In fact Clarity Cap conducted tests on capacitors showing these effects both via measurement and listening tests.
Before these are dismissed as manufacturer's hype please read the linked article first...
http://www.hificollective.co.uk/pdf/claritycapmr.pdf
Regards,
Rob
Microphony with soft pliable films and imperfectly wrapped caps seems like an unavoidable problem at some level but unknown if it can be heard in a speaker."
I suspect that your suspicions are correct! In fact Clarity Cap conducted tests on capacitors showing these effects both via measurement and listening tests.
Before these are dismissed as manufacturer's hype please read the linked article first...
http://www.hificollective.co.uk/pdf/claritycapmr.pdf
Regards,
Rob
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Robert, I refer you to my previous answer on that dubious Clarity Cap "research". To be taken no more seriously than Tobacco companies using sponsored research proving cigarettes don't cause cancer.
Basically the ClarityCap research was meaningless. Don't waste time on it.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/205836-do-someone-compared-these-mundorf-caps-5.html#post2896940I've put a careful eye over what was actually claimed in the Clarity Cap research, and it's actually inconclusive! I'll tell you why in a minute, but here's a graph from the paper which initially looks exciting.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The AES paper is unavailable to me, but concludes with two SEPARATE conclusions:
Nowhere do I find indication of WHAT was being compared with the more expert listening panel!
All I can find is that listeners were initially asked to compare Electrolytics and some Clarity Cap product. And notes they were almost clueless. Nowhere does it say what the final two capacitors compared were using music familiar to the expert listeners.
This comment helps not one whit, but notice it is described as MODERATE res, not high res, so it's not the "high res" sample.:
Sorry, long post. But no conclusions whatsoever about audible differences between MKPs is made there at all that I can see.
Basically the ClarityCap research was meaningless. Don't waste time on it.
Steve, I must admit to not reading the AES papers, however I had thought that a University research facility and supposedly meaningful listening protocols supported Clarity's assertions. Otherwise Clarity are willfully misrepresenting the research AND dragging the name of Salford University through the mud, one very risky strategy I would have thought.
Still, as you say, industrial research has been misrepresented in the past..
Still, as you say, industrial research has been misrepresented in the past..
It is ironic that untill such time as we have a set of independently validated scientific studies that correlate what we hear with what we measure, any set of objective measurements used to judge the aural performance of a DUT is a subjectively choosen set of data.
dave
The University of East Anglia have been happy to support very dodgy research if it gets them funding, so why wouldn't another?
There's no hope for you...
Yes I can.
Scientific method require an open mind.
An open minded person with scientific attitude would try.
People that judjed Galilelo didn't tried, refused to analyze his calculations because they thought that they already know for sure...just like you did several times.
Forgive me , God of all sciences!
Again, you continue to argue using dogmas. Just like a priest...
Obviously I'm not talking about night and day difference, but it is clearly audible.
Sure...keep your dogmatic version of science...
It's useless, I give up.
Microphonics discussion
Visit PE Tech talk forum for a discussion on Clarity Cap's study.
Capacitor Testing By ClarityCap
Visit PE Tech talk forum for a discussion on Clarity Cap's study.
Capacitor Testing By ClarityCap
I have also experienced (heard) and measured cap microphony. However, my links to data are long gone now, but here is a link to a post which prompted my measurements.
Burning in hi-pass capacitors - Page 10
I agree, it is useless because you don't seem to understand what I am saying and start bringing things up that are completely pointless.
I don't know why you find this funny. A capacitor in a loudspeakers crossover is there to do a specific job. To do this it needs to have the correct value of capacitance and an ESR that is negligible compared to the intrinsic impedances of the circuit. If it isn't doing what you predicted, then you will easily see this doing a frequency response measurement. Or rather if one cap is doing something different to another cap, then this too will show up quite clearly in a FR measurement. You can then run distortion sweeps if you wish, comparing one cap vs another and see if it makes any difference there.
I don't believe in subjective voodoo, so if you want to try saying that it cannot measure what 'sounds' good, then please go away.
No you can't you are missing the point completely.
You're stating that capacitors have their own 'sound'. This by definition means that they all colour the sound in some way. Removing the capacitor should therefore remove this colouration and allow you to hear the music as it should be.
If I go from a system with a capacitor to a system without a capacitor, I am in the best position possible for being able to hear what the capacitor is doing to the sound. As this has never resulted in any kind of revelatory experience I think it's fairly safe to say that whatever the cap might be doing to the sound is tiny at best.
This doesn't require that I am open minded to boutique caps and it doesn't require a willingness to try them out either - I've just gone from a cost effective well built polyprop to the 'best' possible of all capacitors - no capacitor at all - and nothing remarkable happened. If I was going to be sold on the idea of using boutique caps that that would start the ball rolling.
Hey now, you're the one who originally attached the words...
To how capacitors can alter the sound. Now you're saying the exact opposite. You're the one changing your tune all over the place like some priest trying to defend his belief system when it's called into question, not me.
Dear 5th Element,
I'm sincerely sorry for that.
Apology accepted.
I hope we can continue from a mutual respect position.
Indeed, but perhaps not in this thread as enough has already been said I think.
Thanks
Indeed, but perhaps not in this thread as enough has already been said I think.
I do agree
Dario,
Good idea to give up. You will never win any points from close-minded fanatics. You can't expect a productive discussion with anyone who has no respect whatsoever for your position. It's easy to be a cynic: all you have to do is keep repeating "no" loud enough so that you can't hear anything else.
Another thread destroyed, probably more contributors silenced by the unrelenting objectivists. They never tire, they never concede anything. They believe they know more and are therefore superior. The rest of us are ignorant and continuously deluded, with no hope of ever attaining genuine perception or clarity unless we adhere to their principles.
I am baffled by their persistence. They gain nothing other than the inflation of their ego. Everyone else loses. No real knowledge is imparted other than: "You can't tell us your opinion, even when someone asks for it, because someone might believe it. You must prove what you say, but only by our rules using obviously imperfect or impossibly constrained methods. Nothing else is acceptable. Our position is the only correct one because we know it is."
They waste their time (and pages here) proposing complex instruments and tests to obtain data that will prove something (without any certainty that it's germane), yet few will bother to address the original topic with a straightforward answer. Most people have a decent set of testing instruments attached to either side of their head and a sophisticated computer between them for interpreting the data. According to them, the computer's programming is so seriously flawed that, even with overwhelming input, it is incapable of reaching an unbiased conclusion about anything, no matter how carefully one calibrates it. Many won't even attempt using it. Might as well not have one. Absurd!
Now I give up.
Regards,
Tom E
Good idea to give up. You will never win any points from close-minded fanatics. You can't expect a productive discussion with anyone who has no respect whatsoever for your position. It's easy to be a cynic: all you have to do is keep repeating "no" loud enough so that you can't hear anything else.
Another thread destroyed, probably more contributors silenced by the unrelenting objectivists. They never tire, they never concede anything. They believe they know more and are therefore superior. The rest of us are ignorant and continuously deluded, with no hope of ever attaining genuine perception or clarity unless we adhere to their principles.
I am baffled by their persistence. They gain nothing other than the inflation of their ego. Everyone else loses. No real knowledge is imparted other than: "You can't tell us your opinion, even when someone asks for it, because someone might believe it. You must prove what you say, but only by our rules using obviously imperfect or impossibly constrained methods. Nothing else is acceptable. Our position is the only correct one because we know it is."
They waste their time (and pages here) proposing complex instruments and tests to obtain data that will prove something (without any certainty that it's germane), yet few will bother to address the original topic with a straightforward answer. Most people have a decent set of testing instruments attached to either side of their head and a sophisticated computer between them for interpreting the data. According to them, the computer's programming is so seriously flawed that, even with overwhelming input, it is incapable of reaching an unbiased conclusion about anything, no matter how carefully one calibrates it. Many won't even attempt using it. Might as well not have one. Absurd!
Now I give up.
Regards,
Tom E
Ill tell you my opinion.
Ive heard the difference between electrolytics and film caps, but it isnt great, and maybe its more due to the large tolerance in capacitance?
Ive never heard 'boutique' caps, so I dont know; maybe they do sound better? If the margin of difference was similar to that between film and electrolytics then
But simply put; For me, the extra cost is not worth it. Others with more money than me are welcome to buy them, and test the sonic difference.
Ive tried many different 'regular' or 'High voltage' MKT and wound PP types, and never noticed a difference between them, so naturally Im a sceptic.
As it is, I spent some £200 on drivers and around £70 on crossover part and ancillary parts.
If I had a much larger budget, then spending 3 times that or more, would seem a little easier to swallow the cost of silver caps. Expensive caps are better used in a low level / line level crossover, if you ask me. For the money some of the expensive caps are sold for, you could just go active...
Ive heard the difference between electrolytics and film caps, but it isnt great, and maybe its more due to the large tolerance in capacitance?
Ive never heard 'boutique' caps, so I dont know; maybe they do sound better? If the margin of difference was similar to that between film and electrolytics then
But simply put; For me, the extra cost is not worth it. Others with more money than me are welcome to buy them, and test the sonic difference.
Ive tried many different 'regular' or 'High voltage' MKT and wound PP types, and never noticed a difference between them, so naturally Im a sceptic.
As it is, I spent some £200 on drivers and around £70 on crossover part and ancillary parts.
If I had a much larger budget, then spending 3 times that or more, would seem a little easier to swallow the cost of silver caps. Expensive caps are better used in a low level / line level crossover, if you ask me. For the money some of the expensive caps are sold for, you could just go active...
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