"Multilayer" capacitors?

[Lisandro_P]

The other day i went shopping for parts for my amp.... the JLH uses a 470nF cap in the input, but i want to extend the low end a bit, so i decided to go for 1uF. Now, when i asked the guy for "something to get 1uF non-polarized", he gave me these 1uF caps... 2x2x1mm .

So, i asked them "wow! those are small... you know what kind of caps are these?" and he said "um, 'new' ones... some kind of multilayer technology or something". I measured two of these and readed .891uF each, which is impressive given their size. Voltage ratings are unknown, all that's written on them is the tiny '105'.

Any info on these? Will they perform correctly?

[richt]

no no no !!!

try good quality caps!!

try www.thepartsconnection.com
for hi quality coupling caps.

do not intall that ceramic thing call capacitor (it makes the sound
harshy & mid rangy !!!

richt

[Lisandro_P]

Originally posted by richt
do not intall that ceramic thing call capacitor (it makes the sound
harshy & mid rangy !!!

This was my fear... i was expecting to zip a pair of caps in parallel, but i'm astonished on how someone crammed 1uF in such a small size.

[subwo1]

Mylar is a possible choice.

[richt]

hi

also try polyprpylene or polystyrene type caps.
some folks prefeer paper in oil caps ( i never tried out)
but im not interested to try it!

thanks

you can make a jumper with i k resistor (on tube case but !!!
if some dc offset appears tube or transistor will not like & get angry !) that is called dc coupled.

richt

[Lisandro_P]

I don't feel this is a ceramic cap... ceramic caps have this "grainy" outside, this one's smooth. Anyway, it's small I'll try it and if it's any good, with .9uF i've more bass than i really need.

[Samuel Jayaraj]

Lisandro,

What you are referring to must be these very smooth, hard and glossy looking capacitors. They come in blue colour generally and have very high voltage ratings, in the order of kVs. These are ceramic types that are epoxy resin coated. However, I have not seen these in 1uF range.

If your capacitor is thin and flat, perhaps, blue or beige in colour, they are multi-layer and are of the plasic variety. They sound very good. I use 1uF and 2.2uF, both 5mm pitch, regularly for input decoupling. They are just as good as any plain or metalised polyester, polycarbonate, polypropylene types. I have compared the former with the latter types from WIMA, Matsushita, EVOX, Thomson etc., and the sound does not degrade. There might be more exotic ones from Solen or others that might be better, but......

So just go ahead and try them out.

[Lisandro_P]

This one's yellow, if that helps So it's a plastic one, that's good. I'll let you know how it performs; it's right at the input so if it degrades the signal it should be very apparent.

Food for thought: i did some maths, and if you could mantain the capacitance per volume of this little thing, 10000uF could be fitted in about 3/5 the size of a regular "can" cap... and that's not polarized... dunno about the voltage rating through...

[_Wim_]

Hi all



These are indeed ceramic capacitors. Aperentely there are now two sorts of ceramic capacitors, but I have forgotten the names.

The ones Samuel Jayaraj mentiones (the bleu ones) are Sebatits caps (or something quite alike). They are better then "normal" cermaic disc caps, but I would recommend to use them only as a decoupling cap for digital gear.

For analog I would follow the recommendation of Samuel, where my personell favorite is the polystyrene. But that one will be difficult to find in the 1 µF range (and expensive if you find it).


Forget about "audiophile approved parts", they are way to expensive. Buy quality industrial parts for the same price, and you will be far far better of.


A very interesting site on the subject :

http://www.capacitors.com/pickcap/pickcap.htm



Hope this helps


Greetz


Wim

[diyman]

Hi,

I suggest you check the RS or Farnell catalogs. The metallised 5 mm pitch polyesters "small rectangular grey boxes"by Rifa Evox are good and so are the open ended stack foil polyesters(ugly as hell but sound wonderful!) by Siemens. They come in values up to 10uf! Hope this helps.

ckt