Guess I'm the first one here to test some Ophelia caps.
Got them by chance when I bought some NOS Jensen Caps at Ebay. It turned out that the seller is the owner of Ophelia Caps, Jens Bai. He's a really nice guy, open for all questions and he sold me some demo samples for a good price (0.22uF).
First I did some shoot-out as coupling cap inside a WE91A clone against several Russian caps and the Jensen PIOs. Benchmark here was a silver-mica cap which sounds totally neutral as if there's no amp at all but on the other side it 'lacks' some musicality. The A-series cap was quite close to the neutral side but with much more musicality. It outperformed all Russian caps easily, even the quite good FT3. Bandwidth was also excellent, I didn't miss anything here!
The Jensen caps (copper and silver foil) are far away from being neutral. They add some kind of 'swing' or something else... it's hard to describe. Maybe they add some kind of distortion, some more harmonics to the sound. I really like them inside the 300B amp but I don't want to put them inside a speaker crossover!
Next I put the A-Series inside my crossover for a BMS4590/Jabo combination. It already had three xover versions and several small modifications.
V1 was a standard version with Audyn QS caps (quite bad!). V2 was an improved version with Jantzen Superior Z-caps (quite good!) and V3 a reduced 'russian' xover with just two caps left, one 1uF K75 PIO, one 0.22uF FT3 teflon cap and a couple of resistors.
I also found some K40Y PIOs in my box to test against and to get an idea how the sound could change.
Putting them as 0.22uF improved the sound a bit but changing the 1 uF from K75 to K40Y totally ruined it... very strange!
Using the Ophelia A-series here brought also a noticeable improvement but since this changes only frequencies beyond 10kHz it's hard to get a final statement. So I ordered another A-Series cap (1uF) to have a complete crossover to test.
Here are the results of the 1uF tests against some Russian candidates:
- K40Y-9 PIO: really bad in that position, not sounding good at all...
- K75-10 PIO: quite good, very liquid sound, very musical, enough resolution
- K75-16 PETP: also quite nice, lots of resolution, quite musical, a bit sharp (analytic)
- A-Series: most resolution but still neutral and very musical, a perfect balance!
I don't know how the Dueland sounds but I doubt that they sound four times better...
Got them by chance when I bought some NOS Jensen Caps at Ebay. It turned out that the seller is the owner of Ophelia Caps, Jens Bai. He's a really nice guy, open for all questions and he sold me some demo samples for a good price (0.22uF).
First I did some shoot-out as coupling cap inside a WE91A clone against several Russian caps and the Jensen PIOs. Benchmark here was a silver-mica cap which sounds totally neutral as if there's no amp at all but on the other side it 'lacks' some musicality. The A-series cap was quite close to the neutral side but with much more musicality. It outperformed all Russian caps easily, even the quite good FT3. Bandwidth was also excellent, I didn't miss anything here!
The Jensen caps (copper and silver foil) are far away from being neutral. They add some kind of 'swing' or something else... it's hard to describe. Maybe they add some kind of distortion, some more harmonics to the sound. I really like them inside the 300B amp but I don't want to put them inside a speaker crossover!
Next I put the A-Series inside my crossover for a BMS4590/Jabo combination. It already had three xover versions and several small modifications.
V1 was a standard version with Audyn QS caps (quite bad!). V2 was an improved version with Jantzen Superior Z-caps (quite good!) and V3 a reduced 'russian' xover with just two caps left, one 1uF K75 PIO, one 0.22uF FT3 teflon cap and a couple of resistors.
I also found some K40Y PIOs in my box to test against and to get an idea how the sound could change.
Putting them as 0.22uF improved the sound a bit but changing the 1 uF from K75 to K40Y totally ruined it... very strange!
Using the Ophelia A-series here brought also a noticeable improvement but since this changes only frequencies beyond 10kHz it's hard to get a final statement. So I ordered another A-Series cap (1uF) to have a complete crossover to test.
Here are the results of the 1uF tests against some Russian candidates:
- K40Y-9 PIO: really bad in that position, not sounding good at all...
- K75-10 PIO: quite good, very liquid sound, very musical, enough resolution
- K75-16 PETP: also quite nice, lots of resolution, quite musical, a bit sharp (analytic)
- A-Series: most resolution but still neutral and very musical, a perfect balance!
I don't know how the Dueland sounds but I doubt that they sound four times better...
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Hi all, i order from Jeans some caps for my 1978 klipsch Cornwall loudspeakers. After i get its, I do different trying about crossover and cap. I start with version b of cornwall crossover ( i have two crossover for my loudspeakers and i want one with the "B" version and the other with "B2" version, that is improved version from Klipsch, that they say work better. First of all, because easier, just change two caps, and also because i know that sound and i can compare (version B2 crossover i never heard before), i start with the "B" version and I fix everything not with solder but with electric mammut. I start changing one loudspeaker and let the other one with the old caps (sonicap gen II). For compare them i put the amply in mono and not stereo. First impression, switching one loudspeaker to the other, i ear that with Ophelia cap the volume was a little bit louder. This mean that the caps have less resistance, and this is good. After i feel like the bass, specially, was more deeper and present, and also with much control on the woofer. After i try a cd test with hight and bass frequency. Even bass and higher frequent was stronger and more audibly. Specially in the range of 60, 50 hertz and 12 khertz to 15 hertz. All the musical message was more clear and more lively (my cornwall is for that..live music). At this point i decide to change also the other loudspeaker as i sure with Ophelia cap all is better. Now i have all Ophelia cap with the version b crossover (only changing the 4 and 2 uF caps). Music seems to be more naturally and not confused. Specially when all the instrument play all tighter and at loud volume. After burning time, all is even better. I let the audio sistem go for two days with cd player in reply mode. I try this b version crossover first because i know this type of crossover very well and after i will try with the b2 version. My audio system is alll Accuphase: c 280 pre, p400 amplifier, dp 75v cd player. Anyway, i must say that change the caps worth more than the money i spend. The previous Sonicap Gen2 was not bad, but Ophelia is something very much better. The sound now is more liquid and not confused same before, specially at loud volume. I don't know how Duelund can sound but i think the price of that stuff don't worth the money you spend if with Ophelia you get so nice and good audio result. I will try next the "B2" crossover version, wich i already also buy Ophelia caps and also inductors, and i will post my experience. At the end i agree with Soren Hagel when him say that he not agree with the conclusion of the test of Humble Homemade hifi, as this test is not completely right, on my opinion for the same reason Soren write about. Thanks Jeans for the good job and very hand made good caps. Nicola Italy
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