Affordable electrolytics
 

I'm building a preamp and a pair of JLLH class-A amps (high current variant - my Tannoy DC2000s have a really low impedance).

Any thoughts on decent electrolytics for a reasonable price? I'm not yet ready to pay Black Gate etc. prices.

Or to put it another way - any I should definitely avoid?

What does anyone think about using low ESR caps designed for switching power supplies?

I'm talking about general decoupling/coupling/bootstrap applications. I can find room for polypropylene caps below 10uF or so, but I need the odd 470uF cap.

thanks!

I think this would fall into the category of affordable http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/102.pdf (Rubycon ZL)

the ZA series is quite a bit more expensive but even lower ESR
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/101.pdf (Rubycon ZA)

I just bought a bunch of panasonic FC series (and a few rubycon ZA's for values I couldn't get in the panasonic)...... http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/21084.pdf (Panasonic FC)

Haven't used any of these yet, (well have soldered a few in to the mic preamp I'm making but not finnished yet).... most are for replacing in my amp. Not sure If I'll be able to say if they make a difference, as I'm replacing 16+ year old caps which are probably warn out.

I think from what I have read here on the forums, rubycon makes the BG caps.

Tony.

Panasonic FCs are really good. I had a couple of those for a tube headphone amp output coupling and decided to try a couple of those "exotic" caps, Elna Cerafines to be exact.

First my ears, then my scope confirmed it, elnas behaved worse than FCs. So I went back to FCs...

Panasonic FCs? But they're not nearly expensive enough! ;)

cheers, I'll try them.

micro farad dittos
 

I think they sound a lot better than the Elna Cerafines. I really don't like the sound of the Cerafines at all, and can't understand why people use them other than Elna says they were designed specificly for audio. Designer lable yuppie caps maybe? Anybody want to go in on a group buy of Gucci capacitors and Prada resistors? :cool:

Fred, I like the cut of your jib. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on burned-in directional energised-dielectric speaker cables :)

while we're here, Farnell cats open, has anyone any opinions/experience of the Evox Rifa metallised polypropylene caps designed for mains suppression http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/28601.pdf ? again, not nearly expensive enough but available up to 4.7uF

Hi, I know this may not be quite what you are after, but at the moment (if BG micro ever get back to me) I am supposed to be putting in a group order of 68,000uF, 50V caps from america as part of the UK Aleph-X board buy and I should have enough spare caps to let you have a few if you're intrested. I'm not entirely sure of the price yet but they should only be in the region of £4 - £5 depending on the price I finaly get from BG.

Andrew.

did they ever get back to you?

I like ELNA RJH especially in PSU sections and Panasonic FC in signal lines.