Wima cap enducation needed

[pburke]

Looks like Mouser now carries Wimas - check here

http://www.mouser.com/catalog/617/450.pdf

and here

http://www.mouser.com/catalog/617/451.pdf


I noticed they have special "snubber caps" that cost quite a lot of money ($17-$27 ea.) - where would I use them?

And could someboyd give me a quick summary what caps type to use where? Is there a "bypassing FAQ" somewhere? Whenever I read stuff in the digital forum my head starts to spin when people talk about bypassing some pins on some IC chip, etc



Peter

[analog_sa]

Avoid Wima. Poor sound for the price.

[pburke]

Originally posted by analog_sa
Avoid Wima. Poor sound for the price.

I don't want to avoid them, mostly because others who seem to know what they are doing are using them.

[analog_sa]

Knowing what you're doing and actually listening with your own ears is not the same in audio

[pburke]

do you have anything more contructive to say?

[SY]

There's a lot of good-sounding gear out there that uses Wima. It's easy to make sweeping pronouncements, tougher to back them up with evidence. analog_sa at least has a sense of humor about these things, so don't be too put off.

In any event, the snubber caps find use mostly in power switching applications. They have a resistor built in. The Wima metallized polypropylenes are excellent all-purpose caps, suitable for coupling and bypassing. For high current use and lowest ESR, go for the foil and film construction rather than metallized.

[analog_sa]

Well, yes. If you want to learn about capacitor sound and bypassing buy a selection of well regarded caps (feel free to include Wimas - you need a base point) and do your own listening in various positions.

Accepting others opinions is assuming they share your listening preferences and perceptions. If you hope to find some hard theory behind this you're just wasting your time - the theory advises towards judicial use of tantalums and ceramics for bypassing.

[pburke]

I just found it a little disappointing that all I got a "avoid wima" and then a "use your ears"

I've gone through alot of caps in my tube preamp and I've generally found that what was recommended to me was better than what was stock. Was it the best? Dunno - nor am I willing to buy 10 brands of caps and do a major test. I'm trying to upgrade a pretty inexpensive CD player and knowing that my (pretty expensive) power amps were recently factory upgraded with a whole set of Wima caps all over the PSU and other areas, I figued I'd take a look at those. And you guessed it - my amps sound a lot better with these bypass caps in there than without.

thanks for the info on the snubber caps - I doubt that's what I need. MKP2 seems to be the general purpose type to try out.

Peter

[pinkmouse]

Wima caps are pretty good, and I especially like the MKPs, (even though some others don't). Another good maker is Evox-Rifa, about the same price and similar quality, but they don't look as cool on a pcb.

[analog_sa]

my (pretty expensive) power amps were recently factory upgraded with a whole set of Wima caps

I can see why you're pised at me, sorry