I have use all 3 Mundorf caps you you initially mentioned. I checked them out in a 3 way system with an Eton 3/4 silk dome tweeter. I tested them in place of the tweeter series cap (sole one). M-Cap Supreme was the best. The silver / gold were pleasurable but lacking snap. To some they may sound alluring with added stuff like space, sweetness, analysis. But the most real was M-Cap Supreme. Nice one since its the least expensive.
I do agree with the members that say put your money into drivers and be sure of excellent filter design. First things first.
But if all is well done, yes a great cap opens up a speaker unmistakably.
I do agree with the members that say put your money into drivers and be sure of excellent filter design. First things first.
But if all is well done, yes a great cap opens up a speaker unmistakably.
don`t forget the audyn cap+,the are realy good en less expensive than the mundorf supreme`s.
http://www.audyn.com/pdf/condensator.pdf
http://www.audyn.com/pdf/condensator.pdf
tktran said:
I figure that when even cost-no-object commercial speakers use Solen caps then Solen caps are good enough for me. However if I'm building a crossover that will actually be seen by other people than myself I still stick with Solen, but I sprinkle a few fist-sized, 1000-volt 0.047µF units in the circuit as attention grabbers. If I have no use for a 0.047µF cap in my design I simply install it in some esoteric compensation parallel circuit that has absolutely no effect on the audible frequency range, at least not for humans.
Mundorf Caps
Howdy gang, I am new at thsi forum but was tempted to answer tis one old thread. so here it goes.
If you are the type of person that sustains that interconnect cables have no effect on sound or even that power cords have no effect on how a component sounds then you will probably sustain the same about a capacitos as well, it's only logical.
Let me tell you, I am an engineer specialized in Audio design, yes have designed a couple of small studios and more than a few night club sound stage, dance floor sound and a few theaters and amphitheaters in my time didn't make much moeny but i have it under my belt mostly overseas in Latin America.
Now I work as a sales engineer for my own company and promote CATV and MMDs wireless digital services, video, internet etc. so as you see music doesn not pay the bills for me. but I have turned Audiophile and my years of trial and investigation have thought me a few things, most commercialy available speakers sound good or decent to majority of people so that's what they give you, only a few companies really strive to give you that extra spatial cue, or extra ounce of detail, etc. those of course are made by smaller companies by people who love and passion for music and the reproduction threof means a whole lot.
For those people, we need to divie on 2 distinct groups, 1 self dilluting snake oil salesman vodoo magic sound better because I say so (kind 'a guy) and teh otehr group, a sincere bunch of struggling to achieve meticulously demanding people who really love what tghey do beyond the call of duty, there we have the Nelson Pass, the David Belles, the John Curls of these world who have clearly made it but also the other unknown bunch and the list is really . . . really long.
To give you a clear example the Meadowlarks speakrs now out of business (unfortunately) teh Spicas of the 1970's also extinct, just to name a couple.
Going back to the capacitors, the claim to fame of some manufatcurers of real high end audio equipment, Threshold, Audio Research, Etc. have founded their equipment bases around the sound of a particular character, set of qualities that were more rounded and perfected by their clear choices of capacitors.
Yes I realize that Dynaudio evidently finds their speakers better served by an inexpensive capacitor, that is a decicion that a designer needs to make when they bring a product into production and final design adjustments, mind you these people don't know if you're going to listen to their design speakers with a 600 watt FPB Krell or a monster Mark Levinson No. 33 or if you're sinmply will listen with a 2A3 tube based amplifier single ended with 2 watts per channel, evidently by making the speaker with an efficiency rating of 87dB/Watt/Meter and making teh speaker at 4 ohms (hello!! it's really reading 84 dB then!!) completely rules out the use of a low power triode tube, but when you have a speaker that operated in the 94dB to 99dB W/Meter and then you know you'll hear everything that amplifier puts out, and you'll only hear the first watt of that amp (most likely) you try to make it as transparent and faithful and musical as you possibly can, then your choice of caps becomes critical it could go from harsh to silky smooth and back with the rigt or wrong coice of capacitors.
Everything depends on your snese of hearing and personal tastes.
SO my friend if you can't hear the difference between a Radio Shack $5 interconnect and a $2,000 Kimber KS2130 just to name something good and pricey; then you will be perfectly happy with a $0.35 capacitor that sounds good to you, but then thet defeats the purpose of making your own gear too right?I don't know . . .
I guess you invest a little money, alittle time get results you're happy with and that's what life is all about.
Enjoy the hobby keep posting the good stuff.
Thanks for participating.
Howdy gang, I am new at thsi forum but was tempted to answer tis one old thread. so here it goes.
If you are the type of person that sustains that interconnect cables have no effect on sound or even that power cords have no effect on how a component sounds then you will probably sustain the same about a capacitos as well, it's only logical.
Let me tell you, I am an engineer specialized in Audio design, yes have designed a couple of small studios and more than a few night club sound stage, dance floor sound and a few theaters and amphitheaters in my time didn't make much moeny but i have it under my belt mostly overseas in Latin America.
Now I work as a sales engineer for my own company and promote CATV and MMDs wireless digital services, video, internet etc. so as you see music doesn not pay the bills for me. but I have turned Audiophile and my years of trial and investigation have thought me a few things, most commercialy available speakers sound good or decent to majority of people so that's what they give you, only a few companies really strive to give you that extra spatial cue, or extra ounce of detail, etc. those of course are made by smaller companies by people who love and passion for music and the reproduction threof means a whole lot.
For those people, we need to divie on 2 distinct groups, 1 self dilluting snake oil salesman vodoo magic sound better because I say so (kind 'a guy) and teh otehr group, a sincere bunch of struggling to achieve meticulously demanding people who really love what tghey do beyond the call of duty, there we have the Nelson Pass, the David Belles, the John Curls of these world who have clearly made it but also the other unknown bunch and the list is really . . . really long.
To give you a clear example the Meadowlarks speakrs now out of business (unfortunately) teh Spicas of the 1970's also extinct, just to name a couple.
Going back to the capacitors, the claim to fame of some manufatcurers of real high end audio equipment, Threshold, Audio Research, Etc. have founded their equipment bases around the sound of a particular character, set of qualities that were more rounded and perfected by their clear choices of capacitors.
Yes I realize that Dynaudio evidently finds their speakers better served by an inexpensive capacitor, that is a decicion that a designer needs to make when they bring a product into production and final design adjustments, mind you these people don't know if you're going to listen to their design speakers with a 600 watt FPB Krell or a monster Mark Levinson No. 33 or if you're sinmply will listen with a 2A3 tube based amplifier single ended with 2 watts per channel, evidently by making the speaker with an efficiency rating of 87dB/Watt/Meter and making teh speaker at 4 ohms (hello!! it's really reading 84 dB then!!) completely rules out the use of a low power triode tube, but when you have a speaker that operated in the 94dB to 99dB W/Meter and then you know you'll hear everything that amplifier puts out, and you'll only hear the first watt of that amp (most likely) you try to make it as transparent and faithful and musical as you possibly can, then your choice of caps becomes critical it could go from harsh to silky smooth and back with the rigt or wrong coice of capacitors.
Everything depends on your snese of hearing and personal tastes.
SO my friend if you can't hear the difference between a Radio Shack $5 interconnect and a $2,000 Kimber KS2130 just to name something good and pricey; then you will be perfectly happy with a $0.35 capacitor that sounds good to you, but then thet defeats the purpose of making your own gear too right?I don't know . . .
I guess you invest a little money, alittle time get results you're happy with and that's what life is all about.
Enjoy the hobby keep posting the good stuff.
Thanks for participating.
OK OK I got some results to share
OK Gang my buddy wheezer (tinkerer tube gear mod guru extraordinaire), and I have tried, invested time and effort not to mention some $$ as well to get some capacitors in the coupling stage of an Audible Illusions preamp (L-2 heavily modified by wheezer), first round was Mundorf Audiophile M Cap (WHite body red letters) value was established to be 2.2µV to match input impedance on amplifier, so Mundorf Audiophile Cap sounded very euphoric,a all types of music sounded better than real, supernatural i shold say expect the botom octave very shy and the uppermost top end kinda harsh at times depending on material.
Then came some russian K75 caps, they absolutely sucked in my system though wheezer likes its attributes in his system, in mine they felt like a chore listenning them and burning in for hours of "openng up befor ecritical listening" after two weeks or so. . still sucked!! big time!! ao, no K75's for me here, period!.
then came a super blend of cap made by RTI ElEctronics's Dan Babineau (Mr Running Springs Audio), he manufatcures Caps for a few of the high priced guys. . . he just wouldn't name names, but he was nice enough to donate a pair fo his favorite flavor of 2.2µV for the project, I must confess they were extremely detailed and very very fast sounding caps, nothing wrong with them I would put tem in my top 3 must audition in your system. they did everything right and in teh right proportion no easy task for a Cap, indeed.
Now comes the Mundor SIlver/Gold/Oil Capacitor Ohh Child!! hang on to your hat, here is one ineteresting ride, since they tale opver 200 Hours to fully "open up" we went through different stages, finally settled into a very transparent, very detailed, extremely well balanced (no soptlighting of either female voices of a particular instrument here), it seemed to do everything right, a wonderul Cap indeed not as euphoric sounding in this system as the M-Cap Audiophile but then again completely uncolored and a cap that gets completekly out of the way and lets only music through, very similar to teh sound of the RTI cap but with more of the good things, better defined bass tighter deeper, and more pristine top end with oodles of air and detail up on top.
Silky highs, very well controlled bass, nos as euphoric as the otehr Mundorf (which might serve a lesser system by emphasizing some sections of the audio spectrum.
Defintely the cake was taken by the RTI and the Mundorf Silver/Gold/Oil.
Accoridng to the factory, the new type Silver/Gold/Oils has all of the nice features of the Silver/Oil adn none of the hardness of the SIlver/Gold, a perfect balanced combination, if a little to pricey of a product nevertheless a worthwile contender when going fopr a direct upgrade, invest in good components that's all we can do.
Hope this helps a bit.
Bets regards;
Gonzalo
OK Gang my buddy wheezer (tinkerer tube gear mod guru extraordinaire), and I have tried, invested time and effort not to mention some $$ as well to get some capacitors in the coupling stage of an Audible Illusions preamp (L-2 heavily modified by wheezer), first round was Mundorf Audiophile M Cap (WHite body red letters) value was established to be 2.2µV to match input impedance on amplifier, so Mundorf Audiophile Cap sounded very euphoric,a all types of music sounded better than real, supernatural i shold say expect the botom octave very shy and the uppermost top end kinda harsh at times depending on material.
Then came some russian K75 caps, they absolutely sucked in my system though wheezer likes its attributes in his system, in mine they felt like a chore listenning them and burning in for hours of "openng up befor ecritical listening" after two weeks or so. . still sucked!! big time!! ao, no K75's for me here, period!.
then came a super blend of cap made by RTI ElEctronics's Dan Babineau (Mr Running Springs Audio), he manufatcures Caps for a few of the high priced guys. . . he just wouldn't name names, but he was nice enough to donate a pair fo his favorite flavor of 2.2µV for the project, I must confess they were extremely detailed and very very fast sounding caps, nothing wrong with them I would put tem in my top 3 must audition in your system. they did everything right and in teh right proportion no easy task for a Cap, indeed.
Now comes the Mundor SIlver/Gold/Oil Capacitor Ohh Child!! hang on to your hat, here is one ineteresting ride, since they tale opver 200 Hours to fully "open up" we went through different stages, finally settled into a very transparent, very detailed, extremely well balanced (no soptlighting of either female voices of a particular instrument here), it seemed to do everything right, a wonderul Cap indeed not as euphoric sounding in this system as the M-Cap Audiophile but then again completely uncolored and a cap that gets completekly out of the way and lets only music through, very similar to teh sound of the RTI cap but with more of the good things, better defined bass tighter deeper, and more pristine top end with oodles of air and detail up on top.
Silky highs, very well controlled bass, nos as euphoric as the otehr Mundorf (which might serve a lesser system by emphasizing some sections of the audio spectrum.
Defintely the cake was taken by the RTI and the Mundorf Silver/Gold/Oil.
Accoridng to the factory, the new type Silver/Gold/Oils has all of the nice features of the Silver/Oil adn none of the hardness of the SIlver/Gold, a perfect balanced combination, if a little to pricey of a product nevertheless a worthwile contender when going fopr a direct upgrade, invest in good components that's all we can do.
Hope this helps a bit.
Bets regards;
Gonzalo
Willitwork said:
Maybe the industry does indeed use Solen caps, but the industry around Montreal also uses inefficient drivers and huge xovers that suck the very life out of the music. Different conversation though, fellow Montrealer!
Back to the caps, as for me, subjectively speaking and without any measurements, I have found in a 1st order xover concerning the tweeter, Mundorf caps are way superior to Solen.
Just my 2 cents.
WHat type oF mundorfs
Hi Anglo I am using the Mundorf Gold/Silver/Oil in my preamp as coupling cap, 2.2 µF (no inductance becasue of teh double winding, how cool is that!!), what type of Mundorfs did you use for teh crossover? what values and what type of Solen are you replacing?
I also have a crossoverless type speaker only uses Caps to filter out and protect tweeter, while teh woofer is left to opearte full range and naturall roll-of blend with the tweeter.
They are made by PSeaker manufacturer in Australia called Wide Horn technologies WHT for short!.
They are simply fantastic is well a lilttlwe in teh priocey side no speaker I 've hear befoe comes close to transparency in my book not even the JM Labs nor Wilson for over $70 to $130,000
you only need a pair of good watts to drive them since they are 95dB efficient. very nice indeed also very susceptible to the cabels you use.
Thanks;
Gonzalo
Hi Anglo I am using the Mundorf Gold/Silver/Oil in my preamp as coupling cap, 2.2 µF (no inductance becasue of teh double winding, how cool is that!!), what type of Mundorfs did you use for teh crossover? what values and what type of Solen are you replacing?
I also have a crossoverless type speaker only uses Caps to filter out and protect tweeter, while teh woofer is left to opearte full range and naturall roll-of blend with the tweeter.
They are made by PSeaker manufacturer in Australia called Wide Horn technologies WHT for short!.
They are simply fantastic is well a lilttlwe in teh priocey side no speaker I 've hear befoe comes close to transparency in my book not even the JM Labs nor Wilson for over $70 to $130,000
you only need a pair of good watts to drive them since they are 95dB efficient. very nice indeed also very susceptible to the cabels you use.
Thanks;
Gonzalo
Anglo said:
Maybe the industry does indeed use Solen caps, but the industry around Montreal also uses inefficient drivers and huge xovers that suck the very life out of the music. Different conversation though, fellow Montrealer!
You gotta be talking about Totem
What I had it mind were brands like Linn and JMLab, among others. Curiously most Canadian brands don't use Solen caps, or any fancy brand for that matter; they claim it makes no difference whether you use a $100 cap or a 10-cent cap as long as the crossover is high-order and well designed. Not sure that's true but some reviewers have pulled appallingly cheap crossovers from appallingly pricey speakers and not just in Canada, look at B&W.
Nevertheless most of these speakers sound very decent and that's one of the reasons why I'm cautious about using prohibitively costly caps in my crossovers, but I agree that some first-order designs probably can benefit from them.
As an ex-mundorf dealer
my pick : Vanilla M-cap Supreme, need break-in probably only once use the speaker for few hours for a week, sounds unnaturally "hi-fi" at first.
and Mcap Zn (tinfoil) ok for xover only to be used with very low power amp !! using high power amp it sounds shrill. there's 250V version, havent tried their sound.
"break-in" is necessary for some pp cap type/brands....most likely only once if my memory and observation serves right.....just do it for all pp caps, it doesn't hurt.
cheers
my pick : Vanilla M-cap Supreme, need break-in probably only once use the speaker for few hours for a week, sounds unnaturally "hi-fi" at first.
and Mcap Zn (tinfoil) ok for xover only to be used with very low power amp !! using high power amp it sounds shrill. there's 250V version, havent tried their sound.
"break-in" is necessary for some pp cap type/brands....most likely only once if my memory and observation serves right.....just do it for all pp caps, it doesn't hurt.
cheers
With all the talk of Mundorf's I thought i would stop in.
With changes in crossover orders we looked into other capacitors from Solen base with Sonicap added as bypass caps.After sone testing we found the Mundorf M-cap new 250v series to have the best sonic advantage with out spending money on caps of high dollar value in brand.
Using the M-cap capacitor with an addition bypass cap we have tried the M-Cap ZN .1uf ,Mundorf Supreme .1uf , Mundorf Supreme Silver & Oil .1uf , Mundorf Supreme Silver & Gold .1uf plus Mundorf Supreme Silver and Gold oil .1uf to find out with our crossover orders plus ribbon tweeters how they react from one to the next.
Using them out of the box as just bypass capacitors not broken in we found the changes in the presentation of the vocals could be noticed small slight changes to noticable changes.
The we broke in the bypass caps with the capacitors used in the crossover with over 100hrs of time put on them.We did this by putting all the .1uf caps on the same location of the series capacitors in the tweeter crossover.Let them play break in for days non stop.
Last re do the listening tests.Yes been days but with other caps not broken in sitting by to swap in and out we listen for a few minutes to each set then swap out for a same .1uf cap repacment but not broken in.
Personally they all had a change in characteristic after the 100hrs break in.Was this 100 hrs needed not sure but we used this number as a break in time in general for all our tests.
What we found was!
Best bang for the buck.
Mundorf M-cap 250v new caps
Those who want to add most change in presentation for a larger cost
Mundor Supreme
And for those whanting to change yet again
With the above caps you can add in one of the .1uf bypass caps achieving a complete different reaction yet.
Are they better than Solen YES, Solens find them compressed over all.
With changes in crossover orders we looked into other capacitors from Solen base with Sonicap added as bypass caps.After sone testing we found the Mundorf M-cap new 250v series to have the best sonic advantage with out spending money on caps of high dollar value in brand.
Using the M-cap capacitor with an addition bypass cap we have tried the M-Cap ZN .1uf ,Mundorf Supreme .1uf , Mundorf Supreme Silver & Oil .1uf , Mundorf Supreme Silver & Gold .1uf plus Mundorf Supreme Silver and Gold oil .1uf to find out with our crossover orders plus ribbon tweeters how they react from one to the next.
Using them out of the box as just bypass capacitors not broken in we found the changes in the presentation of the vocals could be noticed small slight changes to noticable changes.
The we broke in the bypass caps with the capacitors used in the crossover with over 100hrs of time put on them.We did this by putting all the .1uf caps on the same location of the series capacitors in the tweeter crossover.Let them play break in for days non stop.
Last re do the listening tests.Yes been days but with other caps not broken in sitting by to swap in and out we listen for a few minutes to each set then swap out for a same .1uf cap repacment but not broken in.
Personally they all had a change in characteristic after the 100hrs break in.Was this 100 hrs needed not sure but we used this number as a break in time in general for all our tests.
What we found was!
Best bang for the buck.
Mundorf M-cap 250v new caps
Those who want to add most change in presentation for a larger cost
Mundor Supreme
And for those whanting to change yet again
With the above caps you can add in one of the .1uf bypass caps achieving a complete different reaction yet.
Are they better than Solen YES, Solens find them compressed over all.
There is no substitute for a well designed crossover.
I have right here a speaker with 3 x Hovland Musicaps ($50 a pop) , Goetz Copper Foil Inductors, high quality resistors, bi-wired with fancy solid copper cabling, so good in fact that they were a PITA to crimp to spade lugs.
The other speaker next door uses ordinary ceramic wire wound resistors, probably inductive, ubiquitous Solen caps, junk hookup wire I had lying around, and a single low AWG inductor. I would have skimped on that too, but I needed the low DCR.
You win a lollypop if you can guess which speaker kills the other for downright "close your eyes and you're there" musicality...
I have right here a speaker with 3 x Hovland Musicaps ($50 a pop) , Goetz Copper Foil Inductors, high quality resistors, bi-wired with fancy solid copper cabling, so good in fact that they were a PITA to crimp to spade lugs.
The other speaker next door uses ordinary ceramic wire wound resistors, probably inductive, ubiquitous Solen caps, junk hookup wire I had lying around, and a single low AWG inductor. I would have skimped on that too, but I needed the low DCR.
You win a lollypop if you can guess which speaker kills the other for downright "close your eyes and you're there" musicality...