Black gate caps = religion = humbug?

[fdegrove]

Hi,

My experience with BG-NX Hi Q is that their sonics are better than MKP and the like.

Fine,I'll take your word for it.

I usually use the MIT RTX polystyrene and find them much better than any other filmcap I ever tried (and I tried quite a lot).
IMHO they come as close to no cap at all and yes they are directive and require some break in period too.

I understand that the BG are a godsend where you need higher values for coupling purposes at lower voltages.

But saying that the BGs are sonically more transparent than the best filmcaps is a bit hard to believe from my experience.

I also frown at people using some old PIO caps (yes some are OK) that are so euphonic in the midband that I wouldn't even call that hi-fi anymore.

Anyone is entitled to their own colourations of course but as JP put it a PIO (unbypassed) is just not my cupper.

Cheers,

[jcarr]

Eric:

>Can you describe the sort of BG colouration that you are speaking of?<

First, please understand that the only way that I use any electrolytics is as power supply capacitors. If you want an opinion on how the Black Gates sound when used as, say, coupling caps, I am not the right person to ask!

Describing the sound of the Black Gates is somewhat tricky, not the least because they sound different according to what you play through them.

Starting from the bottom end, the resolution is fairly good, and the sense of volume is decent. Low-end extension is also decent. There is some extra energy in the upper-bass ~ midrange that adds a sense of richness but pushes the vocal range forward. The top end isn't exactly lacking, but compared to what the Black Gates can do on the bottom end, both the resolution and extension of the top end are wanting. Overall, the Black Gates come across as rather pleasant-sounding, but somewhat soft. Imaging tends to be a little clumped in the center - I don't think that the soundstage width is especially remarkable.

On transient-laden material (like percussion), I find the Black Gates to be rather different and decidedly more problematic. Here the softness gets in the way, and blunts and dulls the attacks that should be there. And despite that the resolution is not bad, it is accompanied by a distinct sense of veiling and a lack of ultimate clarity - a strange combination to say the least. The Black Gates also seem to lower pitches somehow, like the music has been transposed downward a semitone or two.

The Black Gates certainly sound distinctive, and they are undoubtedly capable of delivering a sound that would be difficult to achieve through other means. It is easy to understand why many audiophiles adore the sound of the Black Gates.

>What do you mean by "strong and complex".<

Umm. Strong = hard to ignore, and even harder to get rid of. Complex = schizophrenic.

>Is it possible to measure distortions as low as -174 dB?<

In my experience, most setups will start encountering problems around -160dB (many can't even do that), and the lower you go, the harder it gets.

regards, jonathan carr

[Bobken]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Hi,



Fine,I'll take your word for it.

I usually use the MIT RTX polystyrene and find them much better than any other filmcap I ever tried (and I tried quite a lot).
IMHO they come as close to no cap at all and yes they are directive and require some break in period too.

But saying that the BGs are sonically more transparent than the best filmcaps is a bit hard to believe from my experience.

Cheers,

Hi Frank,

As you may see from my posts in the other two threads on BGs, I also find that the non-polar BGs are the equal of MIT RTXs, when used as a coupling cap, which came as a considerable surprise to me.

There are differences, of course, but I would have difficulty in making the 'sonic' choice between them, as taken as a whole, their good and bad points seem to mainly even out.

Prior to trying BGs, I would also have had great difficulty in believing this, but it is so, and as I also said elsewhere, like you I have found that RTXs are about as revealing and neutral as any (*readily available*, in case Jonathan is reading this!) plastic film cap.

For well over 20 years, I would not have even bothered to try an electrolytic in a signal path (or feedback DC blocking) location as I knew that they all sounded frightful here.

Indeed, also many years ago during a visit to listen to my gear, I convinced John Linsley Hood (the UK designer who was always staunchly objectivist by nature), to get rid of electrolytics in the feedback paths of his designs, when he heard one of mine which had been modified to allow the use of plastic films in this location.

Thereafter, JLH adopted the same approach as me, and gave me an 'unnamed accolade' in some of his later writings, for what it is worth!

It was only as a result of my 'open mind', allied to natural curiosity, that a couple of years or so ago I tried BGs ( having read somewhere about them), and I was very agreeably surprised at what I heard.

However, initially, these trials were only in power supplies and as local 'on card' bypassing of regs etc., and not in any signal paths.

If you can get along with the ridiculous burn-in period, and stomach the excessive cost, I think you would like them, especially if you like RTXs.

Incidentally, the only places I have used BGs as *coupling caps* is in a tuner, and these were only low values (i.e. 0.1uF) and they happen to be cheaper and very much smaller than comparable RTXs, so they were also easier to fit in here.

When I originally fitted the earlier 20 or so RTXs to this tuner, it was a major 'shoehorn job' (even *0.01uf* - 600v RTXs are about 26mm x 11mm) whereas the higher value *0.1uf* BG NX HiQs I used for substitution are only about 7mm x 4mm. I ended up with nearly as many components soldered underneath the boards in this tuner, by the time I had finished all of the mods, as I had on top!

Before anyone 'jumps on the bandwagon', I should point out that at these high frequencies (i.e. RF), a cap orders of magnitude lower (like 0.001uF or less, would have been adequate here), so this did not adversely affect the comparison.

Used as Jelmax's recommended 'Super E' configuration (explained many times in their white papers), which regrettably requires twice the number of caps, certainly gave a further improvement over the NX HiQs, but doubles the already obscene costs!

Why not try some of the small ones and see what you think?

Whilst they can hardly be described as cheap!!!, the smaller values are only two or three UK pounds each, and will hardly break the bank!

Regards,

[fdegrove]

Hello Bob,

Thank you for the time and effort...seems we both have been fighting on the same frontline.

Given a chance I'm certainly willing to give them a serious listen.

Now if only someone could sort out the fault condition situation I would certainly be more convinced .

While I agree that in both the Ceasar circuit and Tomatitos' situation the insulation voltage of the cap was badly chosen I find this still quite worrysome.

Apparently no one answering to that thread seems fully aware of the risk at hand and any answers are vague to say the least.

Naturally I don't expect anyone to recreate the situation just for the fun of it.

Cheers,

[jean-paul]

Frank ,please see the other thread:

Several reports of Black Gates failing

The comment of Jaap that his 300B failed and the BG cap survived it ! I spoke to someone who was sure in one case the 300B shorted and the BG took 400 V DC. It shorted and blew. So that's one case it which it survived and in one case it blew.

Any 100 V electrolytic with 85 V DC on it with an extra ( large ) AC component will fail. If not at startup then after some time. If they take 400 V I am sure they will all short and blow.

Go to a shop , buy 2 pieces rated 160 v and you will very probably never see them fail in your lifetime ( unless the 300B's fail of course ).

Use a fuse in the PS nevertheless because some russian crap 300B's have a tendency of failure. Sometimes they short, sometimes the filaments break. In case they short there is not one single cap that will be happy with the situation.

Apparently no one answering to that thread seems fully aware of the risk at hand and any answers are vague to say the least.

You want answers to a question that one can ask concerning all other caps in that situation. What do you want to hear ?

[fdegrove]

Hi Jean-Paul,

Well,yes.

But it is sounding more and more like confused terminoligy to me.

Regular elco's blow up and you're left with an open circuit.
(Just like a fuse would.)

What you have is a big mess...quite likely an open circuit in the cathode resistor and that's about it.
And you better look at that tube too.
Other than that nothing usually happens.

However if the BG tends to go into full conduction as if they were wired to ground than that's a very dangerous situation.
It wil definitely take the tube and cathode resistor with it and one leading to the other things can start to catch fire.
This is how I have understood what happened on one ocassion.
If this is a one off a kind then fine,if they all tend to do this then I would like to know that.

Hopefully you understand my concern?

Other then that I have no questions about this.

Cheers,

[dorkus]

i agree Black Gates are not completely transparent (what is?) but i disagree that their colorations are gross and unacceptable. but a lot depends on application.

break-in time is key, and yes, the sound does vary somewhat wildly during that period. it swings between thin and hard to warm and fuzzy and everywhere in between, before finally settling down to a fairly neutral sound after several dozen hours of use. break-in times of hundreds of hours are not uncommon in my experience.

i replaced the Elna Cerafine polar coupling caps after a Burr-Brown DAC in my Sony SACD player with a BG-N 10uF/50V, and after the tonal balanced settled down w/some break-in i found the sound very nice. more transparent and dynamic, less fuzziness, although compared to the best films i think BG is not 100% immune ffrom a that slight fuzziness typical of 'lytics. but it is very nice, and it's very compact and easy to use.

i'm assumming we're talking about nonpolar N/NX series of course. when you need large values in a tight space, i really can't think of a better cap. i'm sure MIT polystyrene sounds great but where you going to get a 10uF polystyrene? for that size, i would say a Black Gate N/NX with some DC bias on it sounds better than many polypropylene films.

[jan.didden]

Hi guys,

I have been looking for info on that famous CLT-1 dist measuring testset, capable of measuring to -174dB @ 10kHz.

I found several sites, one even showing a CLT-1 service manual, but all are in Japanes...! (The title was in english, that's why I know it was the service manual. Wise guy. At least it said "servicemanual.pdf").

(dansystem.co.jp, asahi-net, sound-web)
Anybody has info on this thing in arabic characters?

Jan Didden

(No, I haven't listened to BGs yet. I did, however, read a couple of the "Technical Reports" on the partsxpress page. Technical Reports, my foot!)

[Bobken]

Originally posted by janneman
Hi guys,

I have been looking for info on that famous CLT-1 dist measuring testset, capable of measuring to -174dB @ 10kHz.

I found several sites, one even showing a CLT-1 service manual, but all are in Japanes...! (The title was in english, that's why I know it was the service manual. Wise guy. At least it said "servicemanual.pdf").

(dansystem.co.jp, asahi-net, sound-web)
Anybody has info on this thing in arabic characters?

Jan Didden

(No, I haven't listened to BGs yet. I did, however, read a couple of the "Technical Reports" on the partsxpress page. Technical Reports, my foot!)

Hi Jan,

If I may be so bold as to say so, this is another very worthwhile addition to this post, and very informative too!

I don't feel obliged to defend BGs in any way, but I was responsible for pointing out where this information was located (for anyone who complained about lack of information on BGs) but I did also suggest that it might be an idea to read (all of) this information prior to further condemning it.

I see that you have managed to look at a "couple" of reports, and maybe there is some juvenile pleasure in ridiculing them all as result of that.

However, if you had taken the trouble to look a little further, you would have realised that in some of the other pages there is a great deal of information about BGs, and, indeed, as I said before, I know of no other manufacturer who does the same.

There are details of their measured performance, their suggested applications and some suggested circuits where the use of these caps should be beneficial. Also there are some comparative graphs relating their 'benefits' and some very useful results of measurements relating to other makes & types of caps (where, presumably, Jelmax have no axe to grind!), so if this is not "technical" in content, I don't know what is!

Of course, as I also said before, one doesn't necessarily have to believe *all* that one reads in these "reports" (many of which are not strictly "technical") as they are by way of promoting sales, although, what is new or wrong about that?

I have carefully read them all, several times, because unlike yourself (it seems) I wish to find the very best performing components in my audio system, and some information (not all!) which I have gleaned from Jelmax's notes was very useful to me, especially as to where it is worthwhile trying these obscenely priced components.

What is the point of continuing to deride BGs in such a bigoted way, when, as you admit quite readily, you have absolutely no personal experience of these caps yourself?

Are you, perhaps, attempting to convince yourself that they simply cannot be in any way special, or what?

For the rest of us who have tried these overpriced caps for ourselves, the overwhelming consensus seems to be that they are the best electrolytics currently available, but if you wish to continue to bury your head in the sand for whatever reason, then so be it. You are the loser!

Haven't you ever wondered why those who have made comparisons like myself, all seem to agree that, for example, Cerafines (also very costly, although less so) are not sonically so good?

If we are all deluding ourselves, why don't we do a more thorough job and say that these Cerafines are better sounding, *and* cheaper, which always seems to give those who are attempting to impress other people some sense of satisfaction, that they have also 'saved' themselves some money?

Regards,

[CraigBuckingham]

Well after some more listening tests on a friends SE triode and also my electrostatic headphone amplifier in my opinion the Black Gate NH non-polar in the Super E configuration is second choice in electrolytics.

My first choice is the Jensen 4 pole electrolytic and high voltage electrolytic.

Regards all.