Black gate caps = religion = humbug?

[jean-paul]

Thx for the tip. But have you seen the prices eg Rubycon BLACK GATE NX series electrolytic capacitor 2200uF 6.3V (2 pcs) | eBay no Certificate of Authenticity)

I decided to sell my complete stock as I have other priorities at the moment. They will show up in the swap meet section. All original, no certificate though (as if that ever existed). Hate to see them go though as there is no substitute.

I'm wondering, as with other technologies, if there has been any efforts to achieve the same goals using different processes maybe. Sometimes the first way isn't always the best way, even if it produced some good results.
Who knows...

Wow, 100k uf of bg, that's pretty neat, those must be worth a $100,000 now right?

My Borbely/Hafler has to make do with 44,000, epcos.

As you have seen Audio Note tries to offer a comparable capacitor. They call it the Kaisei series. I doubt if they also use the palladium/platinum alloy particles. They seem to use graphite impregnated paper.

kµF is not ISO. It is called milliFarad (mF) or, more standard, 100,000 µF.

 

[Wavebourn]

Is it a rocket science to use a 15 uF 450V film cap from EPCOS shunted by any cheap 470 uF 450V aluminium electrolytic cap (like in SMPS) on low frequencies?

 

[jean-paul]

No.

Also not comparable with BG WKZ. Not cheap. Very good.

 

[Wavebourn]

I see, it is like breeding puppies. Better passport wins.

 

[jean-paul]

Huh ?! I would choose the puppy with the nicest character.

If one has not used BG it is impossible to comment on their quality. Not meant derogative or something like that. They are different. Many that have not tried them speak about BG in a negative way (snake oil, humbug etc.) but trying is believing. Or "was believing", they are out of production for a long time now. I still think some series were exceptional parts. As we can see measurements prove that they do measure very good. Too bad those measurements come now when we can not buy them anymore

 

[phase]

True, I feel like we are talking about unicorns.
If I had access to some of the equipment here, I could start to decipher some of the differences, but that is not something I would want to spend my time on really.

 

[sumotan]

Hi Jean Paul
If I may whats your take on BG NX ?
I've never have much success using it
for signal or bypass. Is there a specific
usage where it excels ? For now I still
prefer N but only use 1 or 2 max on a
circuit



Thanks

 

[jean-paul]

FWIW I used BG NX Hi-Q for decoupling DAC and SPDIF receiver chips. I have used BG NX HiQ 0.1 µF as bypass cap for larger electrolytic caps with good results. This was an exception as it really was better (with the NX 22 and 47/6.3) to use them without any other cap in parallel. For instance BG NX in parallel with ceramic caps did not work out well in some cases. To be honest I found optimal use of these BG an art itself.

N series are better as coupling cap in the signal path. The 10 µF is phenomenal. Never experienced any negative side effect with N series. Better than film caps how contradictory it may sound.

 

[amplidude]

Some years back i build a headphone amp with black gates as dc caps , dale resistors, toro dials, was a sweet sounding amp, gave it to my daughter she's also hooked on good sound, must be a genetic thing, think I posted some pics of it here. You get what you pay for

 

[sumotan]

Thank Jean Paul
Agree N 10uf really good but can't say that for 33uf seems abit too much.
I did try Nx on reservoir caps bypass but I didn't like its effect.
True of what you say it becomes an art & to me it applies to other
boutique caps as well.

Thanks again for sharing

 

[WatrixReloader]

I decided to sell my complete stock as I have other priorities at the moment. They will show up in the swap meet section. All original, no certificate though (as if that ever existed). Hate to see them go though as there is no substitute.

I'm looking forward to it. sure certificates never existed...but the seller@ebay ask for jewellery prices.

As you have seen Audio Note tries to offer a comparable capacitor. They call it the Kaisei series. I doubt if they also use the palladium/platinum alloy particles. They seem to use graphite impregnated paper.

According to their marketing they try to rebuilt the BG expect of the graphite paper which seems to be their next big thing. So maybe they use palladium as mentioned earlier in this thread?

...we realised that it would be possible to put together a range of more affordable electrolytic capacitors that use all of the same materials as these supreme components (the same special electrolyte, foil and construction quality) apart from the hyper expensive and extremely difficult to produce Graphite impregnated paper, so the only difference between the KAISEI capacitors and the forthcoming Black Gate replacements is that the paper is not graphite impregnated in the KAISEI, otherwise they are the same.

Audio Note

 

[Andersonix]

No love for the Elna RFS (Silmic II) in this thread?

 

[WatrixReloader]

Sure they are nice aswell but with some exeptions IMHO Muse KZ are superior. But every little cute cap should get some love

 

[WatrixReloader]

This guy is Rating silmic II over bg...http://tech.juaneda.com/en/articles/electrolyticcapacitors.html

But if bg has less distorion compared to competitors shouldn't it also be less colored? If colored means something like tuby Sound (2order harmonics)? Or is it just more natural and we excpect it less colored due to hearing experience of "std audio gear sound"?

 

[sq225917]

My money is on audio note cutting corners with platinum and paladium by performing a nice little 'bait and switch' with graphite paper...

 

[jean-paul]

Same feeling over here.

 

[WatrixReloader]

Since my nfb cap test, I will definitly test the kaisei's in other applications. It sounded open staged like a KZ but a tad more sweetness in the forthcomming voice than the muses. Opamp, dac decoupling might be interessting.


PS. Hopefully the brexit will not raise the prices for those puppies.