OSCONS better than BGs in all Power supply decoupling?

[PhopsonNY]

Hi All,

Just wondering as to your opinion of the following statement I was told.

For powersuppy decoupling, Oscons are best in both digital and analogue situations as long as voltage is within the oscon's tollerance?

BGs are only best for signal coupling and for PS decoupling where voltages are out of OCSON tollerances.

please comment

 

[Bobken]

Hi All,

Just wondering as to your opinion of the following statement I was told.

For powersuppy decoupling, Oscons are best in both digital and analogue situations as long as voltage is within the oscon's tollerance?

BGs are only best for signal coupling and for PS decoupling where voltages are out of OCSON tollerances.

please comment

Hi,

For what it is worth, my experience is the opposite from this.

I have swapped out nearly all of the Oscons in my S/S circuits, especially in PS regulators etc., and relaced them with BG's.

This was after carrying out some careful listening trials, comparing the two makes.

There are several different types of BG, though, and I was less impressed with the 'Standard' range.
If these were the only BGs available, I doubt that I would have gone to all that trouble and expense.

The non-polarised ones are much nicer sounding but they all take an age to burn in, so don't make any hasty judgements.

I didn't even make the comparison until the BGs had been in circuit for nearly three weeks, and I have since discovered that they still change in sound for a great deal longer than that.

Also, at some stages during the first 24 hours they go through a period when they sound absolutely foul, full of muddy bass etc., but it passes if you leave them fired up, with a CD set on repeat and resistor banks in place of speakers if you are working on power amps. For any other gear, just don't switch on the amps!

Of all of the tests I have made, this was the hardest to conduct fairly, because of this almost ridiculous burn in period.

Also when I did the relacements 'en masse', it was impossible to be sure that in *every* case there was an improvement because so much time had elapsed during this burn in period.

However, at the end of the day, I wouldn't dream of changing any of them back now, as the overall result is clearly better to a noticeable extent.

Whether it is cost effective is another matter, though, as even allowing for the fact that BGs were halved in price by many suppliers recently, they are still an outrageous price.

The BGs do come in higher voltages than Oscons (which are only 25V max) but don't even think about any high values at any higher voltages, unless you have a very understanding bank manager!

If you have done virtually all you can to get the best out of every other part of your circuits, I would describe these as "the icing on the cake", but if the rest of your gear is not the best, it would be better to spend the money elsewhere, I guess.

No-one will convince me now that Oscons 'sound' better, though, than say BG FKs (better than Standard BGs, but polarised) or Ns or NXs (the best sounding, non-polarised BGs) in either analogue or digital circuits.

The choice is yours, whether you are able to put up with the costs and the hassle during this burning in process, but if you do, you won't regret it.

They are simply in another league!

Regards,

 

[jean-paul]

If you want to save money OSCON is generally OK in digital circuits. In analog I would use BG as they are simply better. Especially the BG-NX. Bob has given a very thorough explanation with which I agree totally. OSCON in analog is ruining sound, I don't have an explanation for that. Tried it several times and sometimes BCcomponents caps sounded even better !?!?!

But what do you mean with "using within it's tolerances" ? All caps have a voltage rating and supplying a too high voltage will destroy them, OSCON or BG or whatever brand/type.

To avoid long burn-in time I put them ( OSCON and BG ) on a powersupply 5 to 10 V under their maximum voltage rating with a 100 kOhm resistor in series for some weeks. If I have the patience that is !

 

[fdegrove]

WITHIN LIMITS.

Hi,

But what do you mean with "using within it's tolerances" ? All caps have a voltage rating and supplying a too high voltage will destroy them, OSCON or BG or whatever brand/type.

IMHO,that's exactly what Bob means,n'est-ce pas?

Black gate closing,

 

[alvaius]

OS-CON's have a very ESR at high frequencies compared to just about any electrolytic capacitor you are likely to run into. In terms of large capacitances, they are only exceeded by specialized tantalum and MLCC capacitors. On the other hand, they don't have stellar dielectric absorption characteristics, at least compared to BG. For digital power supply decoupling ESR at high frequency is the most critical specification. However, for most analog implementations, other factors such as dielectric absorption are more important.

Alvaius

 

[Petter]

The subject of digital decoupling has been covered extensively on this forum. Let me try to paraphrase what happened there (from memory):

Digital components need the best of decoupling. This is typically offered by a combination of 2-3 surface mount stacked film ceramics (market leader is Murata). As it turned out, the original reference work on the topic seems to have been somewhat outdated by the quality increas of these capacitors, and pretty much any combination of surface mount multi-layer ceramics with a 10:1 ratio of capacitance offered very high quality results.

Bulk capacitance is needed as well, and many references were made to Panasonic electrolytics. I don't think the brand of bulk capacitance is that important, but I would not use big units as it would likely lead to tank effects. I would personally go with OsCons if price was not an issue given their availability in local market, long life (do not dry up which can be a problem for small electrolytics!). If price is an issue I choose Elna 105 degC units given availability.

It is worthwile to check the thread out, and apologies for my brushover beinhg briefer than the thread deserves.

Petter

 

[PhopsonNY]

Thanks for all the help

WRT SACD player;

I cannot say that I have carried out extensive tests, however, I have found that OSCONS are pretty good in my digital section.

So far have installed OSCONs as power supply decoupling in my digital section and for all regulators. I think these can stay.

I am now about to intall BGs in my audio section. I would think that the most improvement would be found here.

cheers for all the useful knowledge.

 

[tiroth]

As petter alluded, Francios did some testing in a digital circuit where a Panasonic FC outperformed an Os-con. FC is much cheaper and more available than FC for me, so I use them extensively.