Can capacitors with different values and different votage

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ratings be used in the same power supply? I have two sets of caps., one 160volt 820uf and one set 100volt 1000uf and the circuit calls for 100volt caps. so I know the voltage is okay I am just concerned about the mis-matched values.

Thanks for any info.


Tony D.
 
Tony,
I am assuming that we're talking about using the caps in parallel, yes? You can do so in series, but it requires care in execution, and I don't recommend it.
By all means, as long as the voltage rating for each cap is sufficient for the rail, you'll be fine. I once took a whole box of caps of varying capacitances and voltages and wired them up to one of my old Thresholds. The total was something over a quarter of a Farad. Very solid bass, indeed. It worked well, although it looked like the aftermath of an explosion in a parts factory. Speaking of which, one of the caps did eventually bite the dust, but it was age, not the voltage, that did it in.

Grey
 
Grey, thanks for replying. Actually I was going to use the caps. in the power supply that I use with my BOSOZ and so they would have been in parallel, but I have decided to buy a few more of the original caps. and use the others for my next project.

I am using a 160va, 2.6 amp transformers with 5000uf of capacitance per side in my BOSOZ supply and I thought it sounded great, then I heard my buddies and he is using the same transformers with 10,000uf per side and maybe it is just capacitor envy on my part but his sounded better. Absolutly effortless and smooth sounding, just "there".

On another note I was checking out Rod Elliots' page and he mentions that he thinks ultrafast soft recovery diodes are detrimental to sound quality but when I used them in my BOSOZ I thought I heard an improvment in soundstaging and noise. Just wondering what your or others thoughts are on these?


Tony D.
 
Tony,
We got into diodes in another thread a while back. Punch the search button and look it up. I've used both standard and soft recovery, but have never made an A-B comparison, so I can't give an informed opinion, here. Others, if I recall correctly, were in about the same boat, although I seem to recall that Geoff had done a comparison once.
As far as caps go, more is better, sound quality-wise, but there is a diminishing returns ratio. I wouldn't have bothered with all that capacitance on my Threshold if:
a) I'd had to pay for them. They all came out of my junk box.
b) I had any sense. It was a pain in the butt scrounging up enough wire to lace all those critters together. Not to mention sitting down and designing a slow start circuit so as not to implode the power supply in the Threshold on turn-on.

Grey
 
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