As usual, I see this thread has gone the typical way that always results when the word "Capacitor" is in the title.
It always brings out the critics, the obsessed, the nitpickers, in an endless parade.
And so with that.... I'm gone.
It always brings out the critics, the obsessed, the nitpickers, in an endless parade.
And so with that.... I'm gone.
You are destroying the marketing material for boutique audio business. Expect retaliation. 
They claim to hear but not proven.
Isn't that is from engineering calculations based on assumptions of human perception linearity, time-invariance, and stationarity? In other words, calculations based on overly simplistic modeling.
The usual MOP: using buzzwords, without having the foggiest understanding if and how these would apply to the case in point.
Humans brain activity is none of those so-called 'buzzwords.' For example, EEG is not stationary.
To quote from: Everything you wanted to ask about EEG but were afraid to get the right answer "...human brain are complex nonlinear systems generating nonstationary nonlinear signals, and that appropriate analysis of such signals does need new nonlinear methods."
What makes some overly simplistic engineers so sure the same doesn't apply to brain activity such as is involved in hearing?
To quote from: Everything you wanted to ask about EEG but were afraid to get the right answer "...human brain are complex nonlinear systems generating nonstationary nonlinear signals, and that appropriate analysis of such signals does need new nonlinear methods."
What makes some overly simplistic engineers so sure the same doesn't apply to brain activity such as is involved in hearing?
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You mean the interpretation of what we perceive. Whether we actually heard it or not needs to be evaluated before labeling it as "heard".
i have not tried exotic costly electrolytic caps, but everytime i change a cap to a nichicon kz that suits circuit requirements, it is always for the best, either signal or psu decoupling. Really a bang for buck wonder for audio. I also tried it in a video card and PC SMPSU and the dipslay image did looked better, mind you!
Hi John,
So what makes an audio signal different to any other signal John? Nothing.
Good capacitor manufacturers produce excellent products that pass signals faithfully. The marketing silliness that boutique capacitors come out with is pure hype. I've auditioned, and tested part for decades with equipment that has improved as time went on. The only thing I have found is that boutique capacitors are always pretty much too large to fit where the original part went. Therefore they cause problems when retrofit into otherwise very good equipment and sometimes impair the performance measurably. Of course the installers of those parts always hear an improvement even when you can prove they caused a problem.
Face it John, boutique parts are used purely to differentiate a product from the rest of the crowd, an advertising gimmick only. As a person that utilizes these marketing techniques, you will go down fighting on this subject. However there isn't one shred of real evidence that has ever been offered to support your position.
-Chris
All due respect, I knew this is what you would say, but I didn't expect you to participate.
So what makes an audio signal different to any other signal John? Nothing.
Good capacitor manufacturers produce excellent products that pass signals faithfully. The marketing silliness that boutique capacitors come out with is pure hype. I've auditioned, and tested part for decades with equipment that has improved as time went on. The only thing I have found is that boutique capacitors are always pretty much too large to fit where the original part went. Therefore they cause problems when retrofit into otherwise very good equipment and sometimes impair the performance measurably. Of course the installers of those parts always hear an improvement even when you can prove they caused a problem.
Face it John, boutique parts are used purely to differentiate a product from the rest of the crowd, an advertising gimmick only. As a person that utilizes these marketing techniques, you will go down fighting on this subject. However there isn't one shred of real evidence that has ever been offered to support your position.
-Chris
[insert anything the poster CAN NOT prove so he wants YOU to doubt due process]
A cookie cutter phrase extracted from The Book of Non Answers
I have not see such an amazingly absurd shift of focus (from capacitors properties in an AC filter, to the properties of the EEG signal) in a very long time.
Only your expectation to be taken seriously is more amazing 😀.
What makes a design in that context "best"? One that uses lots of LC filters and totally ignores time constants and poles? One that has a myriad of unstable nodes that are so sensitive that their various oscillations can be tuned by something like the parasitic inductance of a resistor?
With "relatively consistent versus frequency" do you mean it stays constant or that change of impedance vs frequency is linear? The first would mean the capacitor is shorted, the graph of the latter, well is something I have never seen in the datasheet of an "audio" capacitor.
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Capacitors, especially physically large capacitors used for power supply filtering, have far from idealised pure capacitance. The method of construction introduces complex distributed LCR networks within the capacitor which will have resonant modes that may or may not be within the audio band.
Eddy currents flow within the folded foil conductors. Slit foil capacitors commonly used for audio amplifier power supplies are designed to limit/reduce these parasitic eddy currents and the effect they have on dynamic performance.
Mechanical resonances also occur within capacitor structures, both self-induced and externally driven in by noise and vibration where the capacitor is installed in some applications.
Ionic insulators (polymers that have molecules with positively and negatively charged ends) introduce nonlinearity in the static transfer function of capacitors, and the capacitor's insulator dialectric properties are affected by AC and/or DC bias across the plates to a greater or lesser extent depend on the choice of material.
All of these effects are at least in part application and environment dependent, therefore difficult for a manufacturer to quantify when they don't control either. It's much easier to pretend they don't exist. It is up to the designer to take into account the needs of a given application and chose an appropriate design.
Eddy currents flow within the folded foil conductors. Slit foil capacitors commonly used for audio amplifier power supplies are designed to limit/reduce these parasitic eddy currents and the effect they have on dynamic performance.
Mechanical resonances also occur within capacitor structures, both self-induced and externally driven in by noise and vibration where the capacitor is installed in some applications.
Ionic insulators (polymers that have molecules with positively and negatively charged ends) introduce nonlinearity in the static transfer function of capacitors, and the capacitor's insulator dialectric properties are affected by AC and/or DC bias across the plates to a greater or lesser extent depend on the choice of material.
All of these effects are at least in part application and environment dependent, therefore difficult for a manufacturer to quantify when they don't control either. It's much easier to pretend they don't exist. It is up to the designer to take into account the needs of a given application and chose an appropriate design.
Standard Operating Procedure:
Step 1. Correctly describing general properties of (here) capacitors.
Step 2. Inferring that any or all of these properties have any significant impact in audio reproduction, disregarding the (capacitor) type and role under discussion.
Step 3. Subliminal message: trust me, I am a recognized expert, look how much I know about capacitors.
Step 2 is also known as FUD, the most common High End Audio marketing/propaganda method, almost always used when facts and truth no longer serve the purpose.
Myself, I am much more comfortable with people flat claiming audible differences, then with those explicitly and knowingly attempting to distort information and facts, to justify those differences.
Amazingly the hifi collective website says abot slit foils
So it must be true that they sound better if two people on the internet say the same thing 😀
So it must be true that they sound better if two people on the internet say the same thing 😀
None does, weeeellll known fact, well studied too, google "capacitor equivalent circuit"
Any new facts we don´t already know?
* SHOW them
* MEASURE them
* describe the Laws governing them
* CALCULATE them.
Copypasting smokey definitions you don´t understand won´t make you look brighter.
By the way: "may or may not" is a non affirmation or non statement which turns the whole phrase self cancellating (polite way of saying "useless")
Again:
* SHOW them
* MEASURE them
* describe the Laws governing them
* CALCULATE them.
Again.
Sob far, what you copypasted has no content or applicability on the thread subject.
Same useless fog and smoke.
Manufacturers DO control their own production with high precision.
And as a service to the end user, they state USEFUL data in datasheets.
What´s not printed there, they probably consider useless or unneeded for 99.9999% of end users.
And for good reason.
See above,they are usually irrelevant to end user.
This looks like a MAO Red Book phrase, looks reasonable and means nothing.
A few samples.
To Moderators: this is not a Political statement in any way, just showing a particular case of phrase structure.
In fact they are fully devoid of meaning, not even a Political one 😱
That said, I was surprised by finding a lot of accurate and to the point phrases 😱
Again, I am carefully avoiding the "political" ones but quoting the "apply anywhere" type.
This one is actually very good, as it recommends staying away from the subjective, and concentrating on the objective, by learning and following "the laws of the World" ... which in a wide meaning will include Physics Laws:
Here he backs the experimental Method, go figure:
Not much patience for endless empty discussions 😛
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Yes, ESL, ESR, IR and C in your schematic can be more or less nonlinear, time-variant and non stationary, which may or may not induce clearly audible effects when used in a power supply filter. Look at me how smart I am.
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looks like this thread has successfully reached its standard termination😛
Cal, where are you?
Cal, where are you?
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Yep, the rusted on anti-science cohort who don't provide substantive evidence for their mantra, but instead choose to misrepresent and denigrate others have swamped the thread as has often happened in the past.
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