Best electrolytic capacitors

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anatech

anatech

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No, I'm afraid this is fact shared by several trained pros in this industry. You're welcome to hold onto that idea though.

A passive crossover is a cost consideration that allows the product to work at minimal cost. I'm sorry, but facts are facts.

When a speaker is driven directly, resonances are damped out, output is controlled in the crossover region and rolloffs actually occur following the shape and order of the crossover. It is much more dynamic and transparent. A cheap electronic system will kill a more expensive passive system for sound quality. I remember being blown away by a cheap system compared to a passive one that cost more than 2x more.
 
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Salas

Salas

diyAudio Chief Moderator
Joined 2002
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anatech said:
Hi Salas, I have never measured a capacitor that has increased in value greatly in a crossover over time - ever. So what you are seeing is new to me, and I can't think of any wear mechanism that would cause this. I would suspect they were mislabelled and were maybe even higher when installed. Not unless you are measuring in-circuit where you may have some capacitance effectively in parallel. Depending on test frequency, you may have a resistor or inductor that allows another capacitor to be in circuit unexpectedly.
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Weird phenomenon indeed, enough old non polar crossover caps found in well used speakers measure low but some measure way too high.
That is why I tried to also find third party evidence so I stumbled on those two crossover recap videos. They clearly measured the caps with one leg lifted in both videos.
Yes, what originally happened in design and assembly like mislabeled parts or different test frequency spec shall remain a mystery. Same about revisions and surviving official service guides with schematics. 1kHz was shown used in the second video which is very logical for the application. Smack center in the audio spectrum octave wise.
 
anatech

anatech

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Hi Salas,
Yes, I always measured capacitors in their designed operating range for frequency. There isn't a lot of point in measuring a woofer zobel or crossover cap at 1 KHz unless that is on the slope down.

I'd say what you ran into is extremely weird, never heard of this until you brought it up. Nor have I ever measured a cap higher than it's marked value out of circuit in an old crossover. Of course I do ignore capacitance values if the D/A is bad. I wouldn't know if the instrument was unhappy, or the cap is defective. The latter wouldn't matter since I already know it is toast.

I wonder if there is one actual brand involved here (you can buy capacitors from a factory and have your name put on it). This is a head scratcher for sure!
 
Salas

Salas

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Joined 2002
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Yes it survived! Due to its very high ESR defect also, that cap worked primarily as a series resistor. Thus a high ratio L-Pad formed between the "cap" and the tweeter. So this HF driver received very little power, it practically went mute until that cap was replaced.
 
andyjevans

andyjevans

Member
Joined 2003
artsandmedia.com
I'm in need of a few cathode bypass capacitors, voltages from 25V to 100V. In terms of value, 100uF would probably be OK. I'm also in the UK so would buy here unless some unusual offer presented itself. To explore the options I just bought quads of these from Hi-Fi Collective:
Elna Silmic II - 100uF, 25V
Nichicon Muse KZ - 100uF, 100V
Nichicon GoldTune KG - 4,700uF, 35V

Any comments on the above?

What else should I try that's as good or better?
 
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