Since you've suggested people should visit the ear doctor...
I suggest if you think these caps have a characteristic sound, you should probably visit the brain doctor.
I hate to even post in threads like these. If people think they hear something, so be it. It's just absurd when we have someone claiming that anyone who doesn't hear whatever they hear is obviously deaf. I've been here long enough to know that there is no such thing as a consensus when it comes to these topics.
I would be careful what you ask for .
"Like" buttons were used on the UK public help website I was on, caused unrest-anger -complaints and the Moderators were subject to "demands /orders " constantly to remove /delete/reapply etc depending on the public's dogmatic viewpoint.
NOT--- a "good " idea----from personal experience many people don't like too much "Truth " displayed for the world to see especially in this age of Woke/PC.
Excellent analogy.
That reminds me of a consumer sort of TV show over here. They once did a comparative test of meat and analyzed the protide, lipid, bacteria and so on, but not a word about how they taste.
Taste matters not: what you can't measure doesn't exist.
Always is a bit extreme but I know what you mean, yes you are correct. I would say in most situations. Besides that many MKP, MKS etc. caps do sound worse than Nichicon KZ, FG, FW, VZ or Elna Silmic II & RBD (bipolar).
@v4lve lover: Your claim is absurd cos there are other factors most people do not measure i.e.: micro vibrations generated by the cap itself, there is research in the UK about this and how to get rid of it.
Another exmaple: 2 poweramps with identical THD, rise time etc. one tube the other with transistors and they will never ever do sound the same.
In the 90's a German HiFi magazine did a listening test (If I remember correctly) Kenwood vs Yamaha cos they were almost identical in all departments. But all of the jury could hear a clear difference.
Besides that show me 2 caps from 2 different manufacturers with identical measurements...
Another exmaple: 2 poweramps with identical THD, rise time etc. one tube the other with transistors and they will never ever do sound the same.
In the 90's a German HiFi magazine did a listening test (If I remember correctly) Kenwood vs Yamaha cos they were almost identical in all departments. But all of the jury could hear a clear difference.
Besides that show me 2 caps from 2 different manufacturers with identical measurements...
Okay, suit yourself.
micro vibrations is only a problem when capacitors are piezo-electric. A decoupling capacitor feeding a class A opamp is never going to see enough current change to induce a piezo-electric response from magnetic fields. Even if for some reason the capacitor produced a piezo electric signal, the opamp power supply rejection ratio is 70dB or more for a decent opamp. So the amount this piezo electric signal is amplified by is close to zero.
I read the datasheet on Black gate capacitors, and it was all a bunch of nonsense.
Most of the time these modern capacitors are low ESL low ESR types, And are very close if not identical for any given size/voltage/capacitance.
I know for a fact some brands outsource manufacture to other plants and put a different name on it. And a lot of the smaller manufacturers buy the raw materials from the same supplier.
A tube amp and a class AB transistor amp are two vastly different things, apples and oranges. The one is DC coupled the other has a few KG of inductor to step down the voltage.. This inductor and the crappy power supply work together to cause all kinds of unpredictable compression effects. Clipping is entirely different as well. So is the way and amount of feedback applied.
I just checked two capacitors from the Vishay 150RMI series and the Nichon UPM series, for 63V 100uF ESR difference is 10% ripple current is +-5% and D is also within the margin of error.
In this world, you are free to believe what you want. But in many cases the difference in electrical specs from the datasheet is allmost zero.
Vishay makes hands down some of the finest capacitors available, they are expensive but very reliable.
micro vibrations is only a problem when capacitors are piezo-electric. A decoupling capacitor feeding a class A opamp is never going to see enough current change to induce a piezo-electric response from magnetic fields. Even if for some reason the capacitor produced a piezo electric signal, the opamp power supply rejection ratio is 70dB or more for a decent opamp. So the amount this piezo electric signal is amplified by is close to zero.
I read the datasheet on Black gate capacitors, and it was all a bunch of nonsense.
Most of the time these modern capacitors are low ESL low ESR types, And are very close if not identical for any given size/voltage/capacitance.
I know for a fact some brands outsource manufacture to other plants and put a different name on it. And a lot of the smaller manufacturers buy the raw materials from the same supplier.
A tube amp and a class AB transistor amp are two vastly different things, apples and oranges. The one is DC coupled the other has a few KG of inductor to step down the voltage.. This inductor and the crappy power supply work together to cause all kinds of unpredictable compression effects. Clipping is entirely different as well. So is the way and amount of feedback applied.
I just checked two capacitors from the Vishay 150RMI series and the Nichon UPM series, for 63V 100uF ESR difference is 10% ripple current is +-5% and D is also within the margin of error.
In this world, you are free to believe what you want. But in many cases the difference in electrical specs from the datasheet is allmost zero.
Vishay makes hands down some of the finest capacitors available, they are expensive but very reliable.
Many people experienced the same about some caps. For me there is no doubt you can check the differences most of the time.
This is not why you can not explain or know how to measure something that it doesn't exist ! You can't see it by measuring then it means the usual things you measure are not correlate to the differences heard... And we sure know that what we hear as a sum is not what we locally measure and try to abstract of a sum of complex interacts vs an isolated datasheet out of the circuitry. Specs are important cause if bad the circuitry doesn't work but that don't say usuals spec like esl, esr, capacitance, voltage are always enough to say it all on what we hear at the end as the sum of the system seated in our chairs ! I'm able in some dacs just on two vias in the analog output to hear a difference between two solder pastes and also without any soldering paste but just the physical contacts with the cap legs (and that's a pain sometimes when you finely tune a device with parts like I do)
I really believe some don't hear differences as if I take Sumotan example about food : you can feel very subtle differences and infinity of little variation in the Japanese food for instance if your habits is to eat very hot chili food everyday ! Each guys of these two style of foods just can not taste and appreciate or percieve the differences of the others.
To rephrase it, the non believers are for me sort of fanatics whom don't understand the sense of the word "paradigm" and they are biased because their brain can NOT perceive what the intellectual part is checking if it's out of the usual measurements they can check. They are right on what they measure and it's about the nowadays paradigm... but that doesn't mean they found all what should be measured and what is exactly correlated to what the ears can check here ! I call that positivists... no offense, but they are working the same as the religious, just at the opposite way of course !
An illustration like the food example could be described also as : John Wayne is reading a review in a waiting room saying Rhinos don't exist and then not able to see there is one just in the middle of the room... cause the book is a screen in between . Call that the Rhino syndrom.
I"m sure both are sincer and honest. As many agree on some caps while most of experienced guys about caps and audio agree, me the first, that the cap you must use is not always the same each time, a little like a spice in a meal, something should exist that is not collective hysteria !
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The problem is, that these differences are most of the time a big placebo, and there are more cost effective ways of achieving a placebo effect.
I always go for the highest quality component in lifetime and QC. In that field Vishay rules supreme. If i need a different impedance on a capacitor over frequency i just put a 10 cents inductor in series.
Most audio circuits that sound good are in one or another way technically compromised products. These produce harmonics, or have different clipping characteristics.
My inability to believe claims without double blind placebo controlled tests has nothing to do with my intellectual ability*. The very fact people are free to discuss this nonsense is only possible because somewhere an engineer thought of a way to align a lens within a few nanometres in a few milliseconds. And do this 50 times perfectly to make a batch of 1000 chips or so.
Another thing: Ive seen audio reviews where Tube A branded Philips was ranked 10 points lower than tube B branded Mullard. And if you looked closely they where made in the same factory..
I always go for the highest quality component in lifetime and QC. In that field Vishay rules supreme. If i need a different impedance on a capacitor over frequency i just put a 10 cents inductor in series.
Most audio circuits that sound good are in one or another way technically compromised products. These produce harmonics, or have different clipping characteristics.
My inability to believe claims without double blind placebo controlled tests has nothing to do with my intellectual ability*. The very fact people are free to discuss this nonsense is only possible because somewhere an engineer thought of a way to align a lens within a few nanometres in a few milliseconds. And do this 50 times perfectly to make a batch of 1000 chips or so.
Another thing: Ive seen audio reviews where Tube A branded Philips was ranked 10 points lower than tube B branded Mullard. And if you looked closely they where made in the same factory..
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I think you believe it's a placebo... this example is not effective here, I could say you are in the nocebo side...
Sometimes vishays can lack of deep bass, especially some BC caps. But sure they know how to make caps... Industrial caps is just what exist, look at Siemens Sikorel... also good for audio, all is about what you want or able to hear.
Sometimes vishays can lack of deep bass, especially some BC caps. But sure they know how to make caps... Industrial caps is just what exist, look at Siemens Sikorel... also good for audio, all is about what you want or able to hear.
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Thinking that i am easily put in one side or the other may be a case of cognitive dissonance, I have some very high end designs under my belt that i cannot talk about openly. But suffice to say, that i start with something sterile, and i deliberately add some imperfections here and there to give the product a characteristic sound. Or specify a different transformer.
I know that some studio microphone preamplifiers have a frequency response that has a bump around the vocals section, this sounds nice.
If a decoupling capacitor changes the frequency response, there is something seriously wrong.
You can try for yourself, get some inductors 1-47uH and put them in series with some coupling capacitors, there will always be a measurable and audible difference. such that a particular brand matters less, because the inductor dominates the difference between brands. In that case, you have a technical solution,
I try to design as such that the parts themselves have less impact on the sound than the circuit in which they are placed. Doing it the other way around sends you on a tailchase.
My mantra is: start with a technically perfect solution, and add the imperfections in a controlled manner.
I know that some studio microphone preamplifiers have a frequency response that has a bump around the vocals section, this sounds nice.
If a decoupling capacitor changes the frequency response, there is something seriously wrong.
You can try for yourself, get some inductors 1-47uH and put them in series with some coupling capacitors, there will always be a measurable and audible difference. such that a particular brand matters less, because the inductor dominates the difference between brands. In that case, you have a technical solution,
I try to design as such that the parts themselves have less impact on the sound than the circuit in which they are placed. Doing it the other way around sends you on a tailchase.
My mantra is: start with a technically perfect solution, and add the imperfections in a controlled manner.
But all agree with you, no one is saying caps are the alpha and omega of the sound... We just say they can increase the result when carefully chosen between two with the same electrical spec... and sometimes just a little detail that change can be important while the circuitry is still good, as for instance increasing the voltage rating of the cap while it could work with less in this same circuitry... notice it's not a receips, just an example of something that can work sometimes... or sometimes some caps of particular brand/type work better with higher voltage spec as the KZ Nich. There are a ton of examples... But of course, caps don't save a bad design, for sure... we are talking about spices in this thread...
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