jholtz said:
Hi Jim
Sorry for the late reply (are you still there?) as I had been super busy with a project. Do not visit here as often as used to be.
I ordered a batch of .47uf NX HiQ from Parts Connexion. Granted, not a very popular value. It took them 3 months to fill my order. Must have got the caps from the maker's stock in Japan. Only buy stuff from Michael when it is absolutely necessary because prepaying in check is a real pain. All of the email checks back and forth, etc.
-finney
jholtz said:Now you have my curiousity up. Have you compared Pana FM's to Nichicon HE's or Muse series by any chance? Jon Marsh made a post sometime ago at AA in a cap discussion that Pana FC's strugged to be in spec with a 20% tolerance as stated by Panasonic. Nichicons, however, were always at or above their rated spec by a substantial margin. He is an EE and works in the semi conductor field so he's using ultra expensive test equipment to measure them. He's also a tweaker at heart so he also uses his ears.
What is your take on the FC Vs. FM Vs. Nichicon?
Thanks for the feedback!
Jim
Well well.. this is a very big topic. Where should I start with, mmm... first of all, regarding to Panasonic FC's tolerance. Most FCs are made in China now. For a certain period of time, there seemed to be some QA problem. On the other hand, FMs have been very consistent.
BG, OS-Con, Pana FM, Ruby ZA, they all come down to the electrolyte composition used in the cap. BG's electrolyte has carbon powder doping to give it a higher current conductivity than regular breeds. In turn, this means higher max ripple current limit, better ESR/frequency curve, etc. In audio circuit, as coupling cap, you will find the sound to be more dynamic, punchy. As by-pass cap, you will hear less background noises. Pana FM and Ruby ZA are still your typical electrolytic caps with some formula tweaks. They are currently the state of art low ESR caps, not as good as BGs but close enough such that some people actually perfer FM/ZA because they sound *gentler*.
OS-Con is just a term Sanyo uses to cover its organic cap line. All OS-Cons are solid polymer based. The regular OS-Con is second generation solid polymer cap when SEP represents the latest, 3rd generation solid polymer technology. The polymer based electrolyte used in SEP is simply much superior to BGs. A 100uf SEP has a max ripple current limit almost as high as a regular 4700uf cap's!! In the meantime, it does not have the big cap's slower speed. The problem with regular OS-Con is that it does not perform that well at low frequencies hence it is more suitable to digital circuits to filter out HF noises. When used in audio circuit, its sound will be very dry and thin. SEP is a major improvement here. I have used it for LM317's output by-pass cap, for instance, and found out the sound to be very full, very smooth, with a background even darker than BG N's. Sure, it's not a wonder cap. You can't use SEP anywhere. Its low voltage rating is a big limit. As coupling caps, the sound can be too dynamic, too fast, too much to be pleasant.
As for the comparison tests, I really can not say much about their performance in audio circuit because performance numbers do not mean much here. For digital circuits, OS-Con SEP and those SMT solid polymer caps are simply the king. Ruby ZA is slightly better than Pana FM. Nichicon HE is more at the Pana FC level.
For audio circuits, as I have said, things become very complicated, way too many factors involved. One thing for sure, BG, FM, ZA, can be too revealing/edgy sometimes so certain people may like Muse better. Nichicon should have *smoothed out* Muse on purpose. Same thing for Pana audio grade caps. Personally I like to use Pana FM for primary power by-passing. They are fairly cheap at Digikey.
If you have problem to get OS-Con SEP in the states, try the NCC/UCC PSA caps from Mouser. It's pretty much the same thing.
Semiconductor? chips? Well, better not let me start the talk...
-finney
Great info!
Finney,
Thank you for the excellent reply! I appreciate you sharing your experiences and thoughts.
Jim
Finney,
Thank you for the excellent reply! I appreciate you sharing your experiences and thoughts.
Jim
finneybear said:
Well well.. this is a very big topic. Where should I start with, mmm... first of all, regarding to Panasonic FC's tolerance. Most FCs are made in China now. For a certain period of time, there seemed to be some QA problem. On the other hand, FMs have been very consistent.
BG, OS-Con, Pana FM, Ruby ZA, they all come down to the electrolyte composition used in the cap. BG's electrolyte has carbon powder doping to give it a higher current conductivity than regular breeds. In turn, this means higher max ripple current limit, better ESR/frequency curve, etc. In audio circuit, as coupling cap, you will find the sound to be more dynamic, punchy. As by-pass cap, you will hear less background noises. Pana FM and Ruby ZA are still your typical electrolytic caps with some formula tweaks. They are currently the state of art low ESR caps, not as good as BGs but close enough such that some people actually perfer FM/ZA because they sound *gentler*.
OS-Con is just a term Sanyo uses to cover its organic cap line. All OS-Cons are solid polymer based. The regular OS-Con is second generation solid polymer cap when SEP represents the latest, 3rd generation solid polymer technology. The polymer based electrolyte used in SEP is simply much superior to BGs. A 100uf SEP has a max ripple current limit almost as high as a regular 4700uf cap's!! In the meantime, it does not have the big cap's slower speed. The problem with regular OS-Con is that it does not perform that well at low frequencies hence it is more suitable to digital circuits to filter out HF noises. When used in audio circuit, its sound will be very dry and thin. SEP is a major improvement here. I have used it for LM317's output by-pass cap, for instance, and found out the sound to be very full, very smooth, with a background even darker than BG N's. Sure, it's not a wonder cap. You can't use SEP anywhere. Its low voltage rating is a big limit. As coupling caps, the sound can be too dynamic, too fast, too much to be pleasant.
As for the comparison tests, I really can not say much about their performance in audio circuit because performance numbers do not mean much here. For digital circuits, OS-Con SEP and those SMT solid polymer caps are simply the king. Ruby ZA is slightly better than Pana FM. Nichicon HE is more at the Pana FC level.
For audio circuits, as I have said, things become very complicated, way too many factors involved. One thing for sure, BG, FM, ZA, can be too revealing/edgy sometimes so certain people may like Muse better. Nichicon should have *smoothed out* Muse on purpose. Same thing for Pana audio grade caps. Personally I like to use Pana FM for primary power by-passing. They are fairly cheap at Digikey.
If you have problem to get OS-Con SEP in the states, try the NCC/UCC PSA caps from Mouser. It's pretty much the same thing.
Semiconductor? chips? Well, better not let me start the talk...
-finney
Re: Great info!
You are more than welcome, Jim. You can also find some basic info here:
http://www.low-esr.com/lowesrFAQ.html-ssi
-finney
jholtz said:
You are more than welcome, Jim. You can also find some basic info here:
http://www.low-esr.com/lowesrFAQ.html-ssi
-finney
IanAS said:Yes, thanks Finneybear for all that detail
I have heard some people say that regular Os-Cons are not so good for high frequenices, ie, RF I guess, as they act like an inductor. Do you know if this is all wrong?
I shall be sending off for some SEP
Well, Ian, go find some latest PC's video cards and check out the caps used. On top cards, you will find aluminum can E-caps with purpe marks, this should be OS-Con SVP, SEP's brother. On those budget cards, often you can find purple plastic wrapped regular OS-Con instead. If regular OS-Con were bad for HF then why people would use it on video cards where 200MHz signals are all over the places?
Whether it's good for HF or not all depends on what you compare to. The general order for HF performance is full solid polymer chip cap, polymer tantalum chip cap (such as Sanyo Poscap), solid polymer e-cap (like regular OS-Con), tantalum chip, then regular e-cap. SEP is about the same as polymer tantalum. These are all for big values. For small values, you have NPO multi-layer ceramic and film caps. Sure, silver mica is wonderful but the size is a big issue.
Acting like an inductor? OS-Con's ESL will increase along with frequency yet the change rate is not any worse than regular e-caps. Since OS-Con has lower ESR, this may make its ESL look relatively larger, still, its ESL is smaller than average e-caps. In fact, one great thing about OS-Con is its ESR/frequency curve is much better than common e-caps. This makes it a much better cap at HF.
Sanyo is not the only source for radial mount solid polymer caps, BTW. NCC/UCC has something similar to OS-Con SEP. Illinois Cap also have something like regular OS-Con. For polymer chip caps, there are tons of choices.
-finney
Forgive my ignorance but what are polymer chip caps? SMT X7R, Y5V ,that sort of thing?
Glad to see the positive coverage of SEPs. Very pleased with them as decoupling in my TDA1543/CS8412 DAC. I would have though their low ESR would be a problem with LM317T regs, but I'm them without resistance or inductance and they're working fine.
I think they're more neutral (if that's not just a particular kind of coloration) than I first supposed, as I've been fiddling about with I/V resistors and they let quite a difference through. Cleaner and leaner, FYI.
Don't like FC at all, soggy and metallic. This balances out if used with SMT bypassing, but then you may as well use a single SEP instead.
Glad to see the positive coverage of SEPs. Very pleased with them as decoupling in my TDA1543/CS8412 DAC. I would have though their low ESR would be a problem with LM317T regs, but I'm them without resistance or inductance and they're working fine.
I think they're more neutral (if that's not just a particular kind of coloration) than I first supposed, as I've been fiddling about with I/V resistors and they let quite a difference through. Cleaner and leaner, FYI.
Don't like FC at all, soggy and metallic. This balances out if used with SMT bypassing, but then you may as well use a single SEP instead.
kittaylor said:
NPO/CG0, X7R, Y5V are all ceramic caps. polymer caps are polymer caps. Polymer is a short for 'conductive polymer'. It was not discovered until late 1970's. The first widely used type is TCNQ. TCNQ has a conductivity about 100X of regular e-cap and 10X of MnO2 which is used in tantalum caps. Regular OS-Con is TCNQ based. TCNQ based caps can easily handle signals over 1MHz when regular e-caps are mostly top out around 20-30KHz.
The real break-through is the PPY or PEDT polymer. With them, you can fabricate a specific 3D network topolgy in polymer then dope in various chemicals to create charge carrier moving in certain directions. At the end, you will get something with a conductivity almost as good as copper and silver! Its conductivity is 100X of TCNQ and 10000X of regular e-cap! OS-Con SEP, UCC PSA are both PPY/PEDT based. Now you know why Rubycon would prefer to drop the BG line and switch to polymer cap production? Pure performance-wise, there's no comparison.
PPY/PEDT has many other usages, too. I remember one American scientist even won a Nobel prize for it.
Yep, SEP is wonderful for de-couping/by-passing. I am deeply addicted to it now, use it wherever is possible. For I/V, I am a bit reluctant though... will love to hear more feedback about SEP when used in different spots.
FC for I/V? Have never felt it is a good idea...
-finney
finneybear said:
Well well.. this is a very big topic. Where should I start with, mmm... first of all, regarding to Panasonic FC's tolerance. Most FCs are made in China now. For a certain period of time, there seemed to be some QA problem. On the other hand, FMs have been very consistent.
BG, OS-Con, Pana FM, Ruby ZA, they all come down to the electrolyte composition used in the cap. BG's electrolyte has carbon powder doping to give it a higher current conductivity than regular breeds. In turn, this means higher max ripple current limit, better ESR/frequency curve, etc. In audio circuit, as coupling cap, you will find the sound to be more dynamic, punchy. As by-pass cap, you will hear less background noises. Pana FM and Ruby ZA are still your typical electrolytic caps with some formula tweaks. They are currently the state of art low ESR caps, not as good as BGs but close enough such that some people actually perfer FM/ZA because they sound *gentler*.
OS-Con is just a term Sanyo uses to cover its organic cap line. All OS-Cons are solid polymer based. The regular OS-Con is second generation solid polymer cap when SEP represents the latest, 3rd generation solid polymer technology. The polymer based electrolyte used in SEP is simply much superior to BGs. A 100uf SEP has a max ripple current limit almost as high as a regular 4700uf cap's!! In the meantime, it does not have the big cap's slower speed. The problem with regular OS-Con is that it does not perform that well at low frequencies hence it is more suitable to digital circuits to filter out HF noises. When used in audio circuit, its sound will be very dry and thin. SEP is a major improvement here. I have used it for LM317's output by-pass cap, for instance, and found out the sound to be very full, very smooth, with a background even darker than BG N's. Sure, it's not a wonder cap. You can't use SEP anywhere. Its low voltage rating is a big limit. As coupling caps, the sound can be too dynamic, too fast, too much to be pleasant.
As for the comparison tests, I really can not say much about their performance in audio circuit because performance numbers do not mean much here. For digital circuits, OS-Con SEP and those SMT solid polymer caps are simply the king. Ruby ZA is slightly better than Pana FM. Nichicon HE is more at the Pana FC level.
For audio circuits, as I have said, things become very complicated, way too many factors involved. One thing for sure, BG, FM, ZA, can be too revealing/edgy sometimes so certain people may like Muse better. Nichicon should have *smoothed out* Muse on purpose. Same thing for Pana audio grade caps. Personally I like to use Pana FM for primary power by-passing. They are fairly cheap at Digikey.
If you have problem to get OS-Con SEP in the states, try the NCC/UCC PSA caps from Mouser. It's pretty much the same thing.
Semiconductor? chips? Well, better not let me start the talk...
-finney
Are the Sanyo OS-con SEP better than the sanyo OS-con SP series?,As Sanyo OS-con SP is more expensive than the SEPs and OFC is used as the lead wires in the sanyo OS-con SP.
Billy0810 said:
The SEP are the thrid generation design and work better than the older SP type. They are not the same at all. Even with the copper wire. Weren't the old SG the special audio ones?
Either way people on here are saying the SEP is a lot better. And supposed to conduct 10 (?) times faster and have better ripple.
http://www.audiocominternational.co...cat&strKeywords=&strSearchCriteria=&PT_ID=160
You can get them there man
You can get them there man
Just to confuse matters there also a few values here at Farnel.
Search for Sanyo capacitors sep
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSea...ors&Nty=1&showImages=true&N=401&Ntk=gensearch
A bit more expensive that Audiocom but you don't have to pay postage. You just have to buy a minimum of £20 from Farnell per order.
So I suppose if you're just buying £20 of SEP from Audiocom it works out similar.
Search for Sanyo capacitors sep
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSea...ors&Nty=1&showImages=true&N=401&Ntk=gensearch
A bit more expensive that Audiocom but you don't have to pay postage. You just have to buy a minimum of £20 from Farnell per order.
So I suppose if you're just buying £20 of SEP from Audiocom it works out similar.
That might be due to a reduction in bass distortion and reduction of mains ripple.
That's a improvement you're hearing.
If you don't like it then the fix is to correct the other problem areas of your listening system and regain a pleasing balance.
Generally speaking, the lower the distortion, the quieter the sound.
That's a improvement you're hearing.
If you don't like it then the fix is to correct the other problem areas of your listening system and regain a pleasing balance.
Generally speaking, the lower the distortion, the quieter the sound.
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