It can even be objective. The false dichotomy of subjective-objective leads to much fuzzy thinking.
I've had some recent thoughts about capacitors - it seems I hear more difference between different families (eg teflon vs metallized polypropolene) as they break-in. After a few hours, the differences seem to settle down and become minimized. Or, to play devil's advocate, my brain has gotten used to the sound and is masking the differences.
When building or even buying new gear, that first listen has me searching for why the new unit is better than the old. ie - this has more detail, so it's better than the old - etc. It's only after a few minutes/hours/days (depending on the severity) of the differences do I start to really hear faults.
I'm reminded of the time I built a white cathode follower 6922 on the end of my gain stage. The preamp had this detailed silvery sound that was absolutely amazing. I was proud of my new preamplifier and did some measurements. My WCF bias voltage was all wrong and the circuit wasn't drawing enough current. It turns out I hooked up the circuit wrong... a simple hasty wiring mistake ... once I corrected the mistake, the 'magic was gone' but the preamp certainly sounded more neutral. Before I had a severely under-biased tube that was creating some very nice sounding distortion.
When building or even buying new gear, that first listen has me searching for why the new unit is better than the old. ie - this has more detail, so it's better than the old - etc. It's only after a few minutes/hours/days (depending on the severity) of the differences do I start to really hear faults.
I'm reminded of the time I built a white cathode follower 6922 on the end of my gain stage. The preamp had this detailed silvery sound that was absolutely amazing. I was proud of my new preamplifier and did some measurements. My WCF bias voltage was all wrong and the circuit wasn't drawing enough current. It turns out I hooked up the circuit wrong... a simple hasty wiring mistake ... once I corrected the mistake, the 'magic was gone' but the preamp certainly sounded more neutral. Before I had a severely under-biased tube that was creating some very nice sounding distortion.
I know if a new amp is a little tilted up you may think it is more detailed. But after a while you realise it is just too bright. I think in all cases you need to live with new amps/gear/changes for a while to make a better decision about the over-all sound.
I'm not a tinker but more of a listener. I will live with gear for 6 months without making a single change. Just lots of new music.
For me -> listen over tinker!!
I'm not a tinker but more of a listener. I will live with gear for 6 months without making a single change. Just lots of new music.
For me -> listen over tinker!!
Easy to see others have gone further into the science of caps than I.
Audio caps I like: Jensen copper, paper and oil, Solen teflon, locally available brown polypropelene and the Russian military caps paper, oil and foil. Also some English paper and tin.
I have used the original Jupiter beeswax hand made caps from the Sates but the originals have been discontinued. They had silver wire conectors. I liked them though they got a bad reveiw by one "expert". I have also used Cardas caps but the lintz wire connects are hard to work with. Not sure if they are the best caps I have used. Also Sprague orange drops.
Favs. at the moments Russian caps, Jensen and local polies.
Audio caps I like: Jensen copper, paper and oil, Solen teflon, locally available brown polypropelene and the Russian military caps paper, oil and foil. Also some English paper and tin.
I have used the original Jupiter beeswax hand made caps from the Sates but the originals have been discontinued. They had silver wire conectors. I liked them though they got a bad reveiw by one "expert". I have also used Cardas caps but the lintz wire connects are hard to work with. Not sure if they are the best caps I have used. Also Sprague orange drops.
Favs. at the moments Russian caps, Jensen and local polies.
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In 1977 after a stint in the NAVY and a couple of semesters at a Tech School I transferred to Clemson Unifersity (SC) and moved into a trailer with a friend who had a better stereo system than I had. So we used his system. I stayed on and went to summer school and he went back to Columbia for the summer. My system that I had been quite happy with before moving there started to sound very bad. Lots of distortion I had not heard before. My speakers were good(I still have them - Kenwood KL-5050), but my amp was crappy (QualaSonic).
Bottom line is we learn to hear and adapt. Some times we get used to sounds, other times we learn to identify them as undesirable (such as odd harmonic distortion).
I am making no judgment as to which of these capacitor break-in falls in to. I'm simply pointing out that we hear and learn. Or not.
Bottom line is we learn to hear and adapt. Some times we get used to sounds, other times we learn to identify them as undesirable (such as odd harmonic distortion).
I am making no judgment as to which of these capacitor break-in falls in to. I'm simply pointing out that we hear and learn. Or not.
Hi,
Think I'll throw some bate:
-How about removing the heatshrink from electrolytic caps?
-Slitfoils familiar to anyone?
-Non-polar cap orientation?
Note that for a cap to be the greatest (be that for coupling use or PS or whatever) it should have the least possible impact on the signal.
So far I haven't seen any cap devoid of any of the above.
Admittedly some components come close to self effacing sonic properties yet most do have some character of their own.
Stepping back ten years ago when I joined DiyAudio, I and many with me stated the same. Now, years later, where are we now?
Do all caps till sound the same? Cables or resistors and god forbid, is there no decent sounding tube left on Earth?
O.K. Lets stick to caps for starters. What's changed and moreover what has improved the reproduction of music?
Just some thoughts....
Cheers, 😉
Think I'll throw some bate:
-How about removing the heatshrink from electrolytic caps?
-Slitfoils familiar to anyone?
-Non-polar cap orientation?
Note that for a cap to be the greatest (be that for coupling use or PS or whatever) it should have the least possible impact on the signal.
So far I haven't seen any cap devoid of any of the above.
Admittedly some components come close to self effacing sonic properties yet most do have some character of their own.
Stepping back ten years ago when I joined DiyAudio, I and many with me stated the same. Now, years later, where are we now?
Do all caps till sound the same? Cables or resistors and god forbid, is there no decent sounding tube left on Earth?
O.K. Lets stick to caps for starters. What's changed and moreover what has improved the reproduction of music?
Just some thoughts....
Cheers, 😉
IMO, nothing has changed in decades. We were having the same old arguments back when I was in college, though audio was a bigger thing back then.
I'm basically a skeptic. If AC voltage appears across a cap that's used for coupling, it's too small and maybe you can hear something. If no AC voltage appears across it, it can't be affecting the signal, can it? Now caps that are intended to have an AC signal across them, networks and filters, are another story. Still, once you get to polypropylenes, polystyrenes and Teflon, the differences shouldn't be audible. IMO if people are hearing differences between those, the test is probably defective or there's some physical difference causing interaction with the circuit, not some remarkable difference in the dielectric. I don't talk about electrolytics because they're too far from perfect ;-)
I'm basically a skeptic. If AC voltage appears across a cap that's used for coupling, it's too small and maybe you can hear something. If no AC voltage appears across it, it can't be affecting the signal, can it? Now caps that are intended to have an AC signal across them, networks and filters, are another story. Still, once you get to polypropylenes, polystyrenes and Teflon, the differences shouldn't be audible. IMO if people are hearing differences between those, the test is probably defective or there's some physical difference causing interaction with the circuit, not some remarkable difference in the dielectric. I don't talk about electrolytics because they're too far from perfect ;-)
I can think of no substitute for electrolytic smoothing caps. Chokes can allow you to use smaller ones and in this case you could use big polies or paper, oil and foil. A better alternative. But for SS gear where 1F is not uncommon only big electros. will do.
Caps matter to me, I have thousands of caps that I will never use in my audio products in future. It is difficult to get a really neutral cap.
My ears have changed and not for the better. If i witness another SWC with vuvuzelas i'll be joining the "all caps sound the same club".
Hi,
I wish I wouldn't hear any differences yet I still hear differences between poyprop, polystyrene and teflon caps and difference between various brands of all of the categories above.
LOL.
Cheers, 😉
I wish I wouldn't hear any differences yet I still hear differences between poyprop, polystyrene and teflon caps and difference between various brands of all of the categories above.
LOL.
Cheers, 😉
Frank, I am in the same situation. I fret between using the highest quality polystyrene and Teflon from the same manufacturer. They are different, yet they measure pretty darn close to each other. I won't even consider polypropylene for the same service, but I do use it, sometimes, especially when I need over 1uf in a coupling cap, for such situations like powering microphones remotely, etc. I, and many of my associates found that the original 8uf Rel polypropylene to be just the thing, years ago, and there might be even something better now.
Yup, I never said I haven't heard those things too, but I'm far more interested in the "why" of it. IMO, the differences are more often related to something other than the dielectric material, be it construction, value differences, strays or the huge collection of biases we're all subject to. As the listening test is made more strict, differences seem to disappear. Then, of course, all manner of excuses as to why the test is invalid seem to come out.
For my phono preamp, I was able to introduce some air variable capacitors for cartridge loading, crosstalk and phase compensation and hand-made a teflon/air copper foil capacitor for the primary RIAA eq function. Definitely happy with those - in fact don't know if I could even detect their sonic contribution if I tried.
If space permits, you can use polypropylene motor runs, or for, say, a CLC filter, the input cap could be a larger value electrolytic, but the PS capacitor closest to the audio could be the polypropylene. That is the approach I'm taking for my current stereo tube amp project where I hope to obtain 35-50WPC in a chassis with a footprint as small as 7 x 10".
In this case, the output stage supply has the equivalent of a 340uF electrolytic after the rectifier, then a series 1H inductor, then a shunt 45uF motor run cap. The corner frequency of the series L and the motor run capacitor is just over 20hz, so any sonic influence of the input 'lytic is pretty well relegated to below 50hz. Actually, I am stacking two essentially identical supplies with the individual impedances of these components being half those of the values referred to - the midpoint will supply the output stage screen voltage and the overall output stage supply voltage will be excess of 600Vdc. All the 'lytics needed for this design will fit under the chassis top plate, as will the two 100VA toroidal power transformers and filter chokes. For the polypropylene motor runs, I ordered two 90uF 250Vac from Newark that are 2.5" diameter x 3.88" tall - just the same height as the 50W Edcor output transformers I ordered and just a bit taller than the 6DZ7 output tubes - should make a neat little package when I get it all together.
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