I know the capacitors are different - it is enough to measure and compare their diameters and length.
For me it is enough to decide that 20 year old results are not valid for today's capacitors.
If something looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and behaves like a duck then most probably it is a duck and I do not need to do forenzic analysis on it.
Not all ducks are the same. They may sound and taste different.
What you are comparing has little to do with how the part performs. Absolutely zero scientific method. Not even close to valid.
I think what you need to do is review industry papers on this subject. If you can, do some valid electronic testing. Otherwise you are simply debating to debate. Not at all helpful.
I think what you need to do is review industry papers on this subject. If you can, do some valid electronic testing. Otherwise you are simply debating to debate. Not at all helpful.
I don't think that we will come to some conclusion anyone can agree on.
If someone gives us new measurements, some will say that even caps measuring the same, can sound different.
If someone tells us he heard that cap A was sounding better than B in a listening test, we get the usual comments:
The Test was not double, triple or tenfold blind, the listeners where biased, if you cant measure a difference there can not be one...
I think the tests we did 30 years ago are what anyone should do. If one really cares for his audio and not only wants to dominate the opinion in some forum: Integrate the different capacitors in the reverence system and find a way to switch over without delay. Take your time and decide what sounds best FOR YOU in YOUR SYSTEM.
I know that I'm quite objective, because I found out many times, that, what I did to improve sound, in fact made no difference or even sounded worse. Which meant I wasted lots of time and money.
If I was subjective or financially motivated, I probably had not admitted that all that "tuning" was useless.
There may be one thing that may separte me from the usual tweaker: In most cases I used two identical samples, one that is modified and one in stock configuration. To me that is the only way to be sure I did not fool my self.
Last, my findings may be right on my specific object, but may not have universal validity. I know some things about audio, but will always learn. This is what keeps it interesting for me. Others may search for magic clues and voodoo in audio, because simple facts and physics are to boring or complicated for them.
This is not limited to capacitors, but also to other things audio, like opamps, cables and the like.
If someone gives us new measurements, some will say that even caps measuring the same, can sound different.
If someone tells us he heard that cap A was sounding better than B in a listening test, we get the usual comments:
The Test was not double, triple or tenfold blind, the listeners where biased, if you cant measure a difference there can not be one...
I think the tests we did 30 years ago are what anyone should do. If one really cares for his audio and not only wants to dominate the opinion in some forum: Integrate the different capacitors in the reverence system and find a way to switch over without delay. Take your time and decide what sounds best FOR YOU in YOUR SYSTEM.
I know that I'm quite objective, because I found out many times, that, what I did to improve sound, in fact made no difference or even sounded worse. Which meant I wasted lots of time and money.
If I was subjective or financially motivated, I probably had not admitted that all that "tuning" was useless.
There may be one thing that may separte me from the usual tweaker: In most cases I used two identical samples, one that is modified and one in stock configuration. To me that is the only way to be sure I did not fool my self.
Last, my findings may be right on my specific object, but may not have universal validity. I know some things about audio, but will always learn. This is what keeps it interesting for me. Others may search for magic clues and voodoo in audio, because simple facts and physics are to boring or complicated for them.
This is not limited to capacitors, but also to other things audio, like opamps, cables and the like.
I’m puzzled by the apparent claim here that polypropylene, polyester, polystyrene have changed their atomic formulae in the last 35 years.
Purity and construction may vary between manufacturers. Those making good products use the proper material and they may possibly have become more pure over the years. Beyond that, who knows what may change in construction.
Industrial production in the western world has become so refined and automated, that labour cost don't have any influence on a products manufacturing price. The usual claim that personel has to be reduced are simple lies. It is energy cost and environmental laws that make production cheaper in Asian countries and make the industry close down factories in Europe.
What has that to do with the sound of audio products?
Highly automated production can only work with very small tollerances. Such low cost parts like capacitors have to be made from perfectly manufactured raw material, otherwise the producton line will fail. Mechanically or in tollerances. Less human factor involved today.
If someone recently bought large amounts of cheap, industry film capacitors and measured them, he will be quite surprised how close a whole batch usually is together in values. Older, basically identical parts, often used the allowed tollerance field and had quite different values. Today a 10% film cap may not be spot on, but all those from one batch have very close, identical values.
How do I know? I inherited a huge number of NOS parts, most of them from the late 70's and 80's. With those NOS measuring and matching makes sense. Surplus (That is what I buy most) bought lately is much closer in values.
I match passive crossovers to a few percent, that's where I noticed this. New bipolar electrolytics also have very low tollerances with my measurements. Even as I don't like them, they are much better today.
Sure, this is from my limited cosmos and I only measure very basic values with quite cheap instruments. I'm no scientist, just a hobby builder.
Why 60 years old, hand twiddled caps, salvaged from Soviet aera nuclear power plants, should sound superior to a well made WIMA, never made sense to me. Some may dig these absurd stories told by clever people, selling historic waste, found on some landfill. This nonsense has followed me my whole audio life.
What has that to do with the sound of audio products?
Highly automated production can only work with very small tollerances. Such low cost parts like capacitors have to be made from perfectly manufactured raw material, otherwise the producton line will fail. Mechanically or in tollerances. Less human factor involved today.
If someone recently bought large amounts of cheap, industry film capacitors and measured them, he will be quite surprised how close a whole batch usually is together in values. Older, basically identical parts, often used the allowed tollerance field and had quite different values. Today a 10% film cap may not be spot on, but all those from one batch have very close, identical values.
How do I know? I inherited a huge number of NOS parts, most of them from the late 70's and 80's. With those NOS measuring and matching makes sense. Surplus (That is what I buy most) bought lately is much closer in values.
I match passive crossovers to a few percent, that's where I noticed this. New bipolar electrolytics also have very low tollerances with my measurements. Even as I don't like them, they are much better today.
Sure, this is from my limited cosmos and I only measure very basic values with quite cheap instruments. I'm no scientist, just a hobby builder.
Why 60 years old, hand twiddled caps, salvaged from Soviet aera nuclear power plants, should sound superior to a well made WIMA, never made sense to me. Some may dig these absurd stories told by clever people, selling historic waste, found on some landfill. This nonsense has followed me my whole audio life.
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Hi Turbowatch2,
Agree completely.
Things that "sound better" are always rare or expensive, ever notice that?
I worked back in the bad old days, back then I bought an HP 4261A LCR meter and started investigating parts. I bought newer LCR meters as they became available and always researched parts throughout my career. You are correct. Modern parts are far more consistent than they ever were before. Now I am more concerned with making sure I don't get counterfeit parts. However I also check values because many cap manufacturers make capacitors to the lower end of the range of value. Some don't but some sure do. Electrolytic capacitors especially.
One thing I'll mention to your comment about NOS parts. The Russian Reflector factory manufactures very consistent, more reliable tubes than we had in the days when NOS didn't exist (because they were new, current). I imagine many folks invested in NOS tubes will disagree with me, but I have both on hand collected over decades.
Agree completely.
Things that "sound better" are always rare or expensive, ever notice that?
I worked back in the bad old days, back then I bought an HP 4261A LCR meter and started investigating parts. I bought newer LCR meters as they became available and always researched parts throughout my career. You are correct. Modern parts are far more consistent than they ever were before. Now I am more concerned with making sure I don't get counterfeit parts. However I also check values because many cap manufacturers make capacitors to the lower end of the range of value. Some don't but some sure do. Electrolytic capacitors especially.
One thing I'll mention to your comment about NOS parts. The Russian Reflector factory manufactures very consistent, more reliable tubes than we had in the days when NOS didn't exist (because they were new, current). I imagine many folks invested in NOS tubes will disagree with me, but I have both on hand collected over decades.
Here is a "back in the day" story. Back in the mid 80's I was designing one of those alarm gates you see in stores to prevent people pinching stuff with a tag on them. The gate detects the non-linear magnetic material and sounds an alarm. I used a particular audio frequency waveform.
Anyway, for efficiency I had a class D power amp designed. This of course needed an output filter - basically an inductor/capacitor arrangement. I designed that and bought the needed value of capacitor. Wired it up and was greeted by an exceptionally irritating warbling. The (polypropylene) capacitor was acting like a loudspeaker. A quick bit of diagnosis revealed that the foil winding was not tight - I could squish it a bit between my fingers.
Anyhow, so as not to permanently irritate checkout staff, I tried various constructions of capacitor. At the time Kimber supplied (expensive) audio capacitors. Absolutely silent. Far too expensive for a supermarket checkout gate. I eventually chose ERO (now owned by Vishay) polypropylene, which were likewise silent, and much cheaper that the Kimber Kaps (which are no longer available anyhow).
So a good way of evaluating plastic film audio capacitors is to put a square wave into them at about 1kHz, at about 10V p-p and listen to them, carefully. If you can hear anything at all, that is essentially a loss mechanism.
I have another story about the inductor in the filter too....
Craig
Anyway, for efficiency I had a class D power amp designed. This of course needed an output filter - basically an inductor/capacitor arrangement. I designed that and bought the needed value of capacitor. Wired it up and was greeted by an exceptionally irritating warbling. The (polypropylene) capacitor was acting like a loudspeaker. A quick bit of diagnosis revealed that the foil winding was not tight - I could squish it a bit between my fingers.
Anyhow, so as not to permanently irritate checkout staff, I tried various constructions of capacitor. At the time Kimber supplied (expensive) audio capacitors. Absolutely silent. Far too expensive for a supermarket checkout gate. I eventually chose ERO (now owned by Vishay) polypropylene, which were likewise silent, and much cheaper that the Kimber Kaps (which are no longer available anyhow).
So a good way of evaluating plastic film audio capacitors is to put a square wave into them at about 1kHz, at about 10V p-p and listen to them, carefully. If you can hear anything at all, that is essentially a loss mechanism.
I have another story about the inductor in the filter too....
Craig
Hi Craig,
Absolutely! Most machine wound decent film caps are silent. The hand wound audiophile types normally are anything but!
I've heard this many times through life. TV and monitor horizontal sections are famous for screaming capacitors, especially when someone installs the wrong ones!
Absolutely! Most machine wound decent film caps are silent. The hand wound audiophile types normally are anything but!
I've heard this many times through life. TV and monitor horizontal sections are famous for screaming capacitors, especially when someone installs the wrong ones!
I have these very same non-polar BG caps. at the input of my amp, and can report that they are subjectively excellent. Music seems clear, with no sense of veils.
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What an interesting way to perform a quick practical verification of capacitor mechanical integrity without having to destroy the capacitor being tested.
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Yes. lol! You can sweep the tone and find resonance using a sine.
You don't often hear an amplifier sing these days. In the later 80's it seemed to be more common. I wonder if people saw this more in crossovers.
I've heard electrolytic capacitors singing as well.
You don't often hear an amplifier sing these days. In the later 80's it seemed to be more common. I wonder if people saw this more in crossovers.
I've heard electrolytic capacitors singing as well.
