Please take me to school on audible quality differences between capacitors, inductors, and resistors

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#41
Analysis of the circuit would probably tell you which ONE capacitor needs to have lowest practical inductance, and benefits from dielectric absorption to drop the circuit Q.

One can get a tweeter (or worse, a midrange) 3dB too bright by dropping in an MKP or even a premium NPE in place of one that had 3 ohms of ESR designed in.
 
#42
jtgofish said:
I remain open to the concept that capacitors in crossovers might sound slightly different but after owning three pairs of Gale 401s for a period, all of which had different types of capacitors from quite cheap to moderately expensive ,and not being able to hear much difference between them I am also pretty sceptical. I also have three different crossovers for my Tannoy Monitor Gold 15s including one with expensive Mundorf Supreme caps ,one mid priced Clarity Caps and another basic Jenzen crosscaps and can't hear much difference.If anything I prefer the mid priced Clarity caps but the differences are very slight. Changing 6SN7 valves in my preamp produces a much greater change in sound .A sensible position would be to use good quality but affordable dedicated crossover film caps like the Dayton MKTs.Which I have used in a number of speaker restorations and they seem to sound fine.
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This is what I plan to do. I can throw a few extra bucks at it but I'm not spending $300 on a cap
 
#43
I'm more of a skeptic myself, having achieved satisfactory results using simple, high-quality parts.

An anecdote::

Fourteen years ago I built an ST-70 clone from a kit. It was all excellent quality, and the supplier even threw in four of those Russian PIO caps that were (and still seem to be) all the rage at the time. I wasn't sold on them even then but I figured what the hell - I've got 'em, might as well use 'em. Their installation involved a bit of finagling as they were an extremely tight fit, but it all went well and the amp sounded quite nice.

Fast-forward ten years... The amp was buns-up on the bench so I could track down a suspect solder joint. When I removed the bottom plate I encountered a weird viscous goo: one of those caps had popped a seal and spewed forth its jus de vie with joyous abandon. For all I know it was probably some sort of PCB-laden Beezlenut oil (or was it Floobydust extract?).

All four were replaced with Solens of equivalent values from my junk box, and the amp sounded no different to me afterward. Perhaps I have tin ears, or maybe I was just flush with pride at having solved two problems at once. But one thing is certain: it's next maintenance task won't involve rubber gloves, half a can of brake cleaner, a roll of paper towels, and a green miasma of profanity wafting between the houses of my neighborhood.

Beef jerky time...
 
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#44
Bmsluite said:
This is what I plan to do. I can throw a few extra bucks at it but I'm not spending $300 on a cap
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Get a capacitance meter. When you replace a cap, make sure they match within 1%, that way you know any change in sound is not due to a different value of cap, but rather its quality. You can buy several of the inexpensive caps and find the one that's closest, or you can get smaller values to put in parallel to make it match.
 
#49
Mmmm, could be! There's plenty, you know. I'll also thank myself for correcting my English, which stinks (I think used an incorrect possessive/contraction; it was a long day). 😁

Now back to our regularly scheduled program, now in progress...
 
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