Resistor Sound Quality?

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I tried the Kiwame resistors as I proceed to further mod my NAD PP-2 phono stage.

The Kiwames are indeed sweeter on the 'top end' but theres a small trade off compared to the TKDs. The latter sounds lifelier overall and better pace.

So I ended up with the Kiwames in the input stage and the TKDs at the output gain stage.

A combo that I find fits my liking. :)
 
ElectricHead said:
Old carbon types: Slow, muddy, dull, lifeless, missing treble, loosy bass, missing space & 3D. Hissy with high distortion factor. I will never understand the people using this crapp. [/B]


"Old carbon types" is too inaccurate. Please specify which brands you allude to. AB are metioned several times here as the best resistors for audio, cc or any other type :smash:
 
ElectricHead said:
... rotten hissy distorted drifted carbon resistors ...

Nice description!

Vishays are best IME. By the way, a wonderful small American company called Texas Components (website here) makes Vishay resistors on licence with Vishay. TC also manufactures a unique de-encapsulated Vishay version---called "nude"---especially for audio (we're the only weirdos who would use such a wonderful thing). I deal with Arbie at TC, and they sell to we who order as little as one resistor. What a deal.
 
if you can hear the differance between two resistors, well lets just say your credibility just went out the window with me. am i right so say the differances are so small that no one including golden ears could hear it.


Hi Chrisr,

I know what you mean and thought like you, but I did take the time to try and see for myself so as I could dismiss it based on firsthand experience. Just build a gainclone with no frills resistors and spend some money at partsconnection on ridiculously priced rikens or caddocks and see for yourself.
Considering people spend thousands on cable its probably not too over the top spending a hundred or so on resisitors? Guess its a personal descision.
 
I tried Vishays S102 many times, but somehow I was not excited about their sound. Not that I couldn't hear them, they were rather boring, lacking livelyness. The nude Vishays seem to sound brighter. None of them is good for I/V stage and here Caddocks TF020 or Rikens performed much better. So Vishays, IMO, are not really the best.

I can get them for $2 and still prefer to pay $6 for Caddocks.;)
 
if you can hear the differance between two resistors, well lets just say your credibility just went out the window with me.

errrr excuse me please.carbons r really bad.metal films really sound better(reasons::::1)carbons have thermal noise.
l 2)resistance error high,bad tolerance
3)as someone mentioned out here,they absorb
moisture over time and this affects their
behaviour seroiusly



make an amp that will reproduce every audible hz that u throw at it and hear the difference in sound between the resistors.
 
i actually tried listening to the differance years ago during the building of a simple single mosfet preamp. nothing really special as they were just radio shack 1/4 watt carbons vs. radio shack 1% 1/4 watt metal-films and i could hear no differance.

i refer to this comment by thylantyr:

This is what I've noticed in the world of electronics.

People are young and start here ->

*Do you circuit design, listen.
*You change the circuit design because it was designed poorly.
*Sound improved.

The same people get older and start here ->

*Your circuit design skill are better and you make good stuff.
*Now you venture in the world of esoteric mods to make it better.
*You claim it does but offer no scientific study to confirm.

You grow old and start here ->
*Your circuit design skill are better and you make good stuff.
*Now you continue with esoteric mods to make it better.
*You now wonder if these mods are really audible or is it just
placebo ?


Younger folks who do mods seem to think that they can beat
the engineering team behind large corporations as if they
don't know what they are doing.

_____________________________

i think that comment is worth a million bucks, althou some better parts WILL make a differance in sound i firmly belive that the secret to good sound lies in the design. at some point you have to accept that your getting diminishing returns especially when it comes to the higher priced parts that to me airn't justifyed for the role they play.

if you can make a better design thats great. but if your building a amp for me i'll gladly take the metal-films but the ones that cost $0.25 cents each and not the $6 ones. thats my take on it.
 
well im not sure what to think after buying some Vishay/dale's. The 3 different ones i need for building digi's boards for a gainclone. They are made in 3 different locations.

mouser:
P/N 71-lvr5-0.1
is a .1ohm 5watt is black round can body with leads seem to use lower quality metal. As slighty rubbing the metal leads it feels as if there is a slimmy/film on the leads that needs to be cleaned off. these are made in Israel

P/N 71-cmf60-10k/r
These seem to be the highest quality looking of the three with the round brown body. Made in Mexico

P/N 71-ccf02-j-220k
Has a qualtiy look to it same looking leads as the above cmf60.
Made in USA.

So how am i really sure im getting quality vishay/dales here... I am not complaining about where they are made. From reading the net there have been fake IC's floating around....Just leaves me to wonder.

i cant go out and try different resistors like some might be able to i just dont have the time/money. I wanted to use parts that would not effect the sound... I can use high quality parts to build an amp that comes out to about $100 -$200 or so for my project. That sounds better the then amp being sold for $2k-$3k. Then i can say im glad i spent the extra money. Besides how do we know what parts they are really using for all we know they are using the cheap carbon resistors.
 
hi chrisr
we r in the same leauge.i strongly feel against misleading things such as 'audio grade cables',audio capacitors,connectors etc etc and the endless list of simple component in fancy boxes.

a good cap is good one,so is a good resistance.
quality depends on material used and practice adopted during construction stages.so if a person sells a mf res. for .25cents,another one repacks it fancily and writes alien world terms on the pakage and charge a hell for it.........................

my point out here is ,mf res. r better not bec they cost more or other misleading term like "AUDIO GRADE" but bec of scientific reasons.good tolerance and accurate,so less deviation from value during operationi.e more ideal behaviour in ckt.carbon has more of thermal noise,absorbs moisture overtime and list is long of its anomalies
 
I had no problems in hearing a major difference between my Superbuffer (Borbely) with a mix of DaleRN55/MK132s and my other Superbuffer that has all nude Vishays.

The nude Vishays has a much more transparent sound with more details and better resolution.
I love these nude Vishays in the Superbuffer.

They can sound dry but that is due to their extreme resolution - IMHO.

Highly recommended.


Peter Daniel - where do you buy your Caddocks TF020s?



Sigurd
 
Upupa Epops -

I sometime use Teflon PCBs - yes. As does Borbely Audio.

Non metallic screws only.

Solid silver wire only for signal wires.

I damp all my chassies with "Lead mats" that the car industry is using to dampen vibrations. Sold by speaker shops.

BTW, I use rubber standoffs for less vibration sensitivity.


Sigurd
 
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hi sagarverma,


glad to see someone else uses common sence when picking parts. i won't dispute a quality differance between metal-film and carbon but the quality differance between a $0.25 metal-film and a $6 dollor one. i have a question, can anyone actually hear johnson noise. i'd think for you to be able to actually hear it would have to be in high gain circuit but the smallest signals that need to be amplified in audio will be in the uV range and the noise generated should be less than the low nV range shown for 0hz-1Mhz 0c-100c testing. i think it would be way less becuse of the smaller bandwidth and consistent temperature. also i don't think inductance plays a significant role unless we're talking about sand ceramic types.

in the end you got up to 10% thd comming out of the speakers so i think that money placed in resistors would be better served if you were to get better drivers or bi/tri amp with an active crossover.
 
chrisr said:

in the end you got up to 10% thd comming out of the speakers so i think that money placed in resistors would be better served if you were to get better drivers or bi/tri amp with an active crossover.


Sure, speakers are the most critical elements in a HiFi system.


Has anyone tried the Vishay MBB207 resistors ? These are some quite cheap 1% 0.6W metal film resistors, and they seem to have good specs on paper. I have some of them but couldn't do any extensive comparison with other types :smash:
 
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