Should You Change Crossover Capacitors – The Great Debate

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes. Please give science evidence that capacitor sound do exists.

1. That is not the premise of this thread. The premise of this thread is that capacitor sound is inaudible, and that is the claim that is under scrutiny.

2. This thread has already provided numerous references to published science that:
a. Establishes several physical mechanisms which cause nonlinearity in capacitors in normal everyday operating conditions; and

b. Establishes how those nonlinearities give rise to measurable capacitor induced distortion in real applications and in both active and passive capacitor networks.
 
1. That is not the premise of this thread. The premise of this thread is that capacitor sound is inaudible, and that is the claim that is under scrutiny.

2. This thread has already provided numerous references to published science that:
a. Establishes several physical mechanisms which cause nonlinearity in capacitors in normal everyday operating conditions; and

b. Establishes how those nonlinearities give rise to measurable capacitor induced distortion in real applications and in both active and passive capacitor networks.

From the post #1:
"So some claims that replacing capacitors in a crossover improved the sound are probably real. But the reason given is somewhat misleading. It’s not simply because the replacement was more expensive, although that is true. The actual reason is that the new capacitor’s value was much closer to the designed value."

1. Obviously, the premise is that difference in sound is coming from the tighter tolerance of the substituting caps. Not that capacitor sound is inaudible, as you are implying. Read the whole post #1 again.
2. No. There is no single scientific evidence that non-linearity in capacitors are above hearing threshold.
 
All very true, but irrelevant to the question. That proves nothing about the audibility of capacitors to humans.

As Sonce asked you please give science evidence that capacitor sound does exist.

You haven't done that.
Because I didn't start a thread saying capacitor sound was audible (or for that matter that it is) I have not expressed a premise that needs be proved or disproved. I have referenced peer reviewed publications from two of the world's peak science institutions, the AES and the IEEE. The peer reviewers obviously felt there was enough veracity to that research to publish. If you have an issue with the authors published science you should take it up with them by writing to the respective journals. Challenging published research is a core procedure in prosecuting the scientific method.

In science, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Let me give you a hypothetical example of absence of proof applied along the line of argument that you and Sonce are following:

I went out last night and saw some stars, so I think there are stars. The next night someone else went out and didn't see any stars. Are they correct to claim there are no stars? So the neighbourhood decided to settle the conflicting evidence. On the third night everybody including myself went out to look for stars. None of us saw any stars. Does that make me wrong? Does that mean I suffered expectation effect? Does that make me a liar? No, it simply menas that the conditions on the second and third night were not conducive to seeing stars, e.g. it may have been overcast.​

I repeat, absence of proof is not proof of absence.

I suggest that many advances in audio over the past century or so has had an argument along the lines of this thread; I know because I have lived through several of these debates. After a while one gets to be a little less cocky about what they think they know and which deity they think is on their side.
 
In science, absence of proof is not proof of absence.
Yes. But also: absence of proof is blatant absence of proof (of your assertion). :)
You don't have a proof (evidence) of existence of different sound of capacitors. Nor the AES and IEEE papers you quoted gave such evidence.
The AES paper you quoted http://temporalcoherence.nl/cms/images/docs/AES%20124-paper.pdf don't have any subjective test in it.
The IEEE paper Electrical noise generated from the microphonic effect in capacitors | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore also don't have any subjective test in it.
 
Precisely the point. No academic papers, no controlled blind tests, no real proof anywhere.

Just a bunch of opinions by people who say that they hear certain things while ignoring the need for well controlled meaningful testing in order to validate those claims.

While some here seem to be willing to accept those opinions as facts some of us are not. We expect actual proof and that has not been presented.

If someone has the proof I would be interested in seeing it. But short of that I will continue to reject any idea that the minor differences in the construction or materials of a capacitor can be heard from the speakers.

It's up to the proponents of this claim to prove it, and they have not.
 
Last edited:
How were speakers tested by factories and magazines?
Some sort of standard procedure must have been there.
Nobody seems to have given a link to those in this debate.

JIS, ASTM, RIAA, DIN, GOST...nobody has standards for audio equipment?

I remember Philips referring to the DIN 45500 standard in their advertisements. I may be wrong about that number.

The point is that one camp is saying capacitors changes do matter, the other is saying same capacitors (in values) from different make / construction do not matter.

A standard testing procedure, repeatable anywhere with the right equipment, should settle the issue permanently.
After all, that is the standard in many fields, you should get the same result if you do the same thing anywhere in the whole wide world.
 
Last edited:
Banned/scottjoplin ii
Joined 2021
While some here seem to be willing to accept those opinions as facts some of us are not. We expect actual proof and that has not been presented.

Some accept the evidence as real, that's about as far as it goes from what I see, some then might look into it more themselves and decide for themselves.

If the above is a premise for your "debate", well done, you have won, give yourself a medal.

Your thread has moved on and become an interesting discussion for some, why not join the discussion instead of endlessly repeating yourself?
 
Banned/scottjoplin ii
Joined 2021
A standard testing procedure, repeatable anywhere with the right equipment, should settle the issue permanently.
After all, that is the standard in many fields, you should get the same result if you do the same thing anywhere in the whole wide world.

Measurements with a microphone are not as easy as some here think, how would you measure focus/lack of smearing of the image for example?
 
Precisely the point. No academic papers, no controlled blind tests, no real proof anywhere.

Just a bunch of opinions by people who say that they hear certain things while ignoring the need for well controlled meaningful testing in order to validate those claims.

While some here seem to be willing to accept those opinions as facts some of us are not. We expect actual proof and that has not been presented.

If someone has the proof I would be interested in seeing it. But short of that I will continue to reject any idea that the minor differences in the construction or materials of a capacitor can be heard from the speakers.

It's up to the proponents of this claim to prove it, and they have not.

There is ample proof in this thread though that don’t even have a basic understanding of what science is. Neither you nor your Macedonian friend seem to have the capacity to debate or make arguments with the intellectual rigor or grasp logical concepts that are required when entering a debate YOU started. All YOU bring to the table is an incessant irrelevant claim of proof from a bully pulpet of pop knowledge formed by youtubers and corporate representatives.

In science if you form a hypothesis such as “there is no audible difference in capacitors”, the burden of providing evidence for your claim falls on YOU, not on your counterpart.
Scientific evidence - Wikipedia
Anyone in academia would know this.
 
Last edited:
@Jazz Man, and @classicalfan, also Mountain Man...
Please go through the published standards.

Test procedures, microphone quality, placement, tone sequences, measuring equipment, I would think all are specified.

They were discussed before being published by highly competent people. And are internationally acceptable.

And like the AES papers, some of the issues existed 50 years ago too.
So what else is new?
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.