Looking for some experienced intput here, I have a couple of dozen Soshins, apparently Silver Micas on my audio boards and they look like crap - see how they've s*th themselves with a white dried up goo, only the Soshins, while other caps nearby look fine:
Yes, the machine is from mid- to end- 80s and works (not convinced with sonic quality yet after seeing this), but aren't those Silver MICAs supposed to be among the most reliable and stable caps around? Or is it coating problem and I see it wrong? Not just the white goo below them, but the holes look particulary scary to me, visually they are not through into the cap itself but I don't want to scratch them to find out. Or is it some frequency-induced phenomena?
I don't have high precision gear to measure such small caps (less than 100 pF) reliably.
They are very hard to find. Now, I got a quote to replace them with genuine Soshin Silver Mica parts with the same spec and product numbers and guess what - my jaw dropped, and not just dropped, it dropped through the floor: 980 Euros ($1058) for 38 Soshin Silver MICA caps!!! Bloody hell, around €23 for a single tiny cap. 😱
Apparently some audiophiles are high on those Soshin silver micas and think they're the next best thing to the sliced bread and the best in the World, but I find it it's un-bloody-belieavable if they turn out to be unreliable items and crap themselves out within a decade or so, to me they seems like they're near if not fully short-circueted already in my case.
Any suggestions what to do or if it's worth to replace them with i.e. polysterenes?
Would love to hear your thoughts on this or if anyone's seen this phenomena with that highly rated and highly regarded silver micas.
Yes, the machine is from mid- to end- 80s and works (not convinced with sonic quality yet after seeing this), but aren't those Silver MICAs supposed to be among the most reliable and stable caps around? Or is it coating problem and I see it wrong? Not just the white goo below them, but the holes look particulary scary to me, visually they are not through into the cap itself but I don't want to scratch them to find out. Or is it some frequency-induced phenomena?
I don't have high precision gear to measure such small caps (less than 100 pF) reliably.
They are very hard to find. Now, I got a quote to replace them with genuine Soshin Silver Mica parts with the same spec and product numbers and guess what - my jaw dropped, and not just dropped, it dropped through the floor: 980 Euros ($1058) for 38 Soshin Silver MICA caps!!! Bloody hell, around €23 for a single tiny cap. 😱
Apparently some audiophiles are high on those Soshin silver micas and think they're the next best thing to the sliced bread and the best in the World, but I find it it's un-bloody-belieavable if they turn out to be unreliable items and crap themselves out within a decade or so, to me they seems like they're near if not fully short-circueted already in my case.
Any suggestions what to do or if it's worth to replace them with i.e. polysterenes?
Would love to hear your thoughts on this or if anyone's seen this phenomena with that highly rated and highly regarded silver micas.
Did you try to clean those? Is it something they spat out, or some sort of fungus surface infestation? Online you can still find many Russian or American NOS SM in normal prices.
It's most likely some surface coating coming loose and doesn't affect it's performance or quality. Wipe it off with some safe solvent. You can't judge what the sound will be like by just looking at it !
If looks matter a lot to perceived sound then it becomes perfectly understandable why boutique capacitors usually look "pretty" !
Long live super expensive High-End ! It will keep many people happy who look under the hood very critically ! 🙂
If looks matter a lot to perceived sound then it becomes perfectly understandable why boutique capacitors usually look "pretty" !
Long live super expensive High-End ! It will keep many people happy who look under the hood very critically ! 🙂
Soshin mica caps are normally excellent, don't be fooled by the ugly looks.
Unlike most of US and western-europeans manufacturers, they chose to finish the phenolic coating with wax impregnation instead of epoxy resin, but that doesn't mean they are of a worst quality.
At the time your equipement was made, ozone-friendly PCB cleaning agents were in their infancy, and the water-based detergents used probably partly dissolved the wax overcoating, with disastrous visual results, but other than that, there should be no consequence.
If you substitute some expensive, nice-looking boutique caps, you are probably going to ruin the performance.
Simply baking the boards at 80°C for ~10 minutes should restore a "normal" look if it disturbs you too much, but before attempting it, make sure everything else will survive the operation.
Unlike most of US and western-europeans manufacturers, they chose to finish the phenolic coating with wax impregnation instead of epoxy resin, but that doesn't mean they are of a worst quality.
At the time your equipement was made, ozone-friendly PCB cleaning agents were in their infancy, and the water-based detergents used probably partly dissolved the wax overcoating, with disastrous visual results, but other than that, there should be no consequence.
If you substitute some expensive, nice-looking boutique caps, you are probably going to ruin the performance.
Simply baking the boards at 80°C for ~10 minutes should restore a "normal" look if it disturbs you too much, but before attempting it, make sure everything else will survive the operation.
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MoTech
Don't feel bad. You can imagine my surprise when I found them
in my function generator and they look far worse than yours.
I was about to rip'em out and replace all of them but since
a buddy of mine said the generator was very good I thought
I'd just test them and see.
They are very good testing caps and have very low D.
But if you want to rid yourself of them, please send to
me after you replace them. I"ll buy them for a few $ .01
each.
Don't feel bad. You can imagine my surprise when I found them
in my function generator and they look far worse than yours.
I was about to rip'em out and replace all of them but since
a buddy of mine said the generator was very good I thought
I'd just test them and see.
They are very good testing caps and have very low D.
But if you want to rid yourself of them, please send to
me after you replace them. I"ll buy them for a few $ .01
each.
I've seen many small value Soshins that look like that. It's normal.
It is some sort of a coating, similar to paraffin.
It is some sort of a coating, similar to paraffin.
Cheers guys!
Very good 'inside' info here. Indeed I gave them some wash with pure spirt and cotton swab - it came off without much effort. They look like new again, but needed some hour of labour since there are many of them with various degrees of wax contamination.
Those holes really gave me scare, especially since it's 1000 USD worth of Soshin high end capacitors - wouldn't even dream of selling them off for peanuts 😉 Interestinlgy those holes were just on the surface and in very certain places (cap vibrates or creates EM-forcefield where dust-ridden wax posisions itself around?)
The thing sounds fab, especially if I replaced the original old-age Nichicon electrolytics with the new gen Nichicon Muse series - it really opened up the whole thing and I didn't expect so much improvement - highs are now superbly bright, transparent yet lively. I reckon Silver Micas probably play big part in all this electronic 'symphony'.
Thanks again!
Very good 'inside' info here. Indeed I gave them some wash with pure spirt and cotton swab - it came off without much effort. They look like new again, but needed some hour of labour since there are many of them with various degrees of wax contamination.
Those holes really gave me scare, especially since it's 1000 USD worth of Soshin high end capacitors - wouldn't even dream of selling them off for peanuts 😉 Interestinlgy those holes were just on the surface and in very certain places (cap vibrates or creates EM-forcefield where dust-ridden wax posisions itself around?)
The thing sounds fab, especially if I replaced the original old-age Nichicon electrolytics with the new gen Nichicon Muse series - it really opened up the whole thing and I didn't expect so much improvement - highs are now superbly bright, transparent yet lively. I reckon Silver Micas probably play big part in all this electronic 'symphony'.
Thanks again!
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