Not the same If I understood: the Audyn Cap Plus is a 1200 V. It has certainly less ESR when the frequency range increases. Are the ears able to make the difference with a 600V ? I don't know.
There is often an other MKP cap than exhibits very low esr : ones with tinned foil. Most famous are the solen/scr Tin foil, the Jantzen as the basic SCR have tin vapor deposit as well as all the Jantzen. Mundorf is also doing a SCR tin foil clone but less famous.
fwiw : humblehomemadehifi tested them all. Not aware of a diyaudio testimonial between the two of your post though...
Im you can not really without testing it, sometimes a lossy MKT can be better than a MKP, al is about the particular need... There are few difference between all those dielectric but it can be heard... smetimes more details but more brightness is not what you need... There is certainl not huge difference between the two you are talking about, but personnally just tested the Audyn Cap Plus and not the Jantzen Sup. yet.
So two schools here : it doesn't matter, or you have time and monney enough to take care of little tweak up by swapping caps.
There is often an other MKP cap than exhibits very low esr : ones with tinned foil. Most famous are the solen/scr Tin foil, the Jantzen as the basic SCR have tin vapor deposit as well as all the Jantzen. Mundorf is also doing a SCR tin foil clone but less famous.
fwiw : humblehomemadehifi tested them all. Not aware of a diyaudio testimonial between the two of your post though...
Im you can not really without testing it, sometimes a lossy MKT can be better than a MKP, al is about the particular need... There are few difference between all those dielectric but it can be heard... smetimes more details but more brightness is not what you need... There is certainl not huge difference between the two you are talking about, but personnally just tested the Audyn Cap Plus and not the Jantzen Sup. yet.
So two schools here : it doesn't matter, or you have time and monney enough to take care of little tweak up by swapping caps.
Last edited:
I have, the Superior Z sound WAY better to me. I do sometimes use the Audyn Cap Plus in a smaller value as a bypass on a larger Superior Z. I also sometimes use the Audyn Cap Plus on the return side of a low pass. For high pass; I almost always use the Superior Z and sometimes bypass with other smaller high quality caps. In my opinion; the Superior Z is THE capacitor that does everything very well; it gets out of the way and just lets the music come through. There are more expensive caps but, "for the money", the Superior Z is the best I have heard; even better than some that cost 2 to 3 times more.
If you go to the Jantzen web site; they have technical write ups that describe their technology in some detail.
If you go to the Jantzen web site; they have technical write ups that describe their technology in some detail.
A film and foil capacitor is not an MKP. The latter typically refers to metallised polypropylene film. A film & foil uses a physically separate foil, whether in tin, aluminium, copper, silver or any other foil material.
They are? Since when? There are thousands of film & foil caps around and have been for decades, in industry and elsewhere.
The Jantzen MKP capacitors (CrossCap, Standard, Superior, Silver Z) are aluminised polypropylene film, with the latter two being bifilar wound. They have two film & foil caps, neither of which use tin, but aluminium and copper, respectively, as their foil materials.
Zn tin foil. Not a clone as far as I know (published sizes are slightly different) albeit similar, as you would expect for caps of similar type.
Some of the specs for the thickness (um) of deposit on metallized film caps is on par with the foil thickness of discrete film and foil caps. I wonder what sort of conductive difference exists metalurgically speaking. A metal foil should be “crystalline” whereas vapor depositing may be more akin to amorphous? Just speculating
http://www.jantzen-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Superior-Z-Cap-Data.pdf
The Jantzen technical write up on Superior Z. Some people say there are no differences in sound "quality"; I am telling you there IS a difference. Again, for the money, I have never heard a more neutral capacitor. I do bypass all the time also. Many people say this doesn't help or may make things worse; again, I disagree. With a high quality bypass; even a high quality capacitor is improved; sometimes dramatically.
Having said all of this, I usually start with Audyn Q4 caps until I reach I final value. For larger values; I usually have a Q4 as the "big" cap then add in a few others in parallel of higher quality.
Also, I have said this before, some of these differences are subtle and I seriously doubt home based test and measurement equipment has enough resolution or precision to accurately measure what it is I am hearing.
And so this topic will go on and on until the end of time...
The Jantzen technical write up on Superior Z. Some people say there are no differences in sound "quality"; I am telling you there IS a difference. Again, for the money, I have never heard a more neutral capacitor. I do bypass all the time also. Many people say this doesn't help or may make things worse; again, I disagree. With a high quality bypass; even a high quality capacitor is improved; sometimes dramatically.
Having said all of this, I usually start with Audyn Q4 caps until I reach I final value. For larger values; I usually have a Q4 as the "big" cap then add in a few others in parallel of higher quality.
Also, I have said this before, some of these differences are subtle and I seriously doubt home based test and measurement equipment has enough resolution or precision to accurately measure what it is I am hearing.
And so this topic will go on and on until the end of time...
Hi,
I would like to line up with a preference for the Superior-Z, which I´m using if cost permits. The prices are fine for the quality, but if you need larger values for lower frequency HPs, it gets expensive quickly... only then I replace with Standard-Z. Standard-Z is my standard for shunts, only if too expensive they´ll be replaced with CrossCaps.
For me personally, I use the Superior-Z with a Superior-Z bypass of 0,1uF.
All the best
Mattes
I would like to line up with a preference for the Superior-Z, which I´m using if cost permits. The prices are fine for the quality, but if you need larger values for lower frequency HPs, it gets expensive quickly... only then I replace with Standard-Z. Standard-Z is my standard for shunts, only if too expensive they´ll be replaced with CrossCaps.
For me personally, I use the Superior-Z with a Superior-Z bypass of 0,1uF.
All the best
Mattes
Clone as being almost siblings as you mention, I don't talk of industrial copy. The fact are the Solen Tin foil/SCR Tin foils seems more ofen seen than the Mundorf Tin foils even Tony Gee doesn't talk yet (on tests, long after having tested the SCR tin foils)
Now I have tried them in two speakers among some other MKP and find them to be quite good.YMMV.
Good to know...
(the solen tin foil, i.e. scr worths it too, but priced something near the Jantzen Sup and 4.7 uF max...)
Available up to 8.2uF actually: Solen Electronique Inc. | Product categories | Film & Foil Polypropylene Capacitors
Ah, understood, as in of the same general typology.
To be honest, I haven't seen either the Zn or Solen tin foil caps being used extensively in crossovers (off-hand, I don't recall seeing any projects where they were specified, although I'm sure there are some). The Zn is quite popular in valve amp circles -the late Alan Wright was a fan, as I recall. Here in the UK, the Solen tin foil caps are more or less unknown actually since Solen's UK distributor only carries their basic MKP caps. The Zn does seem to be one of Mundorf's more overlooked models though; a bit ironic since it's one of the more interesting types.
...and the Audyn KPs before either as I recall, along with the long-defunct North Creeks, Cicadas etc. With due respect (that should not be read ironically, it's meant literally) to Tony as well, I think we need to be careful describing his page as a 'test' as such. It's a convenient handle, which he uses himself, but all it really is is a set of his own opinions / thoughts: there is no formal test methodology as such.
Last edited:
That's drole, cause here SCR which is the Solen manufacterer, is only showing 4.7 SCR tin foils in the local shops, lol !
The tin being not a light material, it would cross the Atlantic twice if I want to source 8.2 uf Tin foil .... (btw I always was surpised how tin foil caps show a very low ESR !!!! I also remember Thorsten Losch liking them at DC stopping and filter at the output stages of his AMR devices
The tin being not a light material, it would cross the Atlantic twice if I want to source 8.2 uf Tin foil .... (btw I always was surpised how tin foil caps show a very low ESR !!!! I also remember Thorsten Losch liking them at DC stopping and filter at the output stages of his AMR devices
Paul:
In my limited experience, the Jantzen Superior Z is the superior capacitor. The Audyn Cap Plus was good, the Superior Z was better. I'm now using the Superior Z in my Elsinores bypassed with a Cornell Dubilier 940C 0.01uF 3000V cap, and am very pleased.
Regards,
Scott
I also use the CDE 940C caps as bypass. They really do add some extra magic, even with my Silver/Oil Mundorfs! So, many people poke fun at those capacitor posts and testing and shootouts but there is some merit in these things. I have used values such as 0.015 uF, 0.047 uF, 0.33 uF and so on; depending on ST, regular tweeter, high mid range, low mid range, etc.
I just stumbled over this thread, and got reminded of my cap experience with the xover caps in the Open Source Monkey Coffin. The development was done using the down-to-earth Mundorf MKPs, because I could buy them in a shop close from where I live, and they didn't cost an arm and a leg.
Once the development work was completed (and the speakers sounded very good), I built a "high end" version of the xover using the expensive Mundorf caps (with all the EVO, silver, gold, oil, unicorn blood, etc.) When I plugged the new xover in, I was shocked. The sound was just very wrong. Singers didn't sing... they shouted and screamed! Horrible!
I kept it like this for a while, trying to convince myself that it's just a break-in issue. Of course it wasn't. There is just no such thing as "break in" for film capacitors. After a while I thought that maybe I screwed up the xover circuit when I built the "high end" version, but I couldn't find any mistakes. Then I started to replace part by part with the parts of the previous xover build. Sure enough, things were back to normal once the high-end Mundorf caps were replaced with the down-to-earth caps.
I could have left it there, as the sound was great. However, I was angry at Mundorf. As a result I bought some good MKPs from another manufacturer. The speakers sound great!
No more Mundorf EVO-oil-silver-gold-mumbo-jumbo for me!
Once the development work was completed (and the speakers sounded very good), I built a "high end" version of the xover using the expensive Mundorf caps (with all the EVO, silver, gold, oil, unicorn blood, etc.) When I plugged the new xover in, I was shocked. The sound was just very wrong. Singers didn't sing... they shouted and screamed! Horrible!
I kept it like this for a while, trying to convince myself that it's just a break-in issue. Of course it wasn't. There is just no such thing as "break in" for film capacitors. After a while I thought that maybe I screwed up the xover circuit when I built the "high end" version, but I couldn't find any mistakes. Then I started to replace part by part with the parts of the previous xover build. Sure enough, things were back to normal once the high-end Mundorf caps were replaced with the down-to-earth caps.
I could have left it there, as the sound was great. However, I was angry at Mundorf. As a result I bought some good MKPs from another manufacturer. The speakers sound great!
No more Mundorf EVO-oil-silver-gold-mumbo-jumbo for me!
Last edited:
Good story... I have not a great experience with speaker caps but that happens to me with Jantzen Cross cap serie with a tweeter... the MKT before that have the same uF I took care to measure were better ! It's not a 100 % insurance...
I want the Unicorn blood one and even more if the unicorn has a tin helmet
In between I will try the Jantzen Superior
! It's not a 100 % insurance...I want the Unicorn blood one and even more if the unicorn has a tin helmet
In between I will try the Jantzen Superior
My experience with by-pass capacitors is very good. Not every capacitor will work properly here; you have to experiment. True; some can cause an artificial brightness or harshness; others do; in fact; open up the sound; imparting more space, definition, articulation, nuance, etc. I have done this MANY times with very good results (even WITH my mid 60's hearing with high treble loss). Like I said; this discussion can go on and on until the end of time...FWIW...
See my posts and #72 above. If you you try a Jantzen Superior Z and bypass it with one or more CDE 940C series; you WILL get the desired results.
https://www.cde.com/resources/catalogs/940C.pdf
Remember; EXPERIMENT! Clip leads are a speaker nerd's best friend when trying X/O components in a quick swap; A/B comparison. I ALWAYS do this; if you don't do this; you are missing out on a lot of fun and most likely cheating yourself out of significant sonic improvements...
https://www.cde.com/resources/catalogs/940C.pdf
Remember; EXPERIMENT! Clip leads are a speaker nerd's best friend when trying X/O components in a quick swap; A/B comparison. I ALWAYS do this; if you don't do this; you are missing out on a lot of fun and most likely cheating yourself out of significant sonic improvements...
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.