Were the voltages and capacitances of the capacitors the same when compared? Can you do the same experiment with a polystyrene capacitor?
For tone block guitars, manufacturers now mainly use cheap Chinese ceramic or polyester capacitors. The place itself is not very sensitive, but those of my friends who replaced them with capacitors with aluminum foil and Paper-in-Oil insulation, confirmed that the sound is clearly better.
Capacitor Test: .047uF Stock Polyester Film vs Paper-in-Oil (PIO) - YouTube
Guitar Capacitors 101 - YouTube
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There were not cheap Chinese ceramics but NP0/C0G 100V, and silver Mica the same value but 500V.
I don't have polystyrene caps, but in the case I have them I would not change the caps again, to much damage to the PCB with soldering and unsoldering.
If you have stack of low value polystyrene caps you can send them to me and I will use them in my next amp.
Polystyrene caps are going the way of the Dodo, live with it. The simple reason is they are not compatible with any reflow (lead or non-leaded) soldering technology (due to the very high temperature sensitivity, otherwise said, they simply melt). They could be used in the through-hole version with the ancient wave soldering technology, that's gone for good. As usual, don't expect the cap manufacturers to care about the high end audio myths.
Well that makes two of us being surprised, doesn’t it
Never had anything to do with the impact of microphones on the sound, which is as it seems a world of its own.
And as long as Carts and Speakers are producing up to 1% distortion with great listening satisfaction, the very low distortion figures you mention have nothing to do with quality of sound but mostly with a technological challenge as most postings on this forum do concern, so I share your ambivalence.
Hans
GUNFU, as you are relatively new here, I understand that you don't know all that has been measured with caps over the last 70 years or more.
Three people well known here, Richard Marsh (first to realize that DA in caps might be very important), John Curl (me) (first to put in print nonlinear distortion in ceramic and tantalum caps) and Walt Jung (who put it all together in writing interesting articles about cap differences) did all this 40 years ago or more.
We have constantly reminded people here of these measurements, to the point of boredom, but some here don't really care, and want to use what is most convenient or available.
In any case, you have to do a bit of independent research for the past articles or make your own measurements to settle the question for you. The final judgement is whether you can actually hear the difference between caps, and usually you can, if your playback system is accurate enough.
Three people well known here, Richard Marsh (first to realize that DA in caps might be very important), John Curl (me) (first to put in print nonlinear distortion in ceramic and tantalum caps) and Walt Jung (who put it all together in writing interesting articles about cap differences) did all this 40 years ago or more.
We have constantly reminded people here of these measurements, to the point of boredom, but some here don't really care, and want to use what is most convenient or available.
In any case, you have to do a bit of independent research for the past articles or make your own measurements to settle the question for you. The final judgement is whether you can actually hear the difference between caps, and usually you can, if your playback system is accurate enough.
Nope, and you have not presented anymore or less evidence than anyone else here.
In addition, BASF, the only maker of the foil has ceased production
some years ago. Anything one can get now is new old stock, at the
capacitor or at the foil level. I have not heard that anybody tried to
fill the foil production void, if it is perceived as a large enough void at all.
Gerhard
who has a roll of polystyrene tape and could produce some boutique capacitors.
White Paper: What Happened to Polystyrene Capacitors?
I have tried these and they just aren't the same as the older ones.
https://www.mouser.com/Passive-Comp...qe3LoPWcuOmsau2SZ7sVd4sW4mNp2ZLxoC1_AQAvD_BwE
I haven't tried these:
https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/Products/ProdDS/2301263.pdf
I have tried these and they just aren't the same as the older ones.
https://www.mouser.com/Passive-Comp...qe3LoPWcuOmsau2SZ7sVd4sW4mNp2ZLxoC1_AQAvD_BwE
I haven't tried these:
https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/Products/ProdDS/2301263.pdf
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(Friendly pedantic warning! Friendly pedantic warning!)
I think both of you mean indifference instead of ambivalence, the latter of which means torn between two positions. Knowing your guys' posting history, I'm assuming you both meant indifference.
(Back to your regularly scheduled Black Hole)