Hi Everyone,
I'm curious if anyone has direct experience comparing Mundorf MKP's with the Mundorf Supreme's in a speaker tweeter section?
I have upgraded my speaker's recently with Mundorf MKP's ($7x 3 caps x 2 speakers = $42) which were really cost-effective improvements
I'm wondering however if stepping up to the supreme's is really worth the 4x price increase, not to mention difficulty in fitting them in. These would end up costing around $200 to do. At that point, it's seriously encroaching the "buy a new pair of speakers" territory.
Thoughts?
Best,
Erik
I'm curious if anyone has direct experience comparing Mundorf MKP's with the Mundorf Supreme's in a speaker tweeter section?
I have upgraded my speaker's recently with Mundorf MKP's ($7x 3 caps x 2 speakers = $42) which were really cost-effective improvements
I'm wondering however if stepping up to the supreme's is really worth the 4x price increase, not to mention difficulty in fitting them in. These would end up costing around $200 to do. At that point, it's seriously encroaching the "buy a new pair of speakers" territory.
Thoughts?
Best,
Erik
Hi,
Probably not. Law of diminishing returns. The x/o parts
shouldn't cost more than the driver they are used with.
rgds, sreten.
Probably not. Law of diminishing returns. The x/o parts
shouldn't cost more than the driver they are used with.
rgds, sreten.
Supremes are something like a sporty Momo steering wheel
in a car. Looks and feels great to have one, doesn't really
change the car performance, although the driver might think
otherwise. After all, men are very visual about stuff like this.
Hi Lojzek, have you actually listened to them?
Well, yes, of course as men, a physically larger capacitor has to be better! 🙂
I actually have seen some interetsing distortion studies done a very long time ago, so the Supreme's construction makes sense to me. The author did distortion measurements on electrolytics. In the end he concluded that using polar electrolytics, connected in series would reduce most of the distortion measured. Of course, this required capacitors 2x larger than normal.
The Mundorf Supreme's are manufactured in this way so I have been curious to try them. Just not $200 curious. 🙂
Best,
Erik
Hi Erik,
no I haven't had these exact caps on my test bench. Knowing what
these simple passive parts really do and having tested the usual
electrolytes vs. foil caps, leaving the normal expectation bias aside,
there is no hope that boutique caps can justify the extra cost.
Especially when they are called Supreme, Gold, Silver...all the alarm
bells turn on automatically.
Feel free to disagree🙂.
I use Supersound caps. They are, to me, a huge step up from Cross Caps for example. However, some of the more expensive caps aren't that much better, for example: the M-Cap Supreme is nearly five times the price while not being five times better!
I've just looked up a few prices of 3µ3 caps:
Jantzen Cross Caps: £1.44
Supersound (Wilmslow): £3.67
Audyn MKP: £7.56
Jantzen Superior: £13.48
Obbligato Gold Premium: £14.25
M-Cap Supreme: £17.75
Auricap XO: £23.22
Audyn Copper: £98.46
Duelund VSF Copper: £166.67
Nothing in this universe would convince me the latter is 45 times better than a Supersound cap! Stupid prices.
Even with esoteric partnering equipment you would be hard pressed to hear such differences to justify the higher costs of some of these caps.
I've just looked up a few prices of 3µ3 caps:
Jantzen Cross Caps: £1.44
Supersound (Wilmslow): £3.67
Audyn MKP: £7.56
Jantzen Superior: £13.48
Obbligato Gold Premium: £14.25
M-Cap Supreme: £17.75
Auricap XO: £23.22
Audyn Copper: £98.46
Duelund VSF Copper: £166.67
Nothing in this universe would convince me the latter is 45 times better than a Supersound cap! Stupid prices.
Even with esoteric partnering equipment you would be hard pressed to hear such differences to justify the higher costs of some of these caps.
You may be right, but I am more comfortable with experience than theory. If they aren't constantly feeding each other it's no longer science, it's history in my view. On the other hand, being able to spend less than others for the same results is always a win. 🙂
Also, even if they do sound better, I agree with your point about justification. I can't justify $2,000 in capacitors for a 3% improvement in perceived treble quality. I also can't justify $2,000 in capacitors on speakers I paid $2,000 10 years ago.
YG and Sonus Faber use the Mundorf supreme gold oil $$$ caps. Magico uses the Mcaps in the Mini. Great $$$ speakers that most people will never be able to afford. So it makes a difference? I mean it must if they use these expensive caps?
Well... Harman Labs has a blind-test spin-o-rama machine and Revel+ JBL don't use Mundorf Gold Foil Oil caps. The Ultima Salon had electrolytic caps in the bass section and Solens for everything else. So to me, it can't be worth it because it means that the engineers at Harman couldn't hear the difference. I trust the Kevin Voeck(s) and the Floyd Toole(s) of the world and in fact, you'll find that the Kef Reference 200 series speakers all used Solens too.
I don't know why they do it, (I don't have the measuring equipment to figure out why they do) but I respect those companies immensely for their engineering expertise so I'm jumping on their bandwagon. My guess is its either consistency in values, cost-benefit analysis, or lack of audible differences. Either way, if those $20,000++ speakers only used Solen caps, that's all I need.
Unlike some others, these companies didn't come up with a price, then try to justify it by sticking on bits of Silver-Kimber wire, Mundorf Gold caps, 10-way rhodium plated oxygen free binding posts, etc. etc.
There are people who rate $200 caps and claim to hear a huge difference. Maybe they have more sensitive ears than me. Jokes aside, great for them. But if the engineers at Harman and Kef couldn't hear it, why should I assume I can? You can't psychosomatically convince me with how awesome they look.
Rgds
(Best of luck and enjoy the music)
Salon crossover for reference:
Google Image Result for http://downloads.revelspeakers.com/imagelibrary/salon_circuit.jpg
Well... Harman Labs has a blind-test spin-o-rama machine and Revel+ JBL don't use Mundorf Gold Foil Oil caps. The Ultima Salon had electrolytic caps in the bass section and Solens for everything else. So to me, it can't be worth it because it means that the engineers at Harman couldn't hear the difference. I trust the Kevin Voeck(s) and the Floyd Toole(s) of the world and in fact, you'll find that the Kef Reference 200 series speakers all used Solens too.
I don't know why they do it, (I don't have the measuring equipment to figure out why they do) but I respect those companies immensely for their engineering expertise so I'm jumping on their bandwagon. My guess is its either consistency in values, cost-benefit analysis, or lack of audible differences. Either way, if those $20,000++ speakers only used Solen caps, that's all I need.
Unlike some others, these companies didn't come up with a price, then try to justify it by sticking on bits of Silver-Kimber wire, Mundorf Gold caps, 10-way rhodium plated oxygen free binding posts, etc. etc.
There are people who rate $200 caps and claim to hear a huge difference. Maybe they have more sensitive ears than me. Jokes aside, great for them. But if the engineers at Harman and Kef couldn't hear it, why should I assume I can? You can't psychosomatically convince me with how awesome they look.
Rgds
(Best of luck and enjoy the music)
Salon crossover for reference:
Google Image Result for http://downloads.revelspeakers.com/imagelibrary/salon_circuit.jpg
If you take an assymetrical transfer function and mirror it against itself you can restore linearity. I'm not sure that was the intention though, I thought they were focussing on reducing stray inductance.
Either way, distortion is not necessarily a big concern where simple assymetry is concerned.
take my word bennic xpp best for tweeters i have used Mundorf supremes as well didnt like the supremes..
the series connection of caps don't reduce distortion
others like mundorf only use exotic materials to catch people attention....
the only serious study on caps was done by claritycap, no other
Yeah right, they can hear sounds coming from the left, right, up and down
and you can't 😀.
I bet anyone can hear the differences when properly paid to do so.
It doesn't have to be the paper currency, fame counts too to some,
hollow as it is.
It's interesting that I've never liked JBL , Kef or B&W enough to buy them. 🙂 Not that I have evaluated them in a decade or two.
Also, having just switched from stock Focal capacitors to Mundorf MKP's (and a bunch of other changes) I'm far too happy with the Mundorfs to not think about getting good caps. I am pretty sure Focal uses Solen exclusively, though perhaps different grades. Based on this, I am not going to be using Solen's for a long time. However, I'm not necessarily convinced that the Mundorf Supreme's are better than the MKPs, and even if better, 5x better is a big stretch.
Thanks to all the feedback on this thread, I don't think I"ll be trying out the Mundorf Supreme's any time soon.
That's not what I read, but that was related to polar electrolytics. Apparently polars do introduce some asymmetrical distortion in the signals passed, so if you put them together back to back they will cancel each other out. I have no idea if any film capacitors suffer the same though.
This is slightly off topic but I'm with you on all B&Ws(at least the 800 series that I've heard) and Kef's of years ago. I heard the new concentric ones recently though and would encourage you to give them a listen if you have the opportunity because my opinion of Kef changed tremendously after I heard a pair.
Slightly coincidental that I mentioned Floyd Toole earlier, because he gave a talk at McGill university where he commented about the old reference 105.2 as being middle of the pack in one of Harman Labs' blind testing sessions. They blamed it on crap power response which makes sense to me and might explain why I also thought Kef was nothing special, especially when the price was considered. Then again, a lot of speakers we thought were amazing back then, Infinity RS, Yamaha NS, Dahlquist, AR, Quad, KLH, BBC/Rogers etc. are all pretty unspectacular/average/terrible by todays standards.
rgds
'' Above the budget region I take Mundorf/Audyn/SCR Tinfoil types as
being "sane cost & high performance"
so mundorf ZN, audyn plus would be my choice.
Interesting, I'll definitely give them a listen, but now that the speaker building bug has gotten me, I doubt I'll be buying a Kef any time soon.
B&W's I've never disliked... just sounded super average. I don't know how to explain it. I've even heard the original Nautilus driven by 4 or 5 channels of Krell amps each and while I wouldn't have shut it off, I also wouldn't have paid $50 to have it in my house. I don't know that I could explain why.
KEF have really pushed their R and D on their concentric drivers in the last couple of decades and have really turned them into something pretty darned good.
Regarding caps. Just buy nice quality polyprops and don't bother with much more.
I use NO caps in my system as it is entirely active. I used to use a nice poly cap to protect the tweeters and when I removed it after improving the amplifiers protection scheme, did I notice much? No, not really, can't say I did.
Regarding caps. Just buy nice quality polyprops and don't bother with much more.
I use NO caps in my system as it is entirely active. I used to use a nice poly cap to protect the tweeters and when I removed it after improving the amplifiers protection scheme, did I notice much? No, not really, can't say I did.
the new kef are pretty good, but not as amazing as some reviewer would like to make us believe.
tonally, they make everything sounds the same. lacks natural and nuance and impart a certain sound to everything.
not bad, but far from perfect
tonally, they make everything sounds the same. lacks natural and nuance and impart a certain sound to everything.
not bad, but far from perfect
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