Solen Teflon caps

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I have been looking for a cheaper source for the teflon caps I have heard so many great things about. I have not yet found a very cheap source for them, but in looking, noticed that Solen now offers a few lines of Teflon caps on their website.

www.solen.ca

I was wondering if anyone was familiar with these, along with where I might purchase them. I believe I can get them right through Solen, in Canada, but would prefer not to in order to avoid the import tax.

Anyone seen or used these teflon caps to know if they even are a better value. I dont even know prices yet, so they may be no cheaper than any other.
 
Holy smokes!

Have you seen the _price_ on these things? Oy gevalt, I could buy two woofers for one 10 uF capacitor! That's getting well beyond my diminishing returns threshold, because at that point I can throw more money at almost anything else (speakers, cables, power amps) and get more bang/buck.

And even if my system is so good that going to teflon would make even the slightest difference, I could get a hundred discs for what it'd cost me to recap with these babies.

Anyway, that's my choice. Yours is likely different, so de gustibus and all that.


Francois.
 
parts, parts, parts!

to me, one of the biggest joys of DIY audio is hunting down underrated parts on the surplus market. Through the years this has proved worth it's weight in gold in terms of knowledge gained and the education involved. There is almost no greater joy than to come across some components that no "conventional" audiophile would ever think about using and would absolutely smoke the popular stuff being bandied about by the masses, all for just mere pennies on the dollar. This in itself is an education that proves most beneficial in all phases of audio.
 
I understand your concern with the cost, however, I didn't ask your opinion of value. Teflon caps are expensive, we all know this. Yet everyone who I have talked to, who has used them, claims they are worth the money. I hear nothing but raves about them. The V-cap was highly recomended, but the catalogue price on the Solens is less for a similar speced cap. I did not intend to use them in the crossovers where high values where used. I agree, 10uf for almost 400 dollars in a bit rediculous. However, for area's where I can use a .44uf, a bypass cap, whatever the need, I am anxious to try them to see what they can do. Also, as an output cap, where you would use just two, and the cost would be maybe 25-30 dollars, I think is worthwhile. That is an area I think is especially affected by the caps sound.
 
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Hi pjpoes,
Why not just order a few to try then? Get some other things if there is anything you want.

I have ordered from Solen many times. They have been good to deal with. The product is generally very good. I have not tried those, and do not plan to unless someone has a very convincing argument.

-Chris
 
The Russian surplus Teflon caps are a fraction of the price. Look at the FT-3 series. I have heard nothing but good stuff about them. Sure, it's only Mil-Spec and not audio grade so there is no pixie dust or expensive marketing to pay for but these were used in the best stuff that Russia made.



BillWojo
 
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In the past when I purchased parts from Solen and they went by post there was no import duty. In these times things may change soon..

Another good option are REL TFT available from Michael Percy and Sonic Craft here in the U.S.

Vcaps come with a pretty hefty discount if you buy a few pieces - they are one of my favorite coupling caps, but I don't use anything larger than 0.1uF.

I've used them in low level, high impedance circuitry. Their benefit is less pronounced for other purposes, and in particular I would not use them outside of the signal path. (Waste of money for power supply bypassing for example)

The FT-3 is also very good, but are rather bulky compared to comparable values made here.
 
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Hi Kevin,
For coupling caps, size can be an issue. You certainly do not want them to be too large for example. I don't have a problem with the size where the higher values of capacitance come in for supply decoupling, but not for transferring signals in a high impedance node.

-Chris
 
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