What Caps?

M

mp9

New member
- so who's played around with designer Caps, which and was it worth it?

Posting as i see Madisound has a few 10uf caps on sale as well as a new affordable Al PP in Oli from Mundorf -

Clarity cap MR $92.00 were $123
http://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/esa-cap-630vdc/claritycap-10.0-mfd-esa-range-polypropylene-caps/

Clarity cap ESA $19.67 were $29.50
http://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/esa-cap-630vdc/claritycap-10.0-mfd-esa-range-polypropylene-caps/

New Aluminum Metalized Polypropylene in Oil Mundorf EVO oli $18.75
http://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/mundorf-mcap-evo-oil-caps/mundorf-10mfd-evo-oil-capacitor/
 
Is it worth it? Depends on what you are looking to get out of it. In my opinion (and I say this as someone who has installed "upgraded" caps in all of my Bottlehead builds), they don't make a huge difference in terms of sound. But they are fun to install, give me piece of mind, make me more attractive and got me elected "coolest guy on the block", so yeah, it was worth it.  ;)

I have installed ClarityCap ESA and SA caps. I haven't tried the MR series, which - based on ClarityCap's marketing materials - don't seem all that different from the ESA series, yet cost a LOT more. I've heard that the new Mundorf caps are huge (I think someone said so here on Bottlehead, but I'm not sure.) For my money, the ESA caps seem like the sweet spot in terms of price vs. (at least theoretical) performance. But everyone sees this stuff differently, so...
 
Ok mp9 here is were you start:
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html

Do some diligent study. We all have our opinions. I like the oils. The teflons are to die for, cant afford um. Pick your poison my friend. There is a 'house sound' for sure within certain brands. You tend to get what you pay for, but system synergy is key. The mantra is 'Everything matters'. It truly does. A cap can sound like shit because the cables are not right. Sorry. Its complicated. Thats why you have certain people spending hundreds of thousands on kit. They're not stupid. They would just rather pay someone else to hassle with the details. Us DIY'ers take the 'hassle' on with joy. We live for it, as a matter of fact.. Sorry - had a couple of Scotches. Its a good Monday night!
 
Hey folks,

I built my BeePre with Clarity MR. They were a bear to fit, but are quite good. A bit pricey...

I built a SS buffer (Pass B1) a few years ago and used the Clarity SA. Later replaced with Mundorf Supreme. The Mundorf Supreme proved a major upgrade in that circuit over the Clarity SA.

YMMV.

-Kevin
 
Just so you guys know, 10uF is not a magical value.  If you're feeding an amplifier with high input impedance, you can go quite a bit lower.

-PB
 
Best answer is to do what we did - listen to a variety of caps:

Theory 1 - LF cutoff and phase shift suggest that a 5Hz corner is close enough to zero. 260K at 5Hz is 0.12uF.

Theory 2 - The cap reactance should be no more than the output impedance at the lowest hum frequency, to minimize the chance of capacitive hum coupling. 600 ohms at 60Hz is 4.4uF

#3 not-a-theory - we tried a bunch and thought the bass was best at 10uF or more.

YMMV.
 
Interesting!  Thank you PB and PJ.  I've got a pair of 5uF Auricaps I may try against the Auri Caps.  I can measure any change in bass response with the mic.
 
Yep.. Chance is you will hear something. We most always hear something with changes. The hard part is trying to decide what kind of change it is, and is it worth it. Most of the time, if its not broken, dont fix it.
 
I probably wouldn't, though it's possible that it wouldn't cause any problems.  It's tough to ignore that even the regulated supply is well over 100V.

-PB
 
Paul Joppa said:
Best answer is to do what we did - listen to a variety of caps:

Theory 1 - LF cutoff and phase shift suggest that a 5Hz corner is close enough to zero. 260K at 5Hz is 0.12uF.

Theory 2 - The cap reactance should be no more than the output impedance at the lowest hum frequency, to minimize the chance of capacitive hum coupling. 600 ohms at 60Hz is 4.4uF

#3 not-a-theory - we tried a bunch and thought the bass was best at 10uF or more.

YMMV.
Click to expand...

I know this may seem out of character, but I actually measured that 10uF was around the smallest we wanted to go for best bass extension into a typical 50K-100K load, on a scope.
 
johnsonad said:
PJ/PB, can I use a 100v cap here?
Click to expand...
Trying not to be a PITA, but would 200v suffice for the 10uF caps in the PreBee/Mainline? I'm eyeing up a particular Russian PIO model that I might be able to shoehorn.
 
200V is pretty marginal based on startup voltage, but operating voltage will be much lower.

In the BeePre, the 300B's warm up very quickly (unless they are old and crusty), so the voltage across the 10uF caps will pop right down to ~100V.  If you have no 300B's and no EL84's plugged in, you'll put more than 200V across those caps...

In the Mainline, everything warms up slowly.  The 10uF caps will have more than 200V across them for quite some time, I'd say 15-30 seconds every time you turn the amp on.

I don't think I would worry a whole lot about either case, but those startup spikes may decrease the life of your 200V caps.

-PB

(PS - the Russian military caps are "noted" for having tolerance to higher voltages, but I don't think anybody has abused one to the point of failure, so no hard data really exists)
 
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