The best caps to use?

[tackleberry]

I searched and got alot of contradictory info or it just doesnt matter. Its generally agreed you use aluminum electros in power supply filtering. And that some kinds of film caps are better than others. But as for high value caps in the signal path like a 4.7uf a film cap is gonna be to big and most of the time aluminum electros are used due to cost more than any other consideration. Is it worth the extra cost of tantalums vs regular aluminums. I found those who say tantalums are junk and shouldnt be used and some who say oh they are way better than aluminum, and some who say theres no difference so go with the cheaper part. Whats the truth in this matter or is there any and its just opinion and mojo?

[Mark Hammer]

This is not intended to brush you off, but the topic has been repeatedly addressed here in previous threads.  No need to make people repeat themselves when they've said it all quite nicely before.

Maybe some nice folks more skilled than I at the use of the search function could direct you to some of the relevant discussions?

[jefe]

The best caps to use are neither aluminum nor tantalum... the best are made of unobtainium, with impossibilium coming in a close 2nd. Too bad I own the world's supply, and you can't have any.

[MikeH]

The simple answer:

The ones that fit.  And in general, avoid ceramic.

[Gus]

http://uk.geocities.com/cyrilb2@btinternet.com/downloads_4.html

Good read.  Not all ceramic is bad.  Also look around Steve Bench's site

[WLS]

Not to hijack a thread, but their is one already going on capacitors with a lot of useful information in it.

As far as tantalums vs regular life span plays a role.


Bill

[petemoore]

  Beyond discussting ceramic caps, which may offer some character, the variances are dwarfed by mostly anything else...especially speakers transistors and...
  The variances in ceramic cap values compared to what's marked on one as say .022uf, seemed to be large enough that this alone steered me away from using them.
  Purportedly there's a possibility you can get a touch of 'strange fizz' from a ceramic HF rolloff cap in a FF Q2B/C position, I think I actually heard it once, maybe not.
  Cumulative effect [say all ceramics as seen in old BMP]...if I wanted to [felt inclined enough] I could experiment...ceramics Vs. Film Vs. Metal film Vs. whatever else...
  In 'laboratory spec Big Muff Pies'...tolerances of resistors and of course Hfe of same type transistors would also have to be selected as "X" value in each position of each build to make the capacitors have equal playing fields in order to experiment on only the capacitors.
  Then I realized that might just lead to discussions of expensive is always better, which, of course it isn't but already is...caps lead to such discussions, the playing field is pretty wierd IMO, taking a look a RG's page at GEO on capacitor distortion offers evidence that the differences are almost infanitecimally small enough to assume that only cumulative effects are probably noticable.
   Caps ability to play seemed quite often written about in some flowery language derived from some cap vs. cap game with a slanted playing field, 'expensive' starting out on the high side.
   ..."Expensive" is something I like to, but can't always avoid, and I like to reserve that for stuff I do notice tangible difference in, discernable to the point of having fairly clear preferences, such as components with plates or coils.