hear the cap! crap v/s pro

[12afael]

I change the caps of my home made ENGL preamp from polyester and ceramic to orange drop, mallory 150 and silver mica.
I record some parts after and before the change without move any control.

the first 15 second are stereo so you can hear the change with the pan control. from 15 to 22 with bad caps mono.
on the second 22 you can hear the pre with good caps and on second 31 again with bad caps.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4AEB3W8Q

I`m using the marshall cab sim.
I feel that with good caps the sound is more compact more clear and less grainy.
maybe the phase is distorted if the caps are "not caps" on all the audio spectrum.

here are some pictures of the preamp.

http://www.plexilandia.cl/foro/viewtopic.php?t=2717

I hope you can hear the diference.

[Screaming Solo]

wow thats pretty cool i can definatly hear the difference

how hard was it to build that preamp? probably too hard for me, but i'd love to be able to build a nice tube preamp for a fraction of what it'd cost to buy one new

[Peter Snowberg]

That is VERY cool!!!

I think this is the first time I've heard an A/B test like that.

[12afael]

I`m preparing a pcb and a complete description of the project for my page.
a friend of mine make a a/b test with a plexi amp and he and his brother can`t hear the diference. so I record a A/b test for sure me that I can`t hear the diference. probably the gain make the diference because it produce high harmonic content. 

[bwanasonic]

Hmm, not sure what one can take from that clip. If you are replacing multiple caps, the parts tolerences are probably making a greater difference than cap composition. Even something like a slight difference in right hand technique could make for percieved differences at least this noticable. I don't think it makes much sense to globally catagorize caps as good vs. bad. I have found plenty of instances where the supposed *better* cap (particularly silver mica) does not sound as *pleasing* as an allegedly *inferior* cap. I like the idea that you actually did record clips to compare though! It's usually a head smacker I think of after the fact

Kerry M