Which capacitors do you use? Which are "the best/recommended"

[tenser75]

This must have been asked millions of times...
but i'm still confused if there is any difference in sound between ceramic, film, etc...

Which type or brand of capacitor would you use or best pedal builders use out there?

[intripped]

...you're entering a world of Pain

[slashandburn]

560uf.  That's probably my favourite. I have some green ones with gold text.   

Strikes me as a weird value and colour scheme. I like stuff like that.

[FiveseveN]

any difference in sound

No. Problem solved.

[Rob Strand]

The fine details are very complex.

For guitar pedals and "through hole" components (ie. not surface mount) you will go a long way without any trouble sticking to this simple set of rules:

less than 1nF:  use Ceramic caps  (preferably NPO or equivalent and not too big)
1nF to 100nF:  use film caps
Non polarized  larger than 100nF and smaller than 10uF:
               For good quality and reliability use film caps but for small size use non-polarized electrolytics.
               Larger film caps can get very large!
Non polarized  larger than 10uF use non-polarized electrolytic
Polarized caps: Use electrolytic caps.

Don't worry about brands unless the size or shape suits you better.

[tenser75]

Rob Strand, thanks for the simple, clear and pragmatical answer.

[duck_arse]

"the Dude" strikes me as a silver mica man. hope this helps.

[exztinct01]

Are there any brands that we could say would last a lifetime and brands that last only weeks?
Generally, there is no magic in types or brands of caps that will alter sound in guitar stuff (don't know about hifi), but maybe when it comes to reliability and durability, there's a lot of differences?

[Mark Hammer]

I use whatever I have far too many of from previous shopping trips, given the board layout will accommodate that lead spacing, and the height doesn't result in the cap butting up against the back of a pot..

Always remember: it's rock and roll.  If you were mixing a symphony of acoustic instruments in the studio, and wide bandwidth was needed, that would be cause for consideringcap type.  But it's one fricking guitar, destined to have its original harmonic content severely misrepresented when it comes out of the speakers, and the speakers likely roll off above 6khz.  So, would it really matter?

The one place where I would pay attention is caps used to hold onto a voltage for a little while, such as a sample & hold unit, or an envelope-controlled anything.  In those instances, leakage plays a role in performance, although keep in mind they are not in the audio path.

[tenser75]

MArk

I totally agree its' it's rock & roll  and this can easly became just mental masturbtation

it's just curiosity more to understand if there are absolute DO & DONTs

i heard Fulton or Keely, dnt remeber, they just use film capacitors painted in epoxy red...

[PRR]

> brands that we could say would last a lifetime and brands that last only weeks?

Nobody is making junk caps for hobbyists.

Caps are made by the millions and billions for products that are sold and warranted. While the warranties may be short, even a 0.01% failure rate means many thousands of returns and unhappy customers.

Most cap makers try to do it right. Caps can't live forever (insulation always breaks down) but most small-audio caps you buy today will last 1000 years (or until the leads rust off in a century).

"Paper" caps from the 1940s do die in only 10-40 years. That's why we don't see them. Except in low-risk high-mojo jobs.

Electrolytics last 10-50 years *unless* there's some snot in the vat. PPM of chlorides will rot electrolytics in 3 to 5 years. Most notoriously, Dell had a batch of bad caps (so I had a batch of bad Dell PCs). This made a major stink in the industry. "Good" cap makers try very hard not to have their name on the next scandal.

[Mark Hammer]

Keep in mind that all those highly desirable fuzzboxes from1970 or earlier used bigass ugly ceramic disc caps.

[slashandburn]

Forgive my completely unhelpful earlier reply, I must have been in a strange mood.   

I might be wrong here but I think the industry stink Paul is refering to the so called "capacitor plague" that from what I can tell is responsible for much of the notion that certain branded capactors might be inferior to other.   For all I know, this is just a myth but the story goes that in the early 2000's some guy defected from one large capacitor manufacturer to another, and took with him a stolen electrolyte (but incomplete, or untested) formula.  This other company supposedly flooded the market with capacitors made from a dodgy electrolyte.  It's a fairly interesting story but I wouldn't be too concerned about these bad caps landing in your parts box unless you salvage all your caps from old motherboards built in 2004 or something. 

I'm sure I picked that story up here, seems relevant.  Apologies again for the earlier dickish sounding comments.  Just got with whatever fits and has the right numbers on it, man.

[Rob Strand]

There are fake caps which are made to look like good brand caps - they are made to deceive.
I remember a story of a company in the defense or medical field getting failures.  It is normal
process to analyse the source of failures in these industries.   The failure was found to be the caps.
The caps were a reputable brand.  The company sent the caps back to the cap manufacture
for analysis (presumably all not just the faulty ones). The cap manufacturer found the caps
did not pass their own production tests.   Then they found they were fakes.

The fake IC and transistor thing has been around for some time.   It seems nothing is immune
to being faked these days.

People have bought parts from reputable suppliers and ended up with fakes. 
One story was good parts were shipped from a reputable supplier but were off-loaded from the plane
in China and replaced with dodgy parts.  In some industries you are forced to have quality controls that
approve suppliers but dodgy crap can still get through!

A guy bought Sennheiser headphones from Amazon and found they were fakes.
The way he found out is the dodgy one had 3.5mm jacks.  He later bought the same model with 2 5mm
jack.  The 2.5mm jack version, which is less popular and there is less motive to make a fake, sounded better
and the story unfolded ...

[thermionix]

Not my pic:



How long would that have held up at 450VDC?  How good would it sound in a circuit that called for 40uF?  I try to avoid the cheapest Chinese options out there.  I don't really buy components on Ebay, either.  Stick with known brands from reputable distributors and you should be okay.

[gena_p1]

film = more clean below 5kHz
ceramic - more dirt and middle freqs

just build big muff or any other drive with sockets for capacitors and try it yourself. Especially in feedback limitting

[Magnus]

Hello,
here in Germany we use Wima MKS often which are also liked in the USA...

I myself like WIMA MKS capacitors too.
Panasonic manufactures the "Panasonic SMF (Stacked Metal Film)"-capacitors
which sometimes are physical smaller compared to other manufacturers.
They are metalized polyester like the WIMA MKS and a good choice too.
For the electrolytics I prefer Panasonic FC's.

If I build something with vintage ("mojo") I use axial caps,
for example NOS Mullard Mustards or Vishay/Roederstein MKT1813.
NOS means "new old stock", new but very old caps.
Really high-quality axial-electrolytics are the Sprague "Atom"-series
which are used in vintage-amp-replicas often.
Radial vintage ("mojo") - NOS Philips/Mullard-caps, NOS Mullard "Tropical Fish"-caps or Philips MKT.

If you have capacitors with higher tolerances you can measure them with a dmm
and use the one closer to the original value.
This may have more influence to the sound as the capacitor-type I think 


Greetings
Magnus

[FiveseveN]

film = more clean below 5kHz
ceramic - more dirt and middle freqs

How does the dielectric know what frequency your signal is, so that it may act differently?!

[slashandburn]

Not my pic:



How long would that have held up at 450VDC?  How good would it sound in a circuit that called for 40uF?  I try to avoid the cheapest Chinese options out there.  I don't really buy components on Ebay, either.  Stick with known brands from reputable distributors and you should be okay.

Wow. I'd heard of the "Russian Doll" capacitors. And assumed it was just exagerated. That photo is pretty worrying.

[Mark Hammer]

In the same way that folks who produce counterfeit money do not waste their time on small denomination bills, anyone involved in making "fake" capacitors would be an absolute fool to waste their time on caps that would normally retail for under several dollars each.

In our world, that would generally not apply.  It would, however, apply to folks buying/making amps, or stuffing mojo caps into their LP reissues.