Can your ears distinguish tants from alum/electros?

[Electron Tornado]

On the other hand, when I make changes based on V=IR and f=1/(2piRC) I hear dramatic differences that are consistent and repeatable. Using that technique, how to get "good tone" is so obvious it slaps you in the face. And it works every time. I know which approach I will continue to take.

+1
It seems to be a general rule that the people who make bold claims about being able to hear the difference between capacitor types, silver wire and blue dots are invariably the ones who can't do maths or electronics. Since all they can do is blindly sub different mojo parts into their circuits, they need something to sound off about and sound clever. The entire planet's technology is designed by engineers, not cork sniffers. Coincidence?

+1 to both.

Many ideas become accepted as "fact" not because they are true, but because someone made a statement (usually for marketing purposes) and it gets repeated by others who know no better, and repeated still more by people who don't want to sound like they're "not in the know" about something.

Are there differences between caps (or any other components)? Yes, BUT do those differences have any effect on the output signal? Maybe, maybe not. Our ears (all of our senses) perform differently under between different individuals, and can perform differently for the same individual at different times. The point here is that our senses are not precision instruments and are fallible. (I won't even go into the psychological aspects of this.) Tests people say they've done by ear are never blind tests and are only qualitative at best. I know some will disagree, but if something is measurable by our ears, it should be measurable by more sensitive and precise means. Is that tone you hear really in the signal, or just in your head?

Another point to consider is that most people "test" things with their guitar and amp. So now there are the factors of the guitar, guitar strings, pickups, amplifier, and the player's playing technique. That same pedal can sound different if any of those factors are changed. So the test conditions are hardly controlled or standardized.

If you're just building for yourself, don't sweat over that other people say they hear, use whatever you have available and what sounds good to you.   

It would be interesting to learn why certain materials are used in capacitors and why others are no longer used. I have a feeling many of the answers have nothing to do with tone.

[Earthscum]

It would be interesting to learn why certain materials are used in capacitors and why others are no longer used. I have a feeling many of the answers have nothing to do with tone.

In my experience in other fields, it's about money. Cost effectiveness, demand, they determine supply and availability. R.G. and others mentioned it many times, if it isn't cost effective enough to make, they don't make it. Our hobbyist niche doesn't fill but a fraction of a fraction of the demand. Germanium transistors are a good example of this. The same has come up in the discussions about through-hole components hitting "end of life". SMD is taking over, and pretty soon we're left digging for "mojo" parts, because "the old through-hole fets just sound so much sweeter than the SMD!" 

[greaser_au]

Cap threads are truly a waste. Stick in there what you want and try other types of caps and see for yourself. In different circuits, some types of caps may work better than others. It can be circuit dependent. Not worthy of a thread IMHO. Just friggin plug some caps in and see for yourself - too easy

Indubitably... but why are there sooooooo many of them on these (& the amplifier) forums?  What is missed is that the average manufacturer used the cheapest part he can lay his hands on.  Suddenly (like mustard polys) the cheapest are no longer available- and there is a market for the mojo merchants and the snake-oil salesmen. Then we have a plethora of 'orange-drop vs mustards' thread- no doubt they sound different, but: a) what was used in the original kit that is being cloned , making the 'right' sound; or  b)   what sounds best to the user? (And this is where we run into the problem, it's all about taste - some people like european (or american) beers, I think the maybe 40 or so varieties I have tried  taste like p155, and the best is Cooper's Sparkling Ale made just down the road here-  there,  I've started another argument  and before you respond here, there IS an appropriate thread:  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=91547.msg781343#msg781343 )

best wishes,
david

[Electron Tornado]

Indubitably... but why are there sooooooo many of them on these (& the amplifier) forums?  

Because there is soooooo much more hype out there than real data.

What is missed is that the average manufacturer used the cheapest part he can lay his hands on.  Suddenly (like mustard polys) the cheapest are no longer available- and there is a market for the mojo merchants and the snake-oil salesmen.

+1

What's really funny is when someone simply re-packages an item and all of a sudden the older packaging gains some kind of mojo status.

[wavley]

I'm not one for mojo, but I am one for using the best components I can at a cost ceiling I feel is reasonable.  The sneeze on the tone knob analogy is certainly apt, but I have another one.

When I was a kid and rode BMX there was an older guy that was always trying to shave an ounce or two off of his bike by buying lighter parts or whatever.  I asked him why he was so worried about a couple of ounces and he said "If I shave a couple here and a couple there then pretty soon it adds up to a pond or two or three, and that can be the difference between winning and loosing a race"

So my outlook is much the same (within reason) with audio, a sneeze better here and sneeze better there and eventually it will add up to a tone difference even my wife can hear.

[frank_p]

Haha. Now I understand.  It's your girlfriend fault if it cost you that much.

[DougH]

I'm not one for mojo, but I am one for using the best components I can at a cost ceiling I feel is reasonable.  The sneeze on the tone knob analogy is certainly apt, but I have another one.

When I was a kid and rode BMX there was an older guy that was always trying to shave an ounce or two off of his bike by buying lighter parts or whatever.  I asked him why he was so worried about a couple of ounces and he said "If I shave a couple here and a couple there then pretty soon it adds up to a pond or two or three, and that can be the difference between winning and loosing a race"

So my outlook is much the same (within reason) with audio, a sneeze better here and sneeze better there and eventually it will add up to a tone difference even my wife can hear.

The problem with that analogy is that in this case "better" depends on the circuit, the place in the circuit the cap is, voltage level it's run at, rig (guitar/amp/speaker) it's used with, playing style and taste of the user. There is no quantifiable 'better"- it's all over the map depending on a large number of factors.

In the case of the bike, weight is weight- easily measurable anywhere in the world to a standard everyone agrees on. No mitigating factors, variables or particular circumstances: It either weighs less or it doesn't.

How are you so certain that spending more money on a cap assures that it's even a "better" product? Audio component pricing like this is driven by demand, not by actual measurable quality (as in quality/shelf-life of materials, value tolerance, heat tolerance, etc). Otherwise, Rat lovers wouldn't jones over a p.o.s. op amp like an LM308, and so on...

Edit: Oh and i'm not trying to bust your balls. Slow day at work, it's friday and I want to get out of here but can't. Interesting discussion...

[frank_p]

[greaser_au]

Try the same test with 1kV ceramic caps. The low voltage ones have much more hysteresis and are also the most non-linear of pretty much all capacitors. If I have to use ceramic caps, I always use the 1kV type.

Interestingly, this is supported by Steve Bench's tests...
david

[greaser_au]

What's really funny is when someone simply re-packages an item and all of a sudden the older packaging gains some kind of mojo status.

This is probably fair if it's a 1978 Chewbacca action figure... 

I have an old black c-logo Ibanez lawsuit LP copy I bought in the mid-80's (for not much $) that my oldest boy has hijacked.  I have only ever seen one other (in sunburst), until tonight, the guy had a cream one with maple neck.  A fair guitar (but set up right they are killer) Blew me away - like ALL THE WAY!.  No accounting for what people think is cool!

david

[amptramp]

One of our London Vintage Radio Club meetings (London, Ontario, not London England) featured a stereo single-ended triode amplifier that one member had built.  He demonstrated it and the sound was pleasant - but you could tell there was considerable distortion.  Enough that even if you had heard a piece in the original form with a low-distortion audio train, you might like his 5% distortion amplifier better.

As for the effect of price, a colleague of mine in the 1970's started making sailboat autopilots out of a flux gate and power window motors with an amplifier and started selling them at $350 which was a bit more than the cost of parts, and he sold one or two a month.  But he heard enough sailors saying, "Don't buy radio ABC, it's only $700, buy radio XYZ, it's $1200", so he simplified the design using a compass and two hall-effect sensors and started selling them at $800.  He was moving a dozen a month.  He rented a sailboat for a summer and wrote off the expense as a business deductible for autopilot testing.  I used to hang around with a lot of people with excellent business acumen.  Too bad it didn't transfer by osmosis.

[wavley]

Actually I agree with you Doug that my analogy was a bit over simplified.  I quantify my better as what is best for the circuit and spend a bit of time tinkering, but as a general rule of thumb I try to pick the tightest tolerance stuff I can within cost reason.  I have a good supply of polycarbonate film caps that I got surplus that I save for the most full frequency applications, to my ears that's where they usually sound best, but as a rule I find that the panasonic and wima caps we all use sound perfectly good in just about all guitar circuits, I tend to bypass any electrolytics with film if they are in my signal path, but don't always bother with that in dirt boxes.  I tend to only use ceramic for taming oscillations or helping to clean up power supplies by bypassing electrolytics.  Tants are good for when I need low esr or small space and I even have some Sprague 150d tants that sound good in signal paths.

I don't know, I spend a lot of time tinkering and will often try a bunch of things before I commit, I try not to have hard rules about what goes where anymore because I've been pleasantly surprised by liking a lot of things break my rules of thumb.  I often will order a few different things and if a tighter tolerance or better temperature range isn't much more I'll buy it just for reliability of builds.

Sometimes a slow op amp or a grainy cap IS what's best for the circuit, but usually things like buffers, splitters, or whathaveyou, I tend to use the lowest noise stuff I have on hand and try out a few caps and polycarbonate and polypropylene caps usually win.

In amps, I find that after playing with a lot of hifi caps and whatnot I tend to just like Sprague 715p or those Sozo caps, not bad on price not bad on sound.

[frank_p]

As for the effect of price, a colleague of mine in the 1970's started making sailboat autopilots out of a flux gate and power window motors with an amplifier and started selling them at $350 which was a bit more than the cost of parts, and he sold one or two a month.  But he heard enough sailors saying, "Don't buy radio ABC, it's only $700, buy radio XYZ, it's $1200", so he simplified the design using a compass and two hall-effect sensors and started selling them at $800.  He was moving a dozen a month.  He rented a sailboat for a summer and wrote off the expense as a business deductible for autopilot testing.  I used to hang around with a lot of people with excellent business acumen.  Too bad it didn't transfer by osmosis.

Friend of my parents made a sailboat all of metal.  They made a trip around the world with it.  The name of the boat was La V'limeuse.  It's french slang that mean: Said of someone who has the cunning, skill, daring to have fun at the expense of others, to avoid embarrassment or succeed.

This boat:
http://pages.infinit.net/vlimeuse/page4.htm#Plans

So maybe no business acumen but good earthy tips there.

Edit: Oh and i'm not trying to bust your balls. Slow day at work, it's friday and I want to get out of here but can't. Interesting discussion...

  Process job deformation Doug.  A couple of hours and MBAs will leave you alone.

[Bill Mountain]

I might have missed it in this thread but the only thing I look at when choosing new caps is the tolerance.  That smoother frequency roll off of one brand/type could simply be a cap so far out of spec enough that it effects your filters.