capacitor info

[jdybnis]

I found this really interesting

http://www.tempoelectric.com/caps.htm

A Note About Manufacturers

It may come as a surprise to some, but REL (Reliable Capacitor) and ASC (American Shizuki Corporation) are among the few companies that wind their own capacitors in their own facilities. Most boutique American brands are actually fabricated by RTI Electronics of Anaheim, California. The Auricap is simply their house cap rebranded with different leads and wrappers. They also boast of making the Cardas cap and, based on appearance and quality of construction, are probably the OEM for the VCap TFTF (on dedicated equipment--not their regular line), as well as the Hovland Musicap, SoniCap, and many others. The ASC X300 was relabeled and sold as the original TRT DynamiCap (we have examples on hand with both imprints on the wrapper), but current production seems to be by another firm. In Denmark, Jensen rolls their own, but they are also the OEM for Duelund. For many years, Jensens were also relabeled for Audio Note UK and sold at much higher prices under that brand.

[Martyn]

Thanks, very interesting.

[stangbat]

The manufacturer info is interesting, but the rest of the article is the biggest dose of subjectivity I've had in a while. I'm not doubting that there could be differences, but if you are going to go to all the trouble, a little actual data would be nice.

[BobEllis]

Built in the same house does not mean built to the same specifications.

[servicetech]

Zaph says it doesn't make any audible difference what caps you use, I think he's right. He only throws out electrolytic's because they degrade over time and have low power handling.

[---k---]

Jon and Thomas say it can with the right front end gear.

I buy cheap caps, because I'm cheap; not because of audibility one way or the other.

Its better to not get into this - leave it to AVS or wherever. People are going to believe what they want.

[jkrutke]

Zaph says it doesn't make any audible difference what caps you use, I think he's right. He only throws out electrolytic's because they degrade over time and have low power handling.

Yup, I do believe that but it's not really something I push too hard on, or defiantly defend anymore. There's much more important things to discuss, and if someone likes high end caps, no big deal to me.

[Martyn]

I maintain a healthy scepticism about the possible audible differences between electronic components, but I also try to keep an open mind. Well, I recently built two identical pairs of speakers using PE's ready-built boxes (they were seemingly identical except for the veneers - one was in cherry, the other in maple). Just for fun, I used Dayton resistors in one and Mills in the other. I used Solen caps in both, but for the tweeters' series caps (which are 11 uF) I used a Solen 10 uF with a Solen 1 uF in parallel in the pair with the Dayton resistors, and a Solen 10uF with a Sonicap 1 uF in the Mills pair.

To our amazement (my buddy is at least as sceptical about these things as I am), the two pairs sounded slightly different. Had we been sufficiently intrigued about this to rip the cross-overs out and switch boxes, we might have eliminated the boxes as variables...but we weren't. Besides, my pair was the better sounding one so I wasn't that bothered anyway. Had we expected there to be a difference, we would have tested them with the cross-overs outside and with the wires run through the ports...but we didn't. I've no idea quite what made the difference, but something did.

So this wasn't exactly a rigorously controlled experiment and I'm still a sceptic, but maybe not quite as much as I was previously.

[fjhuerta]

About identical caps and different price points... I do remember studying in economics that one of the best ways to maximise profits was to sell the exact same product at different pricing levels. I can't remember the name of the theory, but surprisingly, it works.