[sdiy] "Boutique" capacitors

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow the person formerly known as S.
         Just quickly. If you're talking about Electrolytic caps then, in 
general, Vintage = bad.

Electros have a shelf life. The better ones have a longer shelf life. There 
is much written about this and I'm not up for engating my brain just now 
but I'm sure you'll find all you need to know at one of these fine web sites.

http://www.faradnet.com/

http://www.tpub.com/electronics.htm

And I'm sure there are many more that people here could chime in with. If 
memory serves, Harry wrote a particularly good run down on caps. Am I 
correct here?

Newer caps are almost always going to be better. Better technology and 
being newer, have a longer useful life. There are exceptions however, and 
this is where the sound-card thing may come in...

A while back there was a story about how some big Taiwanese cap maker 
thought they hit the mother-load when they "Acquired" the top secret 
formula for the dielectric used in some "Top Brand" low ESR Japanese 
Electros. They went into production with them, offered them cheaper to 
mother board manufacturers etc, and several months later, all these high 
end computers were mysteriously dying. And some of these boards were the 
REALLY expensive ones.

Turns out that the formula they had "acquired" was a fake. Put there for 
the specific purpose of catching out industrial spys and the folk who pay 
them. You see, it's all in that formula and each fab has their own recipe. 
And that's where the different lies. Just because it says they're low ESR 
doesn't mean they actually are. If crappy caps had worked their way into 
the sound card market at some stage, (which is entirely likely) then 
chances are replacing them with just about anything else would have made a 
huge improvement.

And I won't go into the greed of Motherboard Fabs who must have thought 
they were getting the bargain of a life time.

Likewise, replacing old, really old caps with new ones stand a good chance 
of making an improvement. Even if they're not some hot recommended brand by 
a bunch of audiophiles. Who generally have no clue about electronics.

"I don't know much about the art of electronics but I know what I like."

And I'll restrain myself here, from listing a litany of great jokes told by 
audiophiles as truths.

Generally speaking though, the general consensus is that Electrolytics are 
evil nasty things that should have been drowned at birth. But 
unfortunately, quite often a necessity.

Hope this helps.

Be absolutely Icebox.

PS: I only mentioned "vintage" because I don't think I've seen a NEW 
Rubycon cap for maybe 10 years.

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