[sdiy] "Boutique" capacitors

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Friday 04 February 2005 07:19 pm, s wrote:
> hello Guys-
>
> I've been reading about the Black Gate & Rubycon capacitors on various high
> end audio/stereo/amp pages for the last couple of months.

Dunno about you,  but I sure don't fit in with that "golden ear" crowd...

> I recently came across a page where they had a huge variety of them for sale
> at pretty reasonable prices... I've seen places where people talk about
> replacing a couple on PC sound cards and having an improvement in quality.
> as well, people have gone on and on about the quality and improvements
> in sound when they're used in amps and all.

Does that stuff mention any specific numbers?

> I'm wondering- do you think they'd be good (i.e. provide quality 
> improvement) if I used them to replace caps in Oscillators, Filters, and
> VCA's?

I doubt it.

> I would think if they improved audio quality in those other things, that
> they could provide the same benefits in synth modules. But, I don't know
> enough to say... thus I'm asking this wonderful base of knowlege.

I read an article some time back in Electronics World,  which I pick up very 
occasionally,  and in this particular article the author was discussion the 
amount of distortion that was added to a signal using different types of 
capacitors.  From what he was saying,  electrolytics were the worst,  but 
mylar wasn't a whole lot better.

At some point in my reading it finally hit me what sorts of numbers he was 
talking about -- and those numbers were not only below anything I was ever 
likely to hear,  but also below the measurement capabilities of equipment I'd 
used to measure distortion only a couple or three decades ago.

So in my case,  I won't be worrying about it.  :-)