[sdiy] Orange Drop Capacitors?

[Nils Pipenbrinck]

I build guitar pre-amplifiers as a hobby, and sooner or later you start
trying out all the different capacitors because everyone talks so much
about them.

I did so, and there is a difference. Even I can hear it with my party
damanged ears.

However, I only hear a difference at some locations within a typical
guitar amplifier. The coupling-cap of the first amplifier stage is most
noticable. The same applies to the kathode bypass caps if you do a
not-so-subtle change from electrolyte to film-type.

Whatever the capacitor does in the early stages gets amplified and
distorted a lot, so the typical guitar signal chain helps a lot to
emphasize the difference. As a musican you train you ears to notice even
the sutbltes differences in the sound of *your* instrument. That helps
as well.


The difference itself is a change in the sound, most noticable in the
highs. However, it is not a simple frequency-curve effect though. It has
something to do with the transient response of the cap. Orange Drops
sound somewhat more open while the Malloy's (another popular brand for
guitar amps) tends to make the sound a bit more diffuse.. A washed out
sound so to say..

Neither of the sounds is worse/better. It all depends on how you want to
shape the sound. And btw. One of the cheap of-the-shelf WIMA cap sounds
almost the same as the orange drops. :-)

Btw. There is a disturbing correlation of how good a cap ought to sound
vs. how expensive/difficult to obtain a cap is.. Mustard caps (still
have some of those from the 80th) and tropical fish caps are among the
best if you ask around. On eBay they are worth their weight in gold
these days.

To me they sound as good/bad as other caps using the same dielectricum,
just with a very subtle twist in color.. I tried my old phillips mustard
caps. They sound good, but there is nothing special about it.


Regading these sounds, and all those audiophile snake-oil: Have you ever
heared about cognitive dissonance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

It explains it all!

In a nutshell. Say you have spent 10€ on a capacitor, or 150 € on a
power-chord and the sound does not improve your brain has a problem:
You've spend your hard earned money after all, and therefore you want a
satisfaction.

In these cases your brain will in most cases prevent you from a
disapointment, change your perception and alter your memory - bind the
reality so to say -to make sure that you get your reward.


Cheers & Happy new year,

Nils