SV: [sdiy] Orange Drop Capacitors?

[John Alex Hvidlykke]

Hi Nils. Thanks for your post

This may all, to some, be just much snake oil under the bridge, but I do
agree about the great differences. Especially on the input coopling caps.
Anyone willing to sit down and compare should be able to hear. But i confess
that the improvement could likely be best in circiuts not aleready of high
standard.

I need to ask about the nicknames you use:

The "tropical fish" capacitors are probably the colour coding striped
poylester caps, right? A 1 uF cap would be about an inch wide.

The "mustard" caps must be those olive-coloured mullard thingies resembling
small cocktail sausages...

i did not know these were in such high esteem. After reading your posting I
looked mustard caps up on eBay. Five dollars for a 39 nF capacitor! Are they
really that good. I admit to never having tried them aout as I thought them
to be technologically exticnt. I must look into my storage as I probaly have
dozens lying around.

Regards

John

PS. To other posts: Of course we are subjective. For years I used to love
Siemens stack foil caps for input, as they gave new life to high
frequencies, when replacing input electrolytes. But later comparing them to
more "modern" types, like Inter Technic film caps, was a shocking
experience. There was indeed much energy but no nuance to high frequencies.
It was nearly like turning up the resonance control on a VCF, though the
stack foils dit at least not self-oscilate ;-)



> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl]På vegne af Nils Pipenbrinck
> Sendt: 31. december 2009 20:51
> Cc: synth diy
> Emne: Re: [sdiy] Orange Drop Capacitors?
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
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