Caps

[rollo]

"What a difference a day makes" was a great lyric. Well same can be said for capacitors. My preamp was modified with two .1 dayton caps in a key coupling position [ Bad move what was he thinking. To my ears all was OK but I felt that I should be getting closer to life than I hear. WTF. All this great gear and still not 100% satisfied. So got the soldering iron out, found a pair of Auricaps from my amp [ Consonance] and went to town. Glad I did WOW ! so now the cap chase begins. Do I use V-cap copper, Audio Note, better Auri caps, Rel, oh my. The position couples the Cathode follower to the output tubes. The others are Rel caps. Any suggestions ?
  Anyway the sound is quite good now and was no slouch before so the nervosa begins.



charles
   

[richidoo]

Which Dayton caps? They make real foil caps in small values for bypassing, not metallized, supposed to be decent, but they only cost a dollar each made in chiner, less than grainy wimpy Solens from francais. But your Loesch is worthy of the very best...

Consider these:
DUELUND-025-71535 (200VDC, make sure that's enough!)
http://www.partsconnexion.com/capacitor_film_duelund_vsf_speaker.html - $145 each

North Creek Crescendo $9
http://www.northcreekmusic.com/CrescendoSpeakerCaps.html

[Face]

There are a pair of .1uf Vcaps for sale in the classifieds here, they would be a discernible upgrade.

[_Scotty_]

Somehow Dayton manages to make a bad sounding foil and film cap. Go figure. The Janzen caps from Parts Express are going to be a better choice. My choice for small value polypropylene foil and film bypass caps are Hovland Musicaps.
Scotty

[topround]

My friend just took out his Auricaps and replaced them with the Jupiter HT's..he loves them, also the Crescendo caps are supposed to be great as well, althought they are large.
Auricaps just seem to do things right in my experience, they could be more extended on top and better bass but the mids are glorious. The Jupiters do what the auricaps do to a degree but with better extension at both ends, mids almost as good as the auricap.
Vcaps?  I would stay away, could be an expensive mistake. Charlie, you might be getting excited by the beautiful mids of the auricaps, the vcaps won't have that midrange weighty delisiousness of the auricap, they will have many other great things, depends on what your system needs really.



Mike

[bpape]

Depends on what you want. If you can live with 500 hours of Jekyll and Hyde but want the most neutral, detailed (not overly so), harmonically correct, clean, etc. etc. - the Teflon VCaps are outstanding. 

Couple them with some OIMP VCaps on the outputs and you're in heaven.

Bryan

[rollo]

  Ok heres the deal. V-cap copper Teflon for phono input, V-cap tinfoil for cathode follower and V-cap copper for output. The other choice would be Audio Note copper with a V-cap tinfoil for the cathode.

charles

[BobM]

I used the Sonicap Platinum for the input and the V-Cap OIMP for the output. Easy enough to substitute the V-Cap Copper for the input, but I agree with Brian that if you want something with a bit more midrange warmth and beauty then the OIMP makes for a good choice somewhere in the path. It is not mushy at all but definitely brings to the table some of what oil caps are known for in the mids.

As for the cathode follower, I'm not so sure you really need something as good as a teflon in that location. It's an expensive choice for that.

[musicfile]

Interesting read
I'm thinking of gong with Rel Teflons in the input position and Jupiter Beeswax in the finals for my dodd amps

Any thoughts on this combo
I think this will be a better choice then sonicap plats

Any opionions

[rollo]

Interesting read
I'm thinking of gong with Rel Teflons in the input position and Jupiter Beeswax in the finals for my dodd amps

Any thoughts on this combo
I think this will be a better choice then sonicap plats

Any opinions

  Different yes better who knows. talk with gary dodd. BTW are you looking for a neutral or colored cap ? If colored what flavor. Warm, bright, You also may want to try bypassing the existing caps first. Scotty may be able to help you out there. What caps are in the amp now ? Sonicap platinum ?

charles

[musicfile]

Interesting read
I'm thinking of gong with Rel Teflons in the input position and Jupiter Beeswax in the finals for my dodd amps

Any thoughts on this combo
I think this will be a better choice then sonicap plats

Any opinions

  Different yes better who knows. talk with gary dodd. BTW are you looking for a neutral or colored cap ? If colored what flavor. Warm, bright, You also may want to try bypassing the existing caps first. Scotty may be able to help you out there. What caps are in the amp now ? Sonicap platinum ?

charles

Thanks Charles for your replies. The dodds are quite neutral sounding  and I wanted a cap that gives it a bit of tone without messing up any of it's positive attribute Transparency detail
I currently have russian pio in the amp and they are far too dull and a good part of the high end is missing
The amp came stock with Sonicap GEN 1 and while these caps were very balanced I was missing a bit of the musicality that you get from a good oil
Which is why i'm thinking of going with a mix of caps

Gary really likes the Mundorf silver/gold in his amps not sure If I want to go that overboard in detail as I have vcaps in my preamp and have a very revealing and neutral speaker

[BobM]

The V-Cap OIMP's might be right up your alley then.

[shep]

These are going in my cdp. http://www.audioupgrades.co.uk/audioupgrades_cap.shtml
No user feedback yet. I don't really know what to expect.

[musicfile]

I looked into the OIMP before and I don't think they have caps that small in size
I need .22 ironically I was looking at the Sonicap Plats as well for the input position
What electronics do you have this pairing in ?

[BobM]

I used 1uF Platinums on the input and my original output caps were 5uF, so I opted for the 6.8uF OIMP's (although I doubt if there would have been any difference using the 4.7's).

Remember that smaller coupling caps will reduce bass output, depending on the circuit. I don't think you can be wrong with something larger, but you can be wrong with something smaller.