[Ace o' Spades]

I was examining the pod that I removed from my iM716s last night, and I found something a bit interesting. It looks like there are 2 SMD capacitors on the board. I know that most people who have opened up their iM716s and done a podectomy just use descreet resistors to make a better sounding pod, but what would be the function/benifit of adding a capacitor?

 

[jSatch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ace o' Spades /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was examining the pod that I removed from my iM716s last night, and I found something a bit interesting. It looks like there are 2 SMD capacitors on the board. I know that most people who have opened up their iM716s and done a podectomy just use descreet resistors to make a better sounding pod, but what would be the function/benifit of adding a capacitor?

Caps in parallel (not series) with the driver, thus out to ground, can shelve the freq response. That is, at a certain freq on up, the (input to, and) output from the driver will be reduced. This can be used if there are break-up nodes that you want to suppress. Generally, this would be handled by a notch filter where a cap and inductor will be used to tame the node by decreasing the feed to the driver within a certain ‘notch’ of the spectrum where the node is located. That is, in speaker systems. In IEMs this is more difficult. Break-up nodes can be particularly egregious in ‘hot’ sounding systems as they can add an edgy character to the upper end.