[SleepyOne]

Jimmy's review part 2.

Jimmy’s Junkyard » Blog Archive » Extreme Capacitors Battle (2nd Session)

 

[Jon L]

BYPASSING WITH VCAP TEFLONS

After being charmed by the K75-10 capacitor, I did try replacing them with several others but ended up missing what K75-10 does best, i.e. rich, colorful, center-of-earth midrange, with gobs of texture, which some may interpret as extra grain. Putting the K75-10 back in, I then missed the finely-delineated upper frequencies with smooth extension other caps are blessed with.

In the past, whenever I was faced with this type of situation, bypassing often saved the day, so I tried bypassing K75-10 with VCap teflons. With many caps, bypassing with teflons often sound terribly disjointed and incoherent, but K75-10 sang beautifully with VCap teflons. This combination retained all the warmth, richness, and texture of K75-10 but imbued the upper and lower frequencies with extra clarity and definition that was sorely needed. As often is the case when high frequency harmonics are improved, the bass frequencies subjectively tightened up as well. This pair is so attractive-sounding that I believe the combo belongs in the league of the best of the breed. Of course, there is no guarantee this combo will work as well in one's particular gear/system, but if you find teflons too "clinical" and oilers not neutral enough, one can certainly do a lot worse.

 

[Jon L]

AmpOhm Polyester Film Aluminum Capacitor

Many people believe polyester capacitors are cheap and bad-sounding and tend to avoid anything that says "polyester"; however, most of this belief stems from bad experience with cheap polyester capacitors, not serious polyester film capacitors like the AmpOhm pictured above.

True film polypropylene capacitors (i.e. ERO KP1832) tend to sound better than metallized polypropylene caps, and so do film polyester cap like AmpOhm compared to MKT caps. In my experience, cheap, small MKT caps tend to sound rough, bright, and forward, lacking true extension and refinement. Some of them do sound decent and maybe even "good", but they are not going to be mistaken for good teflons or PIO's anytime soon. So when I first inserted the AmpOhm polyester film cap after the burn-in apparatus and heard a brightish, thin sound, I said to myself, "Yup, that sounds like polyester." But following my usual protocol, I let the caps burn in more in the actual amp position for a long additional period.

When I came back to the rig, I could hardly believe what's happened to the sound. The sound gained an intense, clear, "juicy" quality that was irresistible, especially for female voices. Upper-midrange to midrange was translucent and illuminated with glowing floodlight with every detail present yet with no grit or grain. The tangible palpability was off the charts and perhaps one of the most "fun" times I've had with the human voice. The degree of presence was akin to the proverbial female singer closely singing into your ears.

This is very different from the polypropylene presentation, which does not highlight the midrange presence as much. The treble and bass of the AmpOhm polyester cap is probably in the same ballpark as good polypropylene film caps, but the midrange is definitely something special and unique. In addition, this is not a cap to be used lightly if you have weaknesses in digital front-end, interconnects, power conditioning, etc. The sheer amount of detail and presence in the midrange will not be kind to hard, forward source or components, which is very different from AmpOhm PIO caps, which tend to be more forgiving of such things while remaining musically revealing. At any rate, this capacitor has opened my eyes to polyester film capacitors, and I hope to try some others built to the same high standard in the future.

 

[Peter Roodzant]

This is really a great thread!! Jon, thank you so much for all your hours of listening and writing. Your descriptions are in line with my own observations, and I completely understand your descriptions of the sonic behaviour of the capacitors.

I did not read this very long thread from a to z, so perhaps my question has been covered before, but have you compared K40Y9 to K42Y2? Are they different or are they basically the same?

Peter

 

[Jon L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Roodzant /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is really a great thread!! Jon, thank you so much for all your hours of listening and writing. Your descriptions are in line with my own observations, and I completely understand your descriptions of the sonic behaviour of the capacitors. I did not read this very long thread from a to z, so perhaps my question has been covered before, but have you compared K40Y9 to K42Y2? Are they different or are they basically the same? Peter

I haven't tried K42, but those who have actually opened one up report they are metallized paper imprenated with wax/oil. K40 is true paper in oil.

 

[Peter Roodzant]

Not only K75-10 but also K75-12 can be found on ebay. I wonder what the differences are between those. K75-12 seems to be smaller in size. Can anyone tell me more about K75-12?

Peter

 

[errnst]

can you folks tell me where i can get sonicap capacitors
i am in canada,

 

[Face]

Have you tried Sonic Craft High-End DIY Audio Parts or GR Research

 

[qusp]

JonL I would definitely agree that VCAP teflon make a superb bypass cap, I do not really enjoy them on their own, as I find them to be just a little too good

real music performance should IMO have just a touch of grit or it sounds alien to me. Thats if there is such a thing as too good. I have found that bypassing Duelund copper foil with VCAP teflon is about as good as it gets for my taste. Duelund bypassed with mundorf SIO is also superb sounding.

 

[Face]

I prefer using a single cap whenever possible, but Claritycap MR's bypassed with Duelund work well together.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon L /img/forum/go_quote.gif BYPASSING WITH VCAP TEFLONS After being charmed by the K75-10 capacitor, I did try replacing them with several others but ended up missing what K75-10 does best, i.e. rich, colorful, center-of-earth midrange, with gobs of texture, which some may interpret as extra grain. Putting the K75-10 back in, I then missed the finely-delineated upper frequencies with smooth extension other caps are blessed with. In the past, whenever I was faced with this type of situation, bypassing often saved the day, so I tried bypassing K75-10 with VCap teflons. With many caps, bypassing with teflons often sound terribly disjointed and incoherent, but K75-10 sang beautifully with VCap teflons. This combination retained all the warmth, richness, and texture of K75-10 but imbued the upper and lower frequencies with extra clarity and definition that was sorely needed. As often is the case when high frequency harmonics are improved, the bass frequencies subjectively tightened up as well. This pair is so attractive-sounding that I believe the combo belongs in the league of the best of the breed. Of course, there is no guarantee this combo will work as well in one's particular gear/system, but if you find teflons too "clinical" and oilers not neutral enough, one can certainly do a lot worse.

I agree 100% with your findings Jon

.

The Key to getting the most out of the K75-10's is to bypass them with a Teflon as I stated a few pages back (and as you have done here). With all the combo's I've tried thus far I keep returning to the K75-10/Teflon (of choice) pairing.

EDIT: The high V version of the K75-10 is the K75-24...loads of decent coupling sizes that I found on Feebay for a decent price (Sovcom).

It might be interesting to compare the nude K72/T1 bypass pairing vs the CVH V-Cap with the K75's

Peete.

 

[Speakerquest]

Bypassing seems like a hit or miss trial. Value and type of bypass cap seems to have a great inluence on the outcome, so this experiment can become quite costly. Has anyone tried using two different caps of the SAME value for coupling (for instance 1+1uF), in order to get the best performace characteristics from both caps. For instance the full tuneful sound of an Ampohm PIO in combination with the frequency extremes of a Mundorf Silver/Gold. Of course there is a risk of getting a bad compromise result, but if anyone have caps of same value laying around it could be worth a try.

 

[ffrr]

 

[Peter Roodzant]

Another option for bypassing is to take two capacitors of the same brand and type. One with the value needed for a certain application, and then bypassed with the smallest (or one of the smallest) value of the same capacitor range. For example: one Jensen 1uF/630V copper PIO bypassed with a Jensen 0.015uF/630V copper PIO. The advantage of this small capacitor is that it has better high frequency behaviour than the bigger value. You will notice that the soundstage opens up without altering the overall character of that capacitor type.

Also very often coupling capacitors have much to large value’s. The smaller value’s of same capacitors are generally better sounding than the big one’s. As an input capacitor of an amplifier with an input impedance of 100k, 0.22uF is already okay. This combination gives a -3dB point of 7Hz.
For coupling caps between two stages in an amplifier who are within a feedback loop, it’s better to stay with the original value. Because otherwise you would alter feedback behaviour, which can (but not always) lead to instability of the amplifier.

Peter

 

[catachresis]

I just wanted to say that in the years that I've been a Headfi member, "Orgy of Capacitors" has been my favorite thread title. I smile quietly to myself every time I read it.