[Karlosak]

Hi,
I need a little help. I want to build the META but not decided which caps for C2/C3 should I take. My only source for parts is RS-components, so I settled down to these two types.

So which do you think is better? Or are there any other caps from RS that I could use?

Thanks for any income.

 

[JMT]

Never used the Stargets, but the Panasonic FC series are very good for their price.

 

[danlaix]

Well, i wouldnt say the starget is totally out.
Different people have different taste in things.
But i would advise you to try it out yourself.
You might like the starget. Check out this site
and you will know what i mean:

http://www.diyparadise.com/cap/dare_to_compare.html

 

[aos]

Stargets are probably better in signal path, as they have been designed with exactly that in mind. As audio chip bypass, which is what you're going to use them for, I don't know if there would be much audible difference whatever type you use though technically speaking an FC in parallel with a smaller ceramic or film cap would do better. I personally have been using Panasonic polymers (equivalent of OS-CON) for even opamp/buffer bypassing but these are all SMD. Really, Panasonic FC should do just fine. Link danlaix posted shows that really OS-CON (and similar) caps work best as bypasses especially at high frequencies - expected since that's what they're designed for and what manufacturers claim. I am only surprised that Black Gate fared badly even though they claim (and have graphs to prove) that their caps work fine to very high frequencies. Perhaps the cap was busted (one of the OS-CONS shows terrible performance in the second test so something went wrong there) but more likely it's just that he used regular Black Gate, not the non-polar N or NX series. From picture it looks like regular since N is red with gold letters, and NX is indigo with gold letters. Perhaps "regular" Black Gate is nowhere near N and NX in performance, wouldn't surprise me if they just took some of their regular caps and promoted them to "Black Gate" to fill the "value" gap.

 

[Tomo]

Sanyo OS-CON shouldn't be forgotten!

Tomo

 

[guzzler]

OS-CONs are very big, very expensive and don't go to very comparitively high values:

6.3V 330uF, Diameter: 10mm, price: £2.28
6.3V 2200uF, Diameter: 16mm, pitch: 7.5mm, price: £6.54

just a sample, and of course there are higher values, but nothing compared to FCs or similar. That said, I do include them in digital circuits which is their intended application...

g

 

[Karlosak]

Thanks,
I think I´ll go with Panasonic FC series. But when I was going through the datasheets I found that I can easily find caps which have incredible high capacitance: e.g. 2200uF (25V) or 3300uF (16V).
Tangent´s toturial says that minimum per channel is 440uF. I know that the bigger the cap the better - but isn´t it too much? What capacitance and voltage are reasonable? Should I go with lower voltage (and higher capacitance) or with higher voltage (and lower capacitance)?

I know that the effect would be nearly indistingushable but I´m interested how it works.

 

[guzzler]

depends on what your power supply is, but i'd go for 940uF on +/- (2x470uF capacitor for each rail, which is what the board was designed to take) and a voltage rating of 16V or 25V...

g

 

[Nisbeth]

I have 4*1000uF/25V FC's in my META, and I think they sound great (not that I have made that many comparisons). They fit perfectly. If you want something better, I think RS also stock the Panasonic FA series whcih should be even better than the FC's (ultra low impedance). I haven't tried them myself, but I seem to recall someone at diyaudio.com mentioning them as a good option, even if they're a bit expensivecompared to the FC's.


U.

 

[guzzler]

i always bargain on putting a Pi filter in if my total capacitance per rail is >1000uF, because when you power on, the supply sees a dead short and big caps take a while to charge up, whereas smaller capacitances don't stress the supply for too long...

g