[kchapdaily]

keep in mind that im still a little new to diy audio.
 
im working on picking out parts for a soha II build using cavalli audio's bill of materials. i got the impression that the capacitors listed in the bom arent the best quality that i could get while not going over my budget, which is 170-200$.
 
im not experienced enough to know what type of caps would sound good in certain places, and what places on the board dont necessarily require higher quality audio caps. can someone give me some insight on what capacitors would be an improvement?
 
also what other components could i upgrade to improve sound quality?

 

[dBel84]

I would build it standard and when you have spent a lot of time with it and want to try something different, look into various coupling caps  -  none of the "boutique" options will fit into the space and if this is your first build, you may not want to be too creative. Personally I care less about "boutique" ..dB

 

[kchapdaily]

thanks for the advice. ive built a cmoy and a starving student before this but i dont consider that alot of experience. i was thinking about some nichicon muse es or panasonic fm for the coupling caps. possibly some black gates. i like the idea of going stock and then upgrading later though. that way i can really tell if there was an improvement.

 

[dBel84]

I would avoid using an electrolytic as a coupling cap, use the nichicon / panasonic for the power supply if you want to use these caps. Coupling caps could be anything from poly obbligato to oil in paper V-cap , depending on how much you want to spend. The cheapest bang for the buck are the russian teflons, they can be found on ebay and iirc TomB sells them through his online store. BUT they are huge and you will need to be creative to find a spot for them ..dB

 

[Lil' Knight]

I don't think Beezar stocks the Russian teflon caps. Tom only has the Vitamin Q caps but they are PIO, not teflon.

But yes, the FT-2 or FT-3 caps are the best bang for the buck caps out there, can't go wrong with those. Mixing the K-75 cap with a small value FT-1 also gives excellent sound for dirt cheap sum of money.

I'd personally invest the fund on a great pot than boutique caps though.

 

[kchapdaily]

thanks for the input guys. im going to be making my own case out of wood, and its going to be bigger than the recommended hammond so i think i should be able to make oversized caps fit.
 
im planning on getting the alps rk27 pot

 

[dBel84]

RK27 is OK if you shunt mod it and although I have used them in the past, I would agree with LK's suggestion of spending more on a pot than boutique caps. Your budget limits OTT but the audio note or small TKD pots from Partsconnexion are decent little pots. 
 
shunt mod
 

 
 
..dB
 

 

[kchapdaily]

42$ seems pretty steep for a potentiometer... maybe im just undervaluing the pots effect on sound. 
 
do you think you could explain the shunt mod a little more? im confused on how it works/helps the sound
 
thanks guys

 

[sachu]

shunt mod FTW!!..
 
Recommend some obbligatto polyprops for the coupling caps.

 

[kchapdaily]

i know this is a nooby question but which caps on the schematic are the coupling caps? is it C1?

 

[nullstring]

Quote:

42$ seems pretty steep for a potentiometer... maybe im just undervaluing the pots effect on sound. 
 

You most certainly are.
 
If you're looking for high value, I suggest
http://glass-ware.stores.yahoo.net/netcjstat.html
http://glass-ware.stores.yahoo.net/baat.html
 
I will be using one of the two in my next build

 

[Iniamyen]

Quote:

42$ seems pretty steep for a potentiometer... maybe im just undervaluing the pots effect on sound. 
 
do you think you could explain the shunt mod a little more? im confused on how it works/helps the sound
 
thanks guys

So far as I can tell, the shunt mod doesn't provide any technical improvement on signal quality. It changes input/output impedance, max volume, and taper characteristic.
 
The pot is very important to the signal quality and you want to make sure that you have a good one that won't add a lot of noise. The shunt mod won't change this fact, as the signal still passes through (and is affected by) the pot's resistive element.
 

 

[kchapdaily]

i see. il probably stick with one of alps offerings as they seem to be reasonably priced and well accepted here. in the future i will probably try some higher quality pots and maybe some stepped attenuators but right now i cant afford to spend 50$ on a potentiometer alone. and if i do the shunt mod it should sound fine.
 
can anyone tell me which cap on the soha II schematic is the coupling cap?

 

[sachu]

C1

 

[particleman14]

get some FT-3s or some PIO vitaminqs