Using HIGH quality capacitors help tone

[Spook410]

"this wire is next to extinct and plays a role in the vintage tone. How so?
The old wire had a different molecular structure"


ummm.. wait..

[river251]

You are a patient soul, river. This thread kind of reminds me of the old men muppets in the balcony of the muppet show.

Well, I've been doing this since before Al Gore invented the internet. In 86 I used to hang out in the BBSs, the bulletin board service that along with actual email pretty much comprised DARPAnet when I was at the Applied Research Labs at UT Austin. Then came those guys that invented hyperlinks and Mosaic and started the internet. I used to get excited but in my old age realized that this is not a real place, in the way my local reality is, and that there is something very perverse about getting emotionally "engaged" by what happens in the ethernet. Just enjoy it as an information source, and the ether-friendships that arise there.

However, with my motorcycle forums, at least we all get together for rides, so I'm pretty sure those guys are not generated by some algorithm a secretly insane Intel engineer implants in Intel chipsets...

Heh, heh.....

Jim

[oldane]

"this wire is next to extinct and plays a role in the vintage tone. How so?
The old wire had a different molecular structure"


ummm.. wait..

Did you notice that plastic coating af the wire was important for good tone too? The pink plastic gave the best tone.

[SamBooka]

Ken Fisher said the same thing about bus wire.. I dont know ever we ever found out if it was tongue in cheek or he was trying to throw people off his trail or if he was being sincere..

[river251]

If no moral opinions are ever aloud here, then the debate is lessened, in my view.

Dad, how many guitars have you owned?

[soulbody]

I know oil and paper capacitors are supposed to give a smoother soound, for some reason. It doesn't seem like jazz guitarists obsess over this like the rockers playing Les Pauls do. Which seems the opposite of what I'd expect, given the high end guitars some jazz players have.

I'm into high end stereo - hifi - and one can pay hundreds for a handmade cap for your tube amp or preamp, say a Hovland Musicap or a Teflon Vcap
(see The Great Capacitor Shoot-Out if you are interested).

I play jazz guitars, neck pickup only, and tone matters. Any idea if replacing the caps in my guitar with these really high end signal path caps would make my guitar sound better? I have often wondered about this because some luthiers' jazz guitars cost $15K with the most incredible exotic wood but they are using $5 electronic parts in the circuits.

Thanks for any insights here.....

Jim

Hi,
i found a lot of no-sense replies in this post,i am not willing to read each one,a lot of replies just are not asking about what someone asked,so why does people write them down?.

So,as the 1st post said,i also find it quite absurd that people does not mind about some cheap things as electronics as everything involved is important(woods,pickups,electronics,caps,pots,amp, amp tubes,amp speakers,strings,picks,fingers,each one in different way and percentage that it does not need to be discussed as its subjective but it is real)and as opposite,they are spending a lot of money in the guitar.I have to say that almost every electronic parts in every guitar can be improved,guitar-selling its a business,and as every business there are a lot of dark sides,and most expensive guitars have cheap electronics,but people does not know about this or dont want to know.
So,i would say that a good electronics is important,but you dont need to spend so much,just put good pots,good wires,good capacitores its not so expensive and it does a great difference,for instance,i have realised that 0.047 caps works better-to my ears-that 0.022 .So there are too many myths in this whole wide world,also in guitar-selling business and GAS world and the best you can do is to explore and try for yourself and see whats best for you as i have found that a high percentage of the opinions on the forums-internet-even in real world does not add any relevant info.
Regards

[krusty]

To revive an old thread (and debate), I have in fact changed capacitors (several times) as an experiment on a partscaster several years ago. I found that capacitors of different values yielded the biggest differences, but that is only common sense. However, I tried various capacitors of the same value, but different types, and found some subtle differences. It seemed I had to adjust the tone pot slightly to return to the sound I perceived I had before.

Then I tested the various same value capacitors and discovered a remarkably wide variance. This could potentially have altered my perception of both the tone I got and the range of the tone pot. I then tried to match as best I could the values of different types of capacitors. When I did that, I found little (if any) difference in tone. I certainly had trouble, and would be less than honest if I said I found any single one to be "better". There was a wide variance in a single package of same value capacitors, but far more consistency among the more expensive ones I bought from a high end guitar shop.

Any perceived tonal differences with cheaper components (I think) can be explained mostly due to variations in values within (or even outside of) the specified tolerance range. Several similar guitars equipped with cheaper capacitors may exhibit different tonal qualities simply due to the extreme variance between the actual values of their electronic components. Consistency and predictable results are achieved through better quality components.

I find there is a tremendous difference, however, in changing cables. Of course, different cables have vastly different capacitive values, with some sounding 'muddy', and others seeming to preserve the treble better. This effect seems to be a surprise to some guitarists, but the steel players in this neck of the woods are all using the same cables. Oddly, it's the same cable I had chosen for myself before I found that out - George L .155 - yes, the skinny one.

When looking at the actual physical behaviour of some of the electronic components on an atomic level, I'm sure there are differences from on type of capacitor to another, but whether or not any of that actually results in a 'better' tone is beyond my ability to hear any difference. A simple change in amp settings can, for the most part, negate any perceived difference anyway. The sound coming from my tube amps is in no way Hi-Fi, so I don't expect that changing many of the components would yield an audible difference. I do, however, want good filter capacitors and good tubes. I can hear a difference with those critical components.

[newsense]

Concerning the capacitors part of your thread, I think what you describe is absolutely normal and expected. Although there can be a difference in the physics of capacitors of different types, these differences tend to be observable mainly at high and low frequencies outside the audio range. Two ceramic capacitors of identical capacitance and loss factor will sound exactly the same in your tone circuit, independent of their cost and so-called quality.

[krusty]

I wasn't exactly clear at the beginning of my second paragraph. I tested the capacitors' values using a capacitance meter, then tested the value-matched, but different type capacitors in the guitar, and found no discernible difference. The wide variance among capacitors in a single batch was the tested value, not the tonal qualities.

I apparently do not have Golden Ears. Most guitarists, after spending money for an 'upgrade', are desperate to confirm their money well-spent, and to distinguish their gear from that of others. It's remarkable how many people will change pickups, proclaim the new ones to be the best ever, then change back later. It's the same with car suspensions, etc. They refuse to believe that the manufacturer may have already tested (and rejected) the alternatives that they are trying, and there seems to be a pervasive feeling that manufacturers are perpetually making compromises in design and manufacturing that they alone (the consumer) can identify and correct.

Electronics in guitars are an easy target for that kind of thinking, and the aftermarket feeds that belief.

[PTChristopher2]

>>> Most guitarists, after spending money for an 'upgrade', are desperate to confirm their money well-spent, and to distinguish their gear from that of others.

Great summary. Also thanks for the effort to note that capacitance value tolerances are (gasp) important, measurable, and consistent with tone differences - as opposed to other anecdotal observations based on mojo.

Chris

[Blackwood-ca]

Hi Jim, I switched the ceramic to oil capacitors in both my Gibson 137 and my Epiphone 175, this was a significant plus for me. Both guitars showed a much smoother tonal range from top to both, very noticeable at the bottom with no sudden drop to dark. I was especially noticeable in the Epi which of course is a less expensive guitar. It really worked for me, I would recommend that you give it a try, you can always switch back, it's not a expensive exercise. Regards, Rich

[Cunamara]

Hi Jim, I switched the ceramic to oil capacitors in both my Gibson 137 and my Epiphone 175, this was a significant plus for me. Both guitars showed a much smoother tonal range from top to both, very noticeable at the bottom with no sudden drop to dark. I was especially noticeable in the Epi which of course is a less expensive guitar. It really worked for me, I would recommend that you give it a try, you can always switch back, it's not a expensive exercise. Regards, Rich

The interesting thing with this exercise is that in a guitar tone circuit you really can't hear the cap. The signal that goes through the cap goes to ground and is never heard. There is no signal that goes through the cap and then to the amp. Zero. All you hear is the signal that didn't go through the cap to ground and got sent to the amp instead.

So how can the type of cap (ceramic, paper in oil, etc.) have an effect on the tone? The only quality of relevance is the value of the cap. Now, the actual value of the cap versus the stated value of the cap can be different by 25% or more. It may say it's a .047 and it's actually a .040 or .053. Part of those vintage tones that we try to emulate by using PIO caps or what have you may be that as the cap has aged the value of the cap drifted.

[newsense]

When I get the time, I'm going to have to do a mathematical model to try to end this discussion (or not !). Believe me, when I say that capacitance has a real and imaginary part, I'm not being metaphysical. The imaginary part is what engineers refer to as the loss and is quite often expressed as "tan delta". Capacitors of different type (e.g. ceramic, or polyester or mica or, heaven forbid, oil & paper), with the same nominal capacitance value, will have different values of tan delta, which may vary between capacitor types by more than a factor 10. Both the capacitance and the loss of a capacitor are frequency dependent and in this respect different types also have different behaviours. When you read that a cap has a value of 47 microF, the data sheet really means it has that value at 1 kHz (or some other specified value of frequency). It will certainly have different values at 10 MHz and again at 1 mHz (note: the lower case 'm' is deliberate - 1/1000th Hz). Both of these frequencies are well outside the audio range; between 20 Hz and 20 kHz we expect the capacitance of all the aforementioned caps to be approximately, but not exactly constant, and perhaps the loss maybe slightly less constant.

Whilst I have always been sceptical about the tone capacitor myth, having admitted that different forms of capacitor can have different values of tan delta, I now need to convince myself mathematically that these differences could lead to a discernible difference in "tone" (i.e. harmonic content, attack and decay, etc). This will take me some time, as most simple calculations of the frequency response of a tone circuit normally only take into account the real part of capacitance and not the imaginary part, so I will have to derive the equations from scratch, but when I have done it, I will report back !

[mangotango]

And why do you Britons say Maths and Sport? There is only one Math, yet many varied Sports?

At last, a chance for me as a non-electronics person to contribute to this thread! To be honest, I had given up on this thread lond ago on the grounds that I saw nothing in it for me; however, on seeing it revived, I came across PTChris's question above. Now I know that Chris is no longer gracing us with his presence, but i thought I would try to sneak a little English Language stuff inbetween all the "Adventures in Electronics" geekisms and Audiophile corksniffery.

(I apologise in advance to those on this board whose first language is not English - believe me, you achieve far more in my native tongue than I am likely ever to achieve in yours).

So, "Maths" - which is an abbreviation for Mathematics, a collective noun that takes a plural form. Thus the English abbreviation retains the "s".

"The apparent plural form in English, like the French plural form les mathématiques (and the less commonly used singular derivative la mathématique), goes back to the Latin neuter plural mathematica (Cicero), based on the Greek plural τα μαθηματικά (ta mathēmatiká), used by Aristotle (384–322 BC), and meaning roughly "all things mathematical"; although it is plausible that English borrowed only the adjective mathematic(al) and formed the noun mathematics anew, after the pattern of physics and metaphysics, which were inherited from the Greek.[27] In English, the noun mathematics takes singular verb forms. It is often shortened to maths or, in English-speaking North America, math."

Whereas "Sport" which, in English at least, is an abbreviation for Disportment, a collective noun that takes a singular form. Thus we are making a reference to Sport in general, not individual Sports in particular. This applies in the same way as we might refer to Doctors seeking a cure for Cancer, rather than the separate Cancers that (sadly) exist.
"Sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise. Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation......The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms."

Both of my references above are derived from the ever-popular Wikipedia, which has hit each etymological nail squarely on the head.

I feel better now.

[Greentone]

My turn.

First of all, I think each person is perfectly okay to spend his/her money any way they choose. $10,000 for an instrument cord? Fine. $500 for a tone capacitor? If it floats your boat, go for it.

Second, full disclosure: I am a refugee from the 90s audiophile bug. I have the interconnects, the high-end components, etc.

Third, again, full disclosure: I have been building amplifiers for a LONG time.

I have used capacitors in all grades and price ranges when building amps. I have been very fortunate in managing to keep my hearing intact, so far. I can hear all sorts of things associated with changing the "recipe" in building an amplifier. IME, capacitors produce comparatively little difference in the sound of a guitar or an amp. Strings, picks, length of the instrument cord, do you use a wireless, etc., are all MUCH less subtle in affecting the signal chain. The speaker selection in the amp is also a big variable. Capacitors...meh.

When I was selling amps, I would build with any caps that folks preferred. However, if all caps went into blank covers I seriously doubt that anyone could determine their favorite. Could they hear amp-to-amp differences? Maybe. Could they pick "their" caps? Doubt it.

Fourth, this blurb will influence no one in the great capacitor controversy.

[Jabberwocky]

It is "Maths" to cure bad lispers.

[SamBooka]

Ok.. zombie thread. Halloween so I will let it pass.

Bought 5 22uF 25V electrolytic caps last week for a project I am working on.


+/- 20%


They ALL read 32-34 uF (ie +50%) on my meter. Tested them with an oscilloscope and got more variance but still all over 30uF (not surprising .. my DMM is a fair tad better than my scope. I grabbed a handful of other caps and they were mostly withing the 10% +/- range. So again, my DMM is not a precise scientific instrument when close enough for what I use it for.


I am not saying Paper in Oil do not sound better than Polyester, Ceramic Disc, or Dragon Snot.

I AM asking that you make sure you are comparing apple to apples and not to elephants. Those 20$ caps probably are within 2% of the value listed but the are they old caps you are comparing to them also of the same value?

Food for thought.

[Greentone]

SamBooka,

That's a GREAT point. None of the old amp makers used computer-grade caps, either. Tolerances were pretty loose. So, there was variance in the sound of amps due to the fact that resistances and capacitances were all over the place. Everything worked...but it worked a tad differently, amp-to-amp. Shelving points on bandpass circuits were a wee bit different from circuit-to-circuit.

GT

[Skip Ellis]

To me this is like asking "should I use 3/8" or 1/2" screws to hold the pickguard on my Tele, and should they be gold, nickel or stainless?". I always revert back to the old story that I read in a rock n roll mag once where some roadie who worked for the Grateful Dead said that Jerry Garcia could tell without looking whether he had brass or chrome plugs on his guitar cable. To me, this is shear idiocy - no one's ears are that good and if they say they are, they're lying for the sake of trying to sound superior. Theoretically, using some high dollar test equipment, you might be able to tell the difference in the lab, but in a crowded bar - no chance. In a live situation, your sound could be affected by some guy sitting at a table in a certain spot in the room and wearing a leather jacket. Of course in your world, you would probably try to find out if the jacket is cowhide or sheepskin and what weight the leather is. Manufacturers (bless their little hearts) count on technical mumbo jumbo and lab results to impress the great unwashed (the musicians) who don't have a clue that most electronic components have a wide range of values when it comes to quality control. Then, of course, they go out and throw their equipment at some 'name' player for an endorsement when the 'name' really has no clue and can barely play 4 chords - but they think getting free stuff and getting their picture in an ad is cool. If the manuf's would do away with the hype and just build a good product using quality components, the world would be a whole lot simpler.

My rant for the day!!