Spending 59 Euros on a tone capacitor - Any thoughts?

[newsense]

Everyone knows piezo pickups are made from ducks

I can assure you no animals are harmed when we make our piezoelectric materials !

[newsense]

...although we do lose the occasional grad student.

[KirkP]

Multiple reasons from what I have read.

First, they send large voltage spikes to the preamp on the attack of the note and cause clipping for a fraction of a second. Using an 18v preamp reduces this by providing for more headroom. Notice that the piezo quack becomes more prominent when you pick or pluck harder because the attack transient is higher.

Second, the piezo is probably more accurately reproducing the sound of the string than does a magnetic pickup or a wooden guitar body. The piezo hears the note unmodified by the body at first with all the overtones being sent to the amp.

Third, it's a bridge pickup. Pick right by the bridge on any guitar and is sounds more like a piezo; pick by the 19th fret and you get a fat warm sound.

IME the best sounding under-saddle pickup is the D-TAR stuff from Seymour Duncan and Rick Turner. The piezo element hears in multiple directions and the 18v preamp provides a clearer signal to the amp. There are high and low pass filters to reduce "top thump" sensitivity and overtones, plus a regular tone and volume control. On my guitar with the tone at 50% the quack is gone but it still sounds acoustic (it's a Turner RN-6 and is actually a semi-hollow nylon string that sounds more acoustic amplified than any real acoustic-electric classical I've heard. The Godin is similar in construction and also sounds remarkably good).

This is off-topic (piezo transducers), but you and newsense might be interested in the following Yamaha patent. Yamaha claims they solved the piezo quack problem with their ART system, and based on my NTX700 I'd agree. They say the breakthrough was a multilayer damping device. This seems to be the patent for it.
https://www.google.com/patents/US798...0sCwUQ6AEIOTAE

[newsense]

This is off-topic (piezo transducers), but you and newsense might be interested in the following Yamaha patent. Yamaha claims they solved the piezo quack problem with their ART system, and based on my NX700 I'd agree. They say the breakthrough was a multilayer damping device. This seems to be the patent for it.
https://www.google.com/patents/US798...0sCwUQ6AEIOTAE

Yes, this is the reason I also play an NTX700 !

[Jabberwocky]

...although we do lose the occasional grad student.

Oh, you naughty man, you. Nothing teaches respect like shorting a screwdriver across the terminals of a fully charged Coke-can electrolytic cap. You were a grad. student too once upon a time!

This is off-topic (piezo transducers)...Yamaha patent. Yamaha claims they solved the piezo quack problem...

I hope no platypus suffered or died in the making of this transducer.

[Jabberwocky]

There are as many bad science practitioners out there as there are snake-oil pedlars. I guess, unlike pharmaceuticals, nobody gets harmed in getting the psychoacoustics of "tone" capacitors wrong. Even the testing of pharmaceuticals requires the element of time. But how it is, in the test of cognitive ability or lack thereof, the element of time is not given due weight and consideration?

Stuff "professional" violinists in a hotel room with a Stradivarius and a modern violin for one hour. Hear no difference. Headline: No difference between a modern violin and a Stradivarius! Stuff oenophiles in a hotel room with wine in non-descript bottles. Pour wine into styrofoam cups. Headline: No difference between grands cru and supermart plonk.

I am not lionising Strads and grands cru necessarily as I am neither a violinist nor an oenophile but I question the testing methodology.

I suppose they fill up pages of a rag. And nobody really gets hurt except for one's ego.

But is the testing methodology really designed to allow differences to be discerned or to be masked? It is tester's confirmation bias to a large extent. If a tester goes into it trying to prove that violins sound all the same, wines taste all the same, capacitors all sound the same, by Jove, you can design a test to do that, to obscure all differences, to not allow differences to emerge. And unsuspecting subjects are sometimes tricked by them.

Note that all these tests make one alarming premise: that time is not of any criticality. Either immediately obvious or it is all a figment of one's imagination. All right, one hour or it is all bats in the belfry.

There is also alarming liberty taken with design parameters. In the cap test, all right, let's provide a level testing ground; just take croc. clips, two wires, stripboard, sockets, a switch and start the test. The alarming assumption is these are neutral and do not affect the caps under test. But can we just assume that they are indeed neutral and do not affect the caps? After all, croc. clips, wires, stripboard, sockets and switch do have some capacitance, inductance and resistance/impedance.

The only way to test the caps is to test them in situ, in the guitars, used as intended. And as much time as needed to allow differences to emerge must be given.

At the end of it all, it may be degradation or maturation due to time, it may be psychoacoustics but my ear hears what it hears. If what it hears is good, what the hey? It is for my ears. I am not going to go through the trouble to rewire a new harness just to prove to someone else that a 1-cent ceramic cap sounds no different to a $25 PIO. As I said, it is a price of a packet of T-I strings. What is the cost of labour?

If you don't hear it, great. You've just saved yourself $24.99. Don't scoff at those who do because their ears are not connected to your brain.

That said, the $125 Gibson Bumble Bees Reissues are a bit of a scam though. It is all show and a 10-cent cap underneath it all. Scam!

[Para]

A few years back in a fit of boredom I wired a guitar with several different switchable capacitor types and I couldn't hear a difference worth a damn neither could 4 gigging musician friends I lent the guitar to for evaluation. If you imagine you hear a difference and it helps your playing fine but personally I think it's all bullshit, amplifiers though are a whole new ball game where capacitors are concerned.

[Jabberwocky]

And I believe you, Para, and your four gigging musician friends that you heard no difference worth a damn. After all, they are your ears, not mine.

But have you figured that with a network of several different switchable capacitors hooked up together that any differences may be negated? That, in my opinion, is not giving the capacitors a chance to show any differences.

It takes me a full year of playing a guitar before I can say that I understand its characteristics. It is like one's partner. You gotta live with him or her for a time before you know the person. And the person always manages to find a way surprise you.

Then again, I am the sort who paints the edges of his CDs green because I think I can "hear better into the notes in a recording".

I don't believe in weird science. And I don't believe in ghosts but hell of chance anyone can convince me to spend a night alone at the cemetery.

[Greentone]

+1 on the side of the argument that it's the value of capacitance that matters.

[Mr. Pocket]

Even the value of the cap (in a guitar) makes considerably less difference to me than the value of the potentiometer it's connected to, cable quality, the strings I'm using, or a slight amp eq. I disagree with electrical engineers when they say capacitor type doesn't make a difference in amplifiers though. Maybe it "shouldn't", but it does to me.

[medblues]

There are as many bad science practitioners out there as there are snake-oil pedlars. I guess, unlike pharmaceuticals, nobody gets harmed in getting the psychoacoustics of "tone" capacitors wrong. Even the testing of pharmaceuticals requires the element of time. But how it is, in the test of cognitive ability or lack thereof, the element of time is not given due weight and consideration?

Stuff "professional" violinists in a hotel room with a Stradivarius and a modern violin for one hour. Hear no difference. Headline: No difference between a modern violin and a Stradivarius! Stuff oenophiles in a hotel room with wine in non-descript bottles. Pour wine into styrofoam cups. Headline: No difference between grands cru and supermart plonk.

I am not lionising Strads and grands cru necessarily as I am neither a violinist nor an oenophile but I question the testing methodology.

I suppose they fill up pages of a rag. And nobody really gets hurt except for one's ego.

But is the testing methodology really designed to allow differences to be discerned or to be masked? It is tester's confirmation bias to a large extent. If a tester goes into it trying to prove that violins sound all the same, wines taste all the same, capacitors all sound the same, by Jove, you can design a test to do that, to obscure all differences, to not allow differences to emerge. And unsuspecting subjects are sometimes tricked by them.

Note that all these tests make one alarming premise: that time is not of any criticality. Either immediately obvious or it is all a figment of one's imagination. All right, one hour or it is all bats in the belfry.

There is also alarming liberty taken with design parameters. In the cap test, all right, let's provide a level testing ground; just take croc. clips, two wires, stripboard, sockets, a switch and start the test. The alarming assumption is these are neutral and do not affect the caps under test. But can we just assume that they are indeed neutral and do not affect the caps? After all, croc. clips, wires, stripboard, sockets and switch do have some capacitance, inductance and resistance/impedance.

The only way to test the caps is to test them in situ, in the guitars, used as intended. And as much time as needed to allow differences to emerge must be given.

At the end of it all, it may be degradation or maturation due to time, it may be psychoacoustics but my ear hears what it hears. If what it hears is good, what the hey? It is for my ears. I am not going to go through the trouble to rewire a new harness just to prove to someone else that a 1-cent ceramic cap sounds no different to a $25 PIO. As I said, it is a price of a packet of T-I strings. What is the cost of labour?

If you don't hear it, great. You've just saved yourself $24.99. Don't scoff at those who do because their ears are not connected to your brain.

That said, the $125 Gibson Bumble Bees Reissues are a bit of a scam though. It is all show and a 10-cent cap underneath it all. Scam!

It is a fact that a small number of people have much more refined senses obtained through a combination of genetics and experience/training.

Even supersensory folks are not immune to psychoacoustics, bias, blinding or other foolery. But they will outperform the other test participants regardless (much lower error rates).

By definition, "bad science" practitioners are slightly fewer in number than snake oil peddlers (because they don't really stand to gain as much as the peddlers do and both good and bad science require much more effort than snake oil peddling- am I giving away that I am a scientist :-). They all are outnumbered by people who are curious, fantasizing/wishful thinking or bored.

[newsense]

So here's how good science should work.

Note: an experiment can never actually prove that a hypothesis or theory is absolutely correct; it can only prove it to be incorrect or inaccurate.

So, a bunch of guitarists observe a tonal difference between tone capacitors of the same nominal capacitance value, but different construction types. As a "good" scientist, I need to keep an open mind, so I say to myself, "hey - that doesn't really fit with my understanding of how dielectric materials and AC theory work".

Do I dismiss these guitarists as idiots or delusional ? No, I have to believe the observations, even though I don't necessarily understand them. So what do I do ?

I have to do some experiments and come up with a hypothesis as to what is going on. So I ask the guitarists to give me the tone caps so that I can make some thorough measurements to identify the differences between them. Without a doubt there will be differences, as long as I measure to a sufficient level of precision. The question that needs answering then is: "are these differences observable to the human ear". So I then embark on modelling the frequency and transient response of the tone network. But here I need more information from the guitarists, such as the impedance characteristics of the pickups, the pots and at very least the input impedance of the amps. I make a first pass model, but find that within the limitations of the input information concerning the whole system, the model isn't sufficiently accurate to give us a satisfactory answer.

I need to make more experiments using the actual hardware on which the original observations were made. At this stage I ask one of the guitarists for his Gibson L5 and the boutique amp he was using to make his/her observations so I can continue my investigations.

Interim report: "These detailed experiments are taking a long time - but I believe we are definitely getting somewhere."

Unfortunately at that stage, my funding runs out and you never hear from me again.

[Jabberwocky]

Funding to show that a 1-cent ceramic cap sounds no different to a $25 PIO cap?



Here, take 2 caps and call me in the morning. It's cheaper.

[Jabberwocky]

Insert brainy quote: 'Logic is the lowest form of Magic' Cecil Taylor.

[aleksandar]

On the other hand, logic, believing to your senses and sound reason vs religion and "magic" - I'd take logic anytime, because when you believe in magic, you are prone of being scammed. Ceramic capacitors are sounding different, and they are "inferior", although they were often used by Fender, to my knowledge. But, the modern film capacitors are not at all inferior to the "magic", old, bulky, inconsistent PIO capacitors, especially those which have modern film capacitors hidden in their fake bumblebee casings

The best experiment in this regard would be a blind test, where you'd simply swap the caps and then play the same sample to a participant without him knowing which sample is with which cap. Or somebody to swap your precious bumblebees without you knowing it

[Jabberwocky]

You don't have to convince me. You just have to convince yourself.

Let's just call it my willing suspension of disbelief.

[KirkP]

It's the folks who market products by making pseudo scientific, deceptive claims that I have a problem with. Interestingly, the company selling the 59 euro capacitor isn’t making such claims. In their flowery language they pretty much admit that it's really a modern capacitor with vintage cosmetics, and that they deliberately randomize the capacitance values to simulate lower quality vintage caps. But I'm sure they know some people will miss that and buy the product thinking it actually makes them sound better!

[Cunamara]

Marketing is not about facts, it is about the manipulation of desire.

[KirkP]

Marketing is not about facts, it is about the manipulation of desire.

True. So the consumer needs to be knowledgable to avoid being suckered.

[John A.]

So here's how good science should work.

Note: an experiment can never actually prove that a hypothesis or theory is absolutely correct; it can only prove it to be incorrect or inaccurate.

So, a bunch of guitarists observe a tonal difference between tone capacitors of the same nominal capacitance value, but different construction types. As a "good" scientist, I need to keep an open mind, so I say to myself, "hey - that doesn't really fit with my understanding of how dielectric materials and AC theory work".

Do I dismiss these guitarists as idiots or delusional ? No, I have to believe the observations, even though I don't necessarily understand them. So what do I do ?

I have to do some experiments and come up with a hypothesis as to what is going on. So I ask the guitarists to give me the tone caps so that I can make some thorough measurements to identify the differences between them. Without a doubt there will be differences, as long as I measure to a sufficient level of precision. The question that needs answering then is: "are these differences observable to the human ear". So I then embark on modelling the frequency and transient response of the tone network. But here I need more information from the guitarists, such as the impedance characteristics of the pickups, the pots and at very least the input impedance of the amps. I make a first pass model, but find that within the limitations of the input information concerning the whole system, the model isn't sufficiently accurate to give us a satisfactory answer.

I need to make more experiments using the actual hardware on which the original observations were made. At this stage I ask one of the guitarists for his Gibson L5 and the boutique amp he was using to make his/her observations so I can continue my investigations.

Interim report: "These detailed experiments are taking a long time - but I believe we are definitely getting somewhere."

Unfortunately at that stage, my funding runs out and you never hear from me again.

This experimental protocol invites further scientific inquiry, leading to an article in the Journal of Actuarial Science Entitled "Life expectancy of capacitor material investigators, with and without changes in address"

John

[newsense]

How to let your ears find the best tone cap for your guitar | stewmac.com

[Jabberwocky]

It's the folks who market products by making pseudo scientific, deceptive claims that I have a problem with. Interestingly, the company selling the 59 euro capacitor isn’t making such claims. In their flowery language they pretty much admit that it's really a modern capacitor with vintage cosmetics, and that they deliberately randomize the capacitance values to simulate lower quality vintage caps. But I'm sure they know some people will miss that and buy the product thinking it actually makes them sound better!

There are better things to be outraged about: Drug companies accused of holding back complete information on clinical trials | Business | The Guardian .

I did point out that the Gibson Bumble Bee Reissue caps (in line with this 59 Euro cap) is a scam because it is all about cosmetics.

Then again, maybe not:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/complemen...bo-effect.aspx .

[Jabberwocky]

How to let your ears find the best tone cap for your guitar | stewmac.com

Good one, newsense. But I don't agree with its methodology at all.

Live with the guitar with material X cap for a Y period of time which is as long as you want it to be. It is for your own ears, after all. And proving it to yourself. And no-one else. If after a Y period of time, you feel no desire to carry on and are happy to make a conclusion, then that's all you need to know for yourself.

Science, huh? A recent double-blind in Rennes, France left one subject brain-dead, and 5 others in critical condition. All formerly healthy subjects. And there is the debacle of Tamiflu.

As I said, scientific tests can be made to deceive as in Tamiflu or have lethal outcomes as in the Rennes test.

I have been out of academia for a long-time now. When can a scientific study be shown to be absolutely conclusive? At best, it is "evidence shows". Still not conclusive and absolute. As in the Roche Tamiflu debacle, evidence shown wasn't so evident, after all.

Remember the great bumble-bee conundrum? Back in the 1930s, aerodynamics couldn't model how the bumble-bee was able to fly. But the bees didn't know that. The secrets of bee flight | Latest Features | physics.org

Even if the caps are snake-oil, I can afford the $24.99 on an PIO cap which makes me happy. You can call me all sorts of pejoratives but I make that decision for my own ears and my own enjoyment.

I can do worse things with $24.99 like buying a Justin Bieber CD.

Is science offended because I do not believe in "science"? I would rather believe in magic, sunrise and sunset, an arrangement of coloured blobs on canvas that makes cry or laugh, the touch of a friend, the smile of a child, ink on a page that brings me joy, and a sequence of stacks of sonic frequencies that somehow move my heart or, as in the case of Justin Bieber, make me call it SHIT.

Debunkers never invented anything. Dreamers do.

[medblues]

Actually, there are debunker/inventors and dreamer/losers in the world too. Not mutually exclusive.

More interesting are the ones who reach Nobel success and crossover to other fields and commit big mistakes in critical thinking while receiving a lot of press.

Or those who become self-help gurus with correspondence PhD degrees :-)

Many people who are engaged in science, find a lot of magic, art, miraculous observations, emotionally deep and diverse experiences, great relationships/friendships in it. Again not mutually exclusive. Science does not have to be cold and dry and boring.

Good one, newsense. But I don't agree with its methodology at all.

Live with the guitar with material X cap for a Y period of time which is as long as you want it to be. It is for your own ears, after all. And proving it to yourself. And no-one else. If after a Y period of time, you feel no desire to carry on and are happy to make a conclusion, then that's all you need to know for yourself.

Science, huh? A recent double-blind in Rennes, France left one subject brain-dead, and 5 others in critical condition. All formerly healthy subjects. And there is the debacle of Tamiflu.

As I said, scientific tests can be made to deceive as in Tamiflu or have lethal outcomes as in the Rennes test.

I have been out of academia for a long-time now. When can a scientific study be shown to be absolutely conclusive? At best, it is "evidence shows". Still not conclusive and absolute. As in the Roche Tamiflu debacle, evidence shown wasn't so evident, after all.

Remember the great bumble-bee conundrum? Back in the 1930s, aerodynamics couldn't model how the bumble-bee was able to fly. But the bees didn't know that. The secrets of bee flight | Latest Features | physics.org

Even if the caps are snake-oil, I can afford the $24.99 on an PIO cap which makes me happy. You can call me all sorts of pejoratives but I make that decision for my own ears and my own enjoyment.

I can do worse things with $24.99 like buying a Justin Bieber CD.

Is science offended because I do not believe in "science"? I would rather believe in magic, sunrise and sunset, an arrangement of coloured blobs on canvas that makes cry or laugh, the touch of a friend, the smile of a child, ink on a page that brings me joy, and a sequence of stacks of sonic frequencies that somehow move my heart or, as in the case of Justin Bieber, make me call it SHIT.

Debunkers never invented anything. Dreamers do.

[KirkP]

Skepticism and creativity aren't mutually exclusive.