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RE: Why?

Posted by elektron (A) on December 24, 2007 at 17:23:28

In Reply to: Why? posted by Lew on December 24, 2007 at 13:16:33:

Lew, hi. You raise a fair question. I think the crux of this whole thing is the hideous behavior of electrolytic capacitors in an audio amplifier. Two exceptions would be Black Gate and Cerafine both discontinued. Anyone who has modded an amp (i've done many) will attest to the tremendous improvement it makes replacing all electrolytics in the power supply and elsewhere. This also applies to the bias supply. Computer grade electrolytics (say 1200 uF 450 WVDC) have reactive effects one of which is ESR which is horrible for audio. They are non-linear at audio frequencies and beyond. The ultimate test is how they sound. The old paper & PCB oil types sound good beyond belief imparting a sense of life into the music that is startling. The are wonderful if you can find them and if you can live with the health risks. Still the solid and wet polypropylene types are excellent in their own right.

I am hard pressed to choose between the dry polypropylene (Solen) and polypropylene & oil (ASC). Both sound very very good. Are they as good as the ones made with PCB? No. Still both wet and dry polypropylene sound excellent. Lately I've been favoring the wet ones. The downside to either dry or wet is size. Using polypropylene to get large capacitance means the cap is going to be big. The 51uF Solen in a can is 2.16"x 4.60" and the 100uF is 2.55 x 4.55. It would take a whole bunch of either kind to duplicate my example above (1200uF 450WV). The good news is you don't need to. If you have an amp with electrolytics in it rework the amp with either wet or dry polypropylene types. You will gain clarity and emotion. You might even gain power, believe it or not.

Or, there are the wonderful misfit electrolytics called Black Gate and Cerafine. Both are discontinued. I happen to love the WKZ Black Gate caps for B+ supplies. They sound superb and not like regular electrolytics at all. I have heard amps brought back to life with the BG. The Cerafine are also very very good, perhaps a shade down from the BG, but high in performance. Sometimes when reworking an amp one is limited by the space available and other types are too big. Regarding BG, don't over voltage them. They don't like it and will be unforgiving. Leave plenty of headroom. Try the BG for cathode bypass if you need it. Even if you have been using dry or wet poly for bypassing sometime try a BG or C'fine. I think it will be an education.

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