Can I replace a 24uF capacitor with 22uF?


I am planning on replacing the Bennic caps on my Tannoy Turnberry SE low frequency crossovers with either Mundorf Supreme or ClarityCap MR, depending on how many caps I need to buy. Currently there are two 12uF caps in parallel. Can I just replace these with one 22uF cap without hearing any significant shift in frequency balance?
eugene81

Showing 2 responses by vapor1

24uf of Clarity MR is quite expensive. I'd suggest using a 20uf Clarity ESA 630v and parallel a 4uf Clarity MR for the final value. That'll give you 95% of the benefit of using the MR for full value.
Vapor1, I am intrigued by this idea. Can the 4uF cap really have that much influence even though it is only roughly 16% of the total capacitance?

Yes, with some caveats. The Clarity ESA and MR are very similar in character, so this approach works well. If for instance you put a 4uf MR on top of a 20uf oil/paper cap, the results would be more unpredictable. I have used combination of Clarity ESA and Jensen copper foil/oil caps for the smaller value and it worked well, the Jensen character is most prevalent in that case.

For large values like this my go-to is ESA for the big part and whatever flavor on top of them. Since the ESA's are very neutral it's proven to be a solid approach.

Pretty much whatever you do though is going to be better than the Bennic electrolytics.