What do you guys recommend for input caps (the literal first component on the circuit) on a power amp?
I have a high bandwidth, high slew rate, neutrally voiced power amp. I did some mods recently and changed the stock input caps to Audience XO. Now these sound very pleasant. They have what I would call tone, a very very nice tone you could listen to all day. But the highs have been rolled off and detail slightly obscured compared to the stock input caps. Not what I was really going for.
I can see the Audience XO would work perfectly on other types of amps (a huge upgrade for the price actually) but it curtails the strengths of this particular high bandwidth amp design.
So what to do? The V-Cap CuTF’s are too expensive at $700 for a pair. But the ODAM’s are $165 for a pair, much more reasonable.
But do I even need input caps anyway, wouldn’t jumping them with bare solid core hookup wire be even more resolving?
But on the other hand doesn’t the input cap protect your speakers from blowing tweeters with passed through DC and various pops and crackles?