*felt _around_ tweeters
My bad.
My bad.
I swapped a capacitor and the oddest thing happened
Many years ago I was playing with my Focal profile speakers. Trying out cap and crossover mods. It turned out to be a very expensive learning experience. I learned a great deal about part selection, felt tweeters, and how to make a speaker with a bad impedance curve. :)
But one of the oddest things happened to me during break in. Of course, anyone who believes capacitors have a break-in period, and worse, that capacitors sound different is already suspect in the eyes of science, but bear with me for a moment, because this doesn't go where you expect.
So, of course, with confirmation bias, any question about subtle audiophile effects would normally be suspect. I could be selling snake oil, or I could be deluding myself, especially after all the work and money I put in! OK, lets accept that, 100%. I suffered confirmation bias, but one thing happened I have no firm explanation for.
As the capacitors were breaking in (Mundorf MKP) I started to hear weird surround effects. I was convinced some notes were coming from behind and below my ear. Not possible for me to have confirmation bias here, I had no such expectation, in fact the only time I ever heard anything like this was from Polk loudspeakers with the weird inner cancelling drivers.
After about 72 hours, this effect vanished, never to be heard from again.
So, my point to all this is, has anyone else experienced a similar artifact?
As an experimenter I believe this was possibly the following:
But one of the oddest things happened to me during break in. Of course, anyone who believes capacitors have a break-in period, and worse, that capacitors sound different is already suspect in the eyes of science, but bear with me for a moment, because this doesn't go where you expect.
So, of course, with confirmation bias, any question about subtle audiophile effects would normally be suspect. I could be selling snake oil, or I could be deluding myself, especially after all the work and money I put in! OK, lets accept that, 100%. I suffered confirmation bias, but one thing happened I have no firm explanation for.
As the capacitors were breaking in (Mundorf MKP) I started to hear weird surround effects. I was convinced some notes were coming from behind and below my ear. Not possible for me to have confirmation bias here, I had no such expectation, in fact the only time I ever heard anything like this was from Polk loudspeakers with the weird inner cancelling drivers.
After about 72 hours, this effect vanished, never to be heard from again.
So, my point to all this is, has anyone else experienced a similar artifact?
As an experimenter I believe this was possibly the following:
- Some behavior of the capacitor was acting as a comb filter, enough to fool my ear/brain mechanism into hearing things behind me.
- I changed something in the room
- There was something akin to ear wax altering my right ear's hearing.
6 responses Add your response
I haven't started upgrading componets on my speaker crossovers yet , but while changing capacitors in my amp ( 4 to 8 at a time in sectioned groups , 40 in all ) I allways noticed lack of bass volume . The bass would be there if you listened hard enough but it seemed to take 2 to 3 weeks before the sound was balanced ( and listenable ) . Maybe capacitors from different manufactures break in differently ? |
Teflon caps have some pretty crazy sound effects in crossovers. I mean sound effects. Had something to do with timing for me. I could stand in different places, hear different thing, 4 or 5 more hours of playing, something else would crop up. Almost like someone was moving the speakers, while they were playing. Anything above 250hz, seemed to bounce around like a rubber ball. 200 hours of that, a lot of the folks that used TRT caps said the same thing. Come to find out something to do with DC voltage and breaking in teflons. DC is a killer, for speakers, yet somehow these caps broke in. The bass was close, 6db first order no caps, but mids and highs all over the place. Mechanics term "they were wonkie".. Regards |
Hey @oldhymec I've had very similar things happen with very inexpensive Mundorf MKP. During the break in I kept hearing sounds come from behind and below my ear. Clearly something is happening related to what we now call Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function This is something I'm sure could be measured with a little effort today, but no one has of yet. Best, E |
When a sound is received by the ear it can either go straight down the ear into the ear canal or it can be reflected off the pinnae of the ear, into the ear canal a fraction of a second later. The sound will contain many frequencies, so therefore many copies of this signal will go down the ear all at different times depending on their frequency (according to reflection, diffraction, and their interaction with high and low frequencies and the size of the structures of the ear.)
LOL timing am I close E? That's the only way I could explain it. Very interesting read... Little more to it than, "sure sounds good", how and why. Behind, left, right, front, and center, left of center, and on and on.. Hearing, a lot of folks take it for granted, untill we lose it..Two ears can do all that, now if my brain will hold out, toot toot!! BTW, I just received a batch of MKP, little white guys. Good cap close tolerance and LONG lasting. MC275 GG getting the once over. 4 .22 Supreme Silver golds. No oils no Evos.. Easy to work on. Thanks |
