BEST HARMLESS/SIGNATURELESS SPEAKERS CAPACITORS.


Dear friends:I really need your helpwith first hand experiences with speaker crossover capacitors founded in next main experiences/tested premises: for a 3-way speaker design, high resolution audio systems, very low distortion audio systems, wide systems frequency range, " zero trade-offs ".

I know that the best capacitor is NO-capacitor, well I need your near to that full experiences with another desired premises from you: audio systems using SS electronics and mainly listening MUSIC through digital sources.

All your opinions/help are appreciated.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.


Ag insider logo xs@2xrauliruegas
If you don't need audiophile names on your caps check out some of the surplus Russian caps. Teflon, glass sealed caps at a couple of bucks each, mil spec. Since they are Teflon they don't have paper to degrade and are a high quality cheap alternative.
Billwojo
Dear @billwojo :  "  If you don't need audiophile names on your caps....."

that's not the main subject . As a fact I use Duelund resistors in my speaker crossovers.

I can use Teflon caps in the midrange/high frequency drivers and my needs rigth now is cap for the woofers where I can't use teflon caps due that I need 100uf caps that is a very high capacitance for teflon units.

Thank's for your post.

R.
Dear @andy2  : The top Tidal is around 215K and the top Evolution even at higher price ! !

Other name I forgot is Acapella and I had the opportunity to listen ( twice. ) one of its top speaker in a first rate room/system with an audio friend in Houston.
Well the top Acapella speaker weigths 600kg. each one, very expensive and no Duelund's down there.

Btw, something that let me with many questions is about Tidal speaker  that use 5 diferent caps in the crossover: 2 Duelund models, 2 Mundorf models and Audyn reference and I wonder why all those diferent ( signature. ) capacitors in the crossover?.
Yes the obvious answer could be to achieve the designer targets during the voicing of those speakers but the speaker use the very well regarded Accuton drivers. Can I think that needs a " lot " of effort to tame its kind of sound response?  who knows,maybe yes. Of course that I'm ignorant of any Tidal design targets and the topology in its crossovers.

In the other side my conclusion along this thread ( what happened and what does not happened. ) is that does not exist a " best harmless/signatureless capacitor " for speaker crossovers.

I n theory well designed and well builded teflon caps are the ones nearer to that  " title " till appears a true/real contender for. 


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

In the other side my conclusion along this thread ( what happened and what does not happened. ) is that does not exist a " best harmless/signatureless capacitor " for speaker crossovers.
I agree. Every cap will have its sound signature - some are better at hiding its short comings than others.  Of course that does not mean some are not superior than others.  

Like they say, every artist steals. Only the bad ones got caught :-)


Dear friends: Reading the information in the web sites of the capacitors manufacturers as Duelund, Mundorf, Jupiter, Clarity and the like no one has a single chart/diagram of capacitor tests whole electrical information about each one of their models.

No one can prove that ( example ) paper on wax measure a lot better that any other kind of design , the same for paper on oil and the like and seems to me that no one cares about not even the speaker manufacturers ! ! !

That is what the high end passive parts is. Really pity and in some senses a shame for the proponents of those parts and even for the ones that use it in their speaker design/manufacture that do not ask about or disclñose technical information. Seems to me that that information just does not exist.

So we buy at " blind ".  Yes, I know what people say: " we do not need measurements but what the ears perceive ". For my first hand experiences I know that that statement is not enough for we can really be sure that what we are listening in reality is " rigth " because several times what we are listening in reality is wrong but ...? ? ?

I said that I use Duelund resistor in the crossover in my speakers that obviously I bougth " at blind ".
Reading about in the Duelund site they have links to reviews/tests and I gone to one of them that touted the Duelund resistor and in the chart of that resistors evaluation the Duelund resistor tolerance measured a very high 4%. This confirm that no one cares about.

The next resistors I use in my electronics items and please look what is a true professional way to make " things " and to show what we are buying:

http://texascomponents.com/pdf/tx2575.pdf

but if you go to Vishay caps site things are the same: a lot of true/proved information, even standard certifications:

http://www.vishay.com/how/onlineliterature/online-libraries/

You can go to the Wima site and is just impressive and wima is a standard in the industry. Yes you can say that wima caps just can't compares against the boutique ones and certainly it can't but for other diferent reasons that the ones you are thinking about.

Btw, I have a bunch of wima caps and believe or not I will make some tests in my speakers tweeter crossovers and we will see what happen down there.

Some or many of you are really with a deep technical knowledge and maybe some of you already took measurements in the caps that could indicates why are really better/superior to the wima or vishays and if you have those kind of information I think that many of us will appreciated you can share with us in this or other thread.

For me was a true surprise that my Duelund resistors tolerance measured a very high 4% when Caddoks ( in that test ) measured 0.2%. I used Caddok, Vishay, Mills, etc etc and these has really tigth tolerances. That's the problem to buy " at blind " and for me it's a huge Duelund irresponsability.

This thread gave me the opportunity to make some research about and my findings are really bad. I don't feel good about.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.