As a retired analog microchip designer with 35 years of experience, I have a good practical knowledge of capacitor characteristics. Caps have three basic electrical characteristics: capacitance, equivalent series resistance, and equivalent series inductance. Depending on the circuit in which the cap is used, one or more of these might be completely negligible. Film caps have much lower series resistance than electrolytics, but most of the series inductance is in the leads, so there is not much difference between the two types. In audio circuits, resistance and inductance are almost always negligible because the frequency of operation is so low. At audio frequencies, series inductance is practically zero. Series resistance along with the capacitance results in a tiny phase shift of the audio signal, but it's not at all clear that such tiny phase shifts are audible. Rather than providing an explanation, Paul, all you've done is *declare* that film capacitors sound better than electrolytics. To provide an explanation, you would have to deal with the capacitor characteristics I described above, by *showing* how an audio signal is altered in a way noticeable to the human ear. For example, tube amplifiers sound different from transistor amplifiers because tube characteristics are different from transistor characteristics. Almost all audio amplifiers provide gain by using a feedback circuit to control distortion. Tube amplifiers have inherently much lower gain than most decent transistor amplifiers, and end up having much higher distortion, mostly in the odd harmonics, than transistor amps. It's that distortion that is actually pleasing to the ear, and for poorly known biological reasons, "sounds better" than an undistorted signal. That's the sort of explanation you would need in order to explain why "film capacitors sound better than electrolytic capacitors. To be thorough, you'd have to provide a representative circuit schematic of some amplifier and explain exactly why using one type of capacitor in one location produces an audio signal that "sounds better" than if using another type. Also keep in mind that electrolytics are not used very much in audio circuits (except perhaps very low frequency bass circuits), but almost exclusively in power supply circuits.
And Alan, dielectric absorption might be the biggest factor. Yes ESR and ESL are important, especially for bypassing and circuits that pulse (switching regulators) but DA is the most likely differentiator. Agreed, lead inductance has no bearing at audio freq. Pease wrote articles about this, calling it a memory effect. Also a changing voltage and/or bias voltage across a cap influences the charge available which changes the capacitance. This might be a minor effect.
Well while you've been gaining book smarts for 35 years, he's been listening to this shit for about as long, so I'm gonna take his word on what sounds better
@@philipwebb960 They produce both. Clever designers use staging and topologies which tend to cancel even harmonics, so in practice it's more of a myth than reality, that tube circuits produce mostly even harmonics. But considering the overall frequency distribution of distortion harmonics, it is generally true that tube circuits produce more energy in low-order harmonics and less energy in the very high-order range, compared to class AB transistor circuits, for example.
I could be wrong, but my take is this. Capacitors are not actually perfect,,, actually they filter imperfectly. (They will "leak" freqs that should be blocked and "lose" freqs they shouldnt.) Different caps result in different styles of leak, just like transistors and tubes have different clipping and compression. ,,,, but i could be trippin.
Old video but if you're still curious it's because different materials charge at different speeds. There is also the issue of linearity where some types of capacitors don't charge and discharge with as smooth a curve as others.
why, it's mostly because of the ESR rating and capacitance, generally speaking, in a well engineered circuit, it would not matter, for example you can replace the caps with "better" ones (for your own definition of better), and it won't make any difference
My background is psychology, so I really appreciate these informal, but informative monologues. Thanks to my fellow listeners for their clarifying commentary, I.e. distinguishing the powers of micro and milli.
the shortest answer to the title is ESR and tolerances. Two years back I visited a web page that went in depth talking about tone caps, there were even audio samples. You can have two capacitors of different types with the same exact Farad and voltage and the tonal differences are due to differences in tolerance and equivalent series resistance.
In short: some caps have more electrical resistance and unwanted inductance than others which could emphasize certain frequencies and diminish others and cause phase shifts. Electrolytic caps have relatively high internal resistance because the electricity passes not only thru metal but also thru this paste with water and salts, which doesn't conduct perfectly. The chemical reactions inside can also create tiny tiny gas bubbles which when created and vanish create variations in capacitance and resistance that manifest as noise. Because of their build with rolled up foil, they tend to have more inductance also which makes them better suited for low frequencies like filtering the 50/60 Hz out of line voltage. Now if these things are built with great care, these effects are smaller than with cheaper ones. Still, generally one would put a non-electrolytic cap in parallel to short any radio frequency interference.
It's simple ac LOW FREQ AUDIO electronics Paul, not rocket science. C=ak/d & xc=1/2 pi fc, ESR= ESR=DF*Xc=DF/(2* π*f*C. If you as a "HI-END" source buy quality parts; COTS, ISO 900X and screen them properly then there should NEVER be a CAPACITOR failure in your boxes if the design passes muster. Caps, if made properly have similar finite lifetime as OTHER solid state electronic. Paul is a BS artist. Really, at Paul and his competitors prices you should be getting milspec, ever hi-rel traceable products. Hi-End audio thrives on fear/ ignorance. Fear you say? Yes the fear that your system won't measure up to your lawyer co-workers at you're pot/alcohol & cigar bar party. Just kidding, Paul. We love you.
The interference is high frequency AC on top of the DC. Your film cap is parallel to the motor and shorts the AC component produced by the motor. It does not short the DC cause caps don't conduct DC.
powertothebauer in short (pun intended), your unwanted motor interferences are A/C signals and are passed (shorted) through the capacitor in a rather brute force way: parallel-connected to both inputs of the DC motor. BUT for speakers, the connection is in series, like a paper dolls_chain holding just their hands, and so imagine one of the dolls is very little so she simply cannot stand to be shaken too hard with a large-duration pull, but indeed does very well when transmitting little alternating waves through herself. The little waves are high frequency because the speed of electricity must always move at a fixed speed throughout any conductor. That is what those formulas tell us. Why it wasn't put in simpler terms for an undisciplined hobbyist- well it is not your fault for not understanding because the electrical properties of motors are not externally apparent. They're what we consider black boxes of a sort, that nobody knows how they'll react until they're probed by meters or carefully connected. I suppose just that you're not careful because the manufacturer specifies a value and you simply throw it on without paying much attention. No big deal, we experiment more is all, but we also realize that DC voltage is not going to fry up your speakers if the current is next to nothing. Lots of other components that would be fried up by DC are actually fed little amounts of DC in a technique that is called biasing. Think of chip biasing as the old vacuum tubes being warmed up before they could start working, except this DC biasing has to be continually applied because of other characteristics. Of course the chip would fry up with a high bias-current, but resistors and especially capacitors block that from happening, which in the latter is related to how low frequencies behave more like DC while INSIDE any component. Clearly pure DC does not alternate, but AC signals can be biased to the point where the most negative troughs never reach 0V, and look on a scope like pulsed DC. You're probably only familiar with balanced inputs and 0V grounding, not these signals that legitimately 'float' above a 0V ground.
It is amazing how much I learn with your videos, as a former Electronic Engineer who abandon the career for computer science, I have the basic knowledge but I love how easy you explain all these complicated topics. Thank you so much.
The letter author explicitly asked "if they have the same specs (i.e. capacitance!), what is technically different and how does it translate to audio?" You then proceeded to suggest the poor audio quality is due to using the wrong size capacitor (using a 4000 mfd electrolytic vs. 0.01 mfd film cap). Total nonsense answer.
can you connect your speaker to compare with cheap mundorf 47uf Mcap tin cap(white.color) vs 47uf Mcap Alum vs 47uf Mcap supreme silver oil vs 47uf Mcap Supreme silver/gold/oil EVO. Does it sound different ! Live Video have ? 😍😍. ( can u do a video with that can ? It will be very Fun to try )......."//
THE REASON IS, ESR OF CAPACITORS - See the explanation given below if needed. 1. Capacitors are meant to block DC and to pass AC. 2. If the frequency of a signal (or current) is Zero Hertz (the unit of frequency) - it is DC. And if the frequency is One or more Hertz, then it is AC. 3. We use capacitors with suitable values to block or pass the some frequencies - Higher capacitance values can pass low-freq signals and vice-versa. 4. The electrical audio signals are AC, varies somewhere between 20Hz to 20,000Hz - Here, the lower frequency signals are supposed to be handled by the Woofers/Sub-Woofers and the higher frequency signals are by Tweeters and the mid frequencies are by Mid-Range speakers. We must pass only the intended frequency range to the respective speaker type, otherwise, it may sound strange. 5. The mentioned "different sound quality" is mostly observed on the low frequency ranges - here reveals the actual problem. 6. All capacitors do have ESR (equivalent series resistance - it is an AC resistance, it decreases with increase in frequency) and this parameter will offer some sort of blocking to the lower frequency signals which pass through it. 7. Since the low frequencies needs much current to be reproduced effectively, the current limiting by ESR will be a villain (bass may not be as deep as expected, with lack of expected current) 8. Also, in crossover networks, we use capacitors to bypass the unwanted frequencies to ground and to pass only the wanted frequencies to output, but, with this ESR, those will not be passed/bypassed effectively, and the speakers which are connected to the output will sound different. 9. Polypropylene capacitors (the small yellow one shown in the video) are at-least 10 times better than electrolytic caps in terms of ESR and hence those are called "audio-grade". (Any caps with lower ESR can be audio-grade in fact)
Yep! And an aged electrolytic cap could "develop" inside a ESR value of several ohms, which may conduct to silent tweeters in speakers. Bought some Telefunken RB 70 speakers (made more than 50 years ago) with dead-like tweeters and with weird sounding low and middle frequencies. After caps changing , the tweeters come to life and the speakers have a very pleasant sound.
I feel like the question posed at the beginning was never fully answered. The writer asked if swapping a cheap cap with the same specs as a fancy dancy $$ cap had any audio differences.
You see sir that's where you're wrong, Every opportunity that you genuinely don't know the answer is an opportunity to completely twist things up in the most creative way that you were able to devise on the spot, it's a challenge if you will, and you see you already don't know the answer so should somebody come along and try to tell you oh yeah you're so dumb well you already know you don't know the answer so screw them it's not going to hurt you or you ego in anyway, and the hilariousness should some of this twistedness catch fire and take off it's priceless. Lifes of game, and a scoreboard/count of who's winning the losing isn't necessarily as obvious as a lot of people seem to think. Carry on now with that backbreaking old burden Truth...,
Personally, I feel the “What is a capacitor?” could have been explained more clearly. At it’s fundamental level, a capacitor is an analogue electronic component capable of storing and releasing an electrical charge. The rate at which it can store and release that charge is determined by its characteristics. Some graphics would also helpful. I graduated from university in Electronics and Communications Engineering. Power supplies and audio circuits were a big part of my course. For people who don’t know what a capacitor is, the video isn’t helpful.
MatchstalkMan I don't see "What is a" in the title nor do I see any misleading click bait graphic in the thumbnail that disappeared in the actual video, so sorry if it wasn't what you wanted but you shouldn't have expected anything that wasn't indicated in the table of contents.
Leaving aside the error of a micro-farad being one thousandth of a Farad, actually, it's one millionth, these videos suffer from not making reasonable assumptions about the knowledge of the audience. If you start assuming the audience knows nothing - for example, the difference between AC and DC - you can't possibly provide a technical explanation of different capacitor types within the time available. That's a pity. I also think a picture explains things better than hand waving in mid-air.
Still does not explain why two equal capacitors have different sound (if any). The only argument here is that the more expensive ones must sound better!
in my experience, low value caps compared to high value/quality caps of the same type whilst passing signal, shows a difference in frequency fall off in dB very much sooner in the low value cap. In my view, low value/quality caps are close to a bandpass filter.
It is audiophoolery, basically. If we were talking about RF, where the type of capacitor plays a big difference, yes. But for audio frequencies, not by a long shot. You don't have any capacitor in which the inductance is significant at frequencies up to 20KHz. But the placebo effect and being in denial to the fact that one spent much money for nothing? Well, that is significant.
semahnai I guess capacitors work differently in your part of the world. Must be a gravitational delta coefficient difference. Or simply that your understanding is hokum. You shouldn't try to design anything electronic.
Ok, I need proof on that. Show me tests being done on oscilloscope, live (I don't accept bogus images), showing differences in audio distortion caused by different caps. By the way, I don't have audiophile hearing. I can't hear above 15KHz. Thus, I can't hear supersonic frequencies, like 48KHz or so.
Not just cheaper parts, but different TYPES of capacitors are made for different functions. Use a capacitor in the wrong application and you can introduce massive amounts of distortion, even among the same QUALITY caps. Cannot simply substitute one for another.
Summary: "capacitor is _any_ two conductors that are insulated from one another...dot!" and the various electrical properties associated with the capacitor depend on myriad of physical factors. Like the surface area of the conductors, insulating material, distance between conductors etc. etc. etc... And these cause myriad of effects that an ideal capacitor seen in circuit analysis doesn't have such as polarity, unwanted series resistances, inductances... susceptibility for DC-bias etc. etc. and all of these effects can and probably will distort the signal that's passing trough the capacitor if it's in series with the signal. That's why we have gazillions of different kinds of capacitor technologies and they all have their places and prices. But all in all it matters only if one can measure (or if you're an audiopho-- audiophile, hear) the difference.
what he was driving and did not clearly define was that the electrolytic is less efficient in passing audio signals but better at storing a large charge. Audio passed through an electrolytic gets cloudy or dark in the upper frequencies as the bulky materials take longer to charge and discharge and don't track the high frequencies as well. The small signal cap with its thin plastic insulator and super thin foil layer reacts more smoothly and efficiently at high frequencies. Otherwise an excellent presentation. think of it this way you might wear size 10 shoes, but a construction boot and a running shoe will behave differently in walking and running dynamics even though they would both fit you. The smaller lighter materials respond to ac changes faster and with truer fidelity.
As much as he gives info out in these videos, I bet Paul is learning from our comments as well sometimes. Anyway I appreciate the daily videos from an "old head" in the audio gear biz.
mrlithium, Learning is always, or at least SHOULD be a TWO-way street! I went back to 'school' in 2006, to learn to be an electrician, but I was AGHAST at what they were teaching students. One very popular teacher actually told us that FLOURIDE in our water supply is good for us!?! Needless to say, I got OUT of there ASAP!!!
Paul, I enjoyed this. It's not easy trying explaining capacitive reactance (Xc) to the average guy. It generally takes a semester to do that at University, but you did a good job in 9 minutes.
@ TheZooman22, it's university, NOT University, unless the word is used in a title, as in "Purdue University". Also, "trying explaining" is NOT correct English, but "trying TO explain" is. I only went as far as Grade 9, yet I can see MANY mistakes everywhere online in basic English grammar, punctuation, and spelling. If you want any semblance of credibility here, using correct English helps to attain that.
@@mr.blackhawk142 *"@TheZooman22," quote "university" and "University," and the period goes in quotes at the end of a sentence. Since you know credibility is more important than being insightful or appreciative, try harder next time :)
I had heard of running different quality caps in series like that to get better quality sound, but didn't know the why's and wherefore's. Thanks for the explanation!
Hare deLune Not different QUALITY caps, but rather different TYPES, e.g. film cap bypass of a larger electrolytic. The film cap make the electrolytic behave in a more linear fashion.
Excellent video but I don't think you answered his question, wasn't he asking given the same capacitance as well as all the other parameters like ESR how come film capacitors sound better than electrolytic capacitors ?
I had my Fender Deluxe Reverb in for a upgrading. So called low quality caps were replaced by high quality caps. The guy is supposed to be a certified repairman. However, the amp I got back sounded worse than the one I delivered. My experience so far; be prepared for disapointment.
@@retroflection Might have been that you actually liked the distortion of the original sound better, than the "cleaner" sound? Guitar amps aren't made to perfectly reproduce exactly what is played, but rather add "color/character" to the sound. In a stereo setup you'd want more clinical sound like that of "better" capacitors. I don't know you might already be aware of these things Also I am no expert.
@@gastank43 or maybe those high quality capa have slightly different parameters which does change the sound of the amp. The amp is then 'out of spec' with the designers engineering.
I do agree with Paul on his views of capacitors. From some of the comments I read, he may not have explained it to a deep enough level. He did not talk about dissipation factor of the dielectric. Capacitors are not perfectly efficient devices, electrolytic capacitors will tend to hold a small charge even after being shorted out. Electrolytics have a ripple current rating, series impedance etc. I personally like using film capacitors whenever space allows, because they sound better than electrolytic caps. I have not tried the super expensive audiophile film caps to see if they are substantially better than the run of the mill film caps.
Gerhardt from Calgary, if you're listening, the answer depends on your level of interest and appetite for technical specifics. Capacitors, like cables and connectors, are the things most customers can see or are aware of. Therefore more attention is paid to them because manufacturers are able to convince the customer of their intrinsic value. Much more attention is paid to capacitors than to resistors for example, because resistors are small and difficult to remove. Capacitors are bigger and with some rudimentary soldering skills, can be removed and refitted with newer and more expensive equivalents. In short, it's another example of snake oil on which this industry is built. I design and build my own range of amplifiers that sound lovely and measure beautifully and I couldn't tell you which brand of capacitors I am using; as long as they are the right value, material and spec, I use what I can get quickly from my suppliers. A basic rule of thumb is to use film caps in the audio path rather than foil caps as foil caps can exhibit hysteresis which is where the cap doesn't discharge completely - like stretch marks in your sweater! Explained here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_absorption .. Hope that helps
To anyone reading this and thinking it might be snake oil or it might be marketing. I actually tried it. I changed out electrolytic capacitors in a speaker for solen and also oil caps. They all sound different. I've also tried this inside amplifiers. You can notice a difference. The change is how the sound resonates in your ear. even if it measures the same which I'm not sure if it would. You can make two different sounds that appear exactly the same on a scope but they sound different to your ear. Caps absolutely have an impact on total balance. At least if you have a good ear. If you happen to be one of those people that think amplifiers all sound the same you might not notice it. However, there's only one way to find out and that is for each person to try it
I will answer, more expensive capacitors usually have a lower series resistance(ESR), large capacitance values(in thousands of uF) are usually electrolytic, these however have poor leakage, so better designs use low leakage types such as polypropylene-however they are physically large and expensive. There are also other factors that determine capacitor quality aligned to the application it is used in too, but in a nutshell ESR is arguably the most important in general in audio. Paul is right about putting a film capacitor in parallel with an electrolytic to lower ESR, however that does not prevent leakage, so a high end design should try to avoid electrolytics. Although if the design is using a linear power supply you really cannot avoid using them on the smoothing section; replacing them with film would be very expensive and you would end up with a box full of capacitors to make up the 100,000uF or whatever you wanted to smooth the DC with. Also note that the better capacitor manufacturers have better noise immunity by better plate design, using higher quality electrolites, and also lower ESR lowers thermal noise. Now why do they sound better?..well thats hard to answer as capacitors are used in many different apps in an electrical circuit; dc blocking, smoothing, filters and so on. So refer to my first paragraph to cover all apps.
To anyone who doesn't think he answered the question or misunderstood, what he's saying is make sure the capacitor you have is the right kind. He's essentially saying a film capacitor will give you better sound quality than an electrolytic capacitor because of how they work so even with equal uF they'll sound different simply because of how they're designed.
When you are a true audiophile person you also care about the longevity of your investment. Most often, capacitors are the first components to wear out in any electronics and using better capacitors makes a lot of sense from this perspective.
ThinkingBetter, good point! You also typed two LEGIBLE sentences with NO spelling mistakes!?! This is a FIRST in the history of the internet!!!! Can I be your friend??? L0L
When I was a teenager, in 1981, a guy working for the Electronics magasine Radio & Television did a blind test on a bunch of audiophiles. He put some capacitors considered "bad" along with a few low slew rate 741 op-amps (and some other "bad" stuff) in series with "high end" audio equipment at "line level". Swithed them in and out several times. None of the blind folded "golden ears" could determine when the 741 or the "bad" capacitors were included in the signal chain or not. Since then, I lost interest in this expensive quasi religion and started concentrating fully on the music itself. That said: There are also audible differences, of course! Speakers sound very different, for instance. So did cassette recorders. Varying damping factors in power stages driving bass speakers are indeed noticeable. Some recordings from the 1970s have terrible distorsion in the treble, and so on. (Possibly that famous "TIM", transient/dynamic intermodulation due to too hard feedback on too many or slow amplifying stages.)
The "Tip" at the end of the viddy has got me rummaging through my box of spares to find a cap to parallel with some of the cheap stuff they bung in musical instrument amplifiers...especially valve designs. Thanks.
at last someone telling me about the crossover and bas mid and tweeter. 3:55 into the video. I am fixing my old Magnepan MG II speakers and looking for capacitor info. thank you for all the nice videos you upload . Jan From Sweden.
A capacitor's function is to store and release energy. It's definition is to offset inductance by 180 electrical degrees.That is why we can power factor correct inductive motors so when done correctly Cos Phi is almost equal to 1.000
The problem with electrolytic caps is the electrolyte which transfers the signal via ion transfer which is much slower,lossier and noisier than the electron transfer of a film cap.The exception being Rubycon Blackgate electrolytics which employ a unique carbon powder impregnated separator which eliminates this problem.These caps ceased production in 2006 but Rubycon are remanufacturing them under the Audionote brand name and should be available second half of this year.
I listened to 10 minutes of this just to not get any answer at the end. In case you were wondering where did those "dislikes" came from, they were from people like me expecting something about non-linear voltage-load ratio, dc leaking and other measurable effects. Not just ""This is 1 dollar a piece, so it sounds better"
Thanks for sharing. Maybe you could tell about the why the difference in prizing? you can bye two capacitors with exactly the same data and same electrical measurements (i.e. on an oscilloscope) but the one cost 50 cents and the other 50 dollars.
Paul’s just trying to keep it simple. Every insulator must charge and discharge to pass current to the target conductor. Different insulators charge and discharge at differing rates. Hence the output of a capacitor is distorted, relative to variations of insulations, and resistance in conductors.
Finally! I have been searching for this exact info for a long time, and you nailed it. Explaining it only the way someone with such technical knowledge combined with a down to earth radio personality can do, a rare gift indeed. Thank you Paul and keep it coming.
Unfortunately I wasn't a fan of this video, after liking lots of other videos of yours, this one didn't really seem to answer the question directly and seemed to talk about other factors instead. Also everyone else has already stated the uF vs mF mixup. I'm still left not understanding how the physical makeup of the capacitor alters the sound.
Current doesn't flow through the capacitor, it's just an illusion of current flowing through. Rather, it's electron charges "accumulating" on both sides of the plates as a result of the ELECTRIC FIELD being generated across the capacitor plates.
The thing that’ll REALLY make your head itch is the fact that the energy doesn’t actually flow through the wire. 🤔Thanx for explaining crossover caps. Never had to use any in a guitar amp so I wasn’t sure what they were doing in some cabs.
How about measuring capacitance vs (varying) bias voltage - this might be a starting point towards characterizing (one of) the non-linearities of the components, and it is non-linearity that you 'hear'.
So they are better because they cost more? I missed the question answer? Edit, found in comments. Great explanation of what caps basically do for a beginner like myself. Thanks for sharing your knowledge from audio design and manufacture experience. It's one of those, 'Well, if anyone knows...' moments for me.
Capacitors will pass alternating current above a particular frequency, and block direct current. A capacitor essentially stores a static charge that the alternating current signal alternately charges and discharges. This is how is passes on alternating current - because the stored charge on one side of the capacitor creates an exact opposite charge on the other side of the capacitor. The amount of charge (in volts) that can be stored dictates the amount of alternating current that can flow. Capacitors and inductors in combination form what is called a resonant circuit. Resonant circuits form the basis for all tone controls and all analog signal filters of any sort. The different types of capacitors - made from different physical materials - have different properties. Among those properties is also a degree of inductance. And the different types of capacitor have different amounts of inductance. Interestingly, inductors also have a degree of capacitance. The trick is to combine inductors and capacitors in such a way that you get the right amount of capacitance and the right amount of inductance in resonant circuit for what you need. An inductor is similar to a resistor, but is frequency dependent. A resistor inhibits the flow of direct current, and an inductor inhibits the flow of alternating current above a given frequency. Thus, a capacitor filters out low frequencies, and an inductor filters out frequencies above a particular point, and what you get is a band of frequencies that the resonant circuit will pass. Some inductors are just resistors working with an AC signal, and other inductors are coils of wire. Transformers have an inductance and a capacitance rating.
Capacitor becomes more conductive when frequency up, coil becomes more insulate when frequency down. Resistor kills unwanted frequency. Thus you can seperate audio frequency through a filter. This principle is same also in radio and video frequency. Good component matters as to capacitor, but not as much to coil and resistor.
"coil becomes more insulate when frequency down" ? It becomes more conductive with lower frequencies and more insulate with higher frequencies. Capacitors pass AC - block DC Inductors pass DC - block AC
+gotham61 Lol, thank you.This metric vs imperial battle, I use both, and have the same difficulties in both systems :) As far as the "these sound way better" thing about caps is kind of non-sense. If the right spec & type cap is installed in the particular circuit, say a guitar tone circuit, or a crossover network, and swap brands, at same values, etc. not many an ear will pass a blind test. But hey it sells caps, and $1237.99 RCA cables too :)
90% of the time while attempting to watch Paul's videos as a total novice to audio products my a.d.d. kicks in and I have no idea what I just watched lol. Sounds good though.
Grandpa: "In my younger days ... bla, bla bla., and bla bla bla, and then I said: yak, yak, yak and yak, yak, yak ..." and 9 minutes later: "Sorry what was the question again?" I am sure you have a lot of knowledge on the subject(s), but you are wasting the time with nothing.
the capacitor symbol is theoretic, fictitious , but essential to understanding the electrical behavior of an ideal capacitor . A real, physical capacitor has parasitic elements such as ESR and inductance that change the behavior of a real capacitor when compared to its theoretic behavior. A real capacitor becomes a resonant circuit at some high frequency due to the parasitic inductance. A 100uf electrolytic will resonate with its parasitic inductance at 10khz. In order to maintain the effects of 100uf at frequency above 10khz it is necessary to add a mylar capacitor of say 0.1 uf in parallel which will effectively bypass the 100uf at frequencies above 1khz. m.shen
Not a very scientific explanation, AC doesnt just pass through the capacitor because its AC and not DC, it is because of the electrons flowing out of the plate and attracting more electrons on the other side (they never cross the insulator only build up inside). This causes electron potential (AKA voltage) between the plates, if the capacitor stops charging up (voltage is the same as the power supply) no more electrons will be attracted to the other side so then there will be no current flowing "through" (actually too and from) the capacitor, so current from a DC source stops once the capacitor is full until the voltage changes again. What happens differently with AC is that after the first peak of the wave the electrons now start flowing in the opposite direction, into the depleted plate, pushing electrons out of the filled plate. This is all in order to equalize with the potential that the amplifier is currently at. PLEASE UPVOTE
Ahh the old debate of whether current actually flows thru a capacitor), your explanation is far too scientific for the majority of readers, but good on you for taking the time).
Exactly. it can NEVER pass thru a cap. they don't conduct. As you seem to explain current flows thru the circuit one way charges cap. as the current alternates the cap charges the discharges etc. etc. etc. allowing current to flow thru the circuit. Drives me crazy when people say a cap lets ac pass! The value of the cap will determine the freq. at which it will charge n discharge. Putting it simply.
It is still current flow though, virtual or not, whats important is the outcome which looks as if it passes AC. BTW: the value vs. frequency is an over simplification as you say, as it depends also on the series and parallel resistances as well as any other caps or inductors within the same part of the circuit (1st order, 2nd order and so on)
Paul McGowan: Haha thats the trick isn't it, its not easy communicating on a specialist subject in general terms; but I think you made a good job of it. I think I could spend hours talking to you about Audio with all that experience you have.
I am answering the question of how a capacitor works not what does a capacitor do. The question is in the description but was never answered in the video: "And, for that matter, what is a capacitor and how does it work?" The reason people ask basic questions is that they do not understand the basics.
When can we expect the video on the scientific/engineering merits of megabucks power cables? And laughing my ass off over here - he basically comes out and says "We use cheaper capacitors in power supplies because they're not in the signal path" at the same time as they're selling $1000 power cables with the claim that they improve audio performance. Welcome to 'audiophilia' people - where even trained engineers and scientists will stoop to psuedo-science in order to make a buck. All in all it's rather depressing given that PS Audio does make some great equipment based on sound electrical and mechanical engineering principles. Shame.
Two caps of the same type and same value must sound the same. The more expensive cap might last longer but when the two caps are fresh out of the box they necessarily must sound the same. Different sound indicates different values and if nothing else caps must perform to the stated value regardless of price. Differences in cap style make different sound.
Not really. The more expensive capacitor might be made with better quality materials than the cheaper one of the same type and value. That may result in smaller non-linearities (the change in capacitance with applied voltage) and that is the key factor in how a capacitor "sounds". With electrolytics, even if they are being used just as smoothing capacitors, a better quality one is likely to have a lower ESR than a cheap one with the same capacitance. That might mean a noticeable increase in ripple voltage with the cheap part, and that can cause clipping on loud signals. You'd certainly hear that.
They are. Back not that long ago, you'd find 10% electrolytic caps in crossovers. Those are high ESR and induce audible issues. For just $2.00, you can get 5% metallized film caps, which are vastly superior. They are low ESR and act more like wire, without rolloff or smear like the old caps. In the DOZENS of speaker repairs and upgrades I have done, in EVERY instance, swapping stock electrolytics for $2.00 metallized film resulted in an obvious and profound imnprovement that even non-audiophiles can easily hear. Expensive speakers like yamaha NS-1000M and Kef 104/2 had poor caps in the crossover. Re-capping them (projects listed online) resulted in a dramatic improvement not possible back in the 80's.
perl man Agreed 100%!! But not all is snake oil or witchcraft. Just because one may not understand the science behind certain design elements doesn't relegate it to the Hokum bin. Unfortunately, so many here are neither scientifically educated, nor are audio engineers, makes an amusing read. I always try to dispell audio mythology where I see it. It does the consumer no good.
altops It's not always easy to make complex issues simple while maintaining accuracy for the layperson. Mythology tries to oversimplify things and while there MAY br a grain of truth to it, doesn't hold water in real world design. Paul does a fairly good job of explaining things and does the typical consumer a good service. He only goes off the wagon when trying to appease the "cognoscenti."
perl man Why do people insist on using the phrase snake oil incorrectly? Snake oil is the genuine article. I don't know who is worse, the guys who call BMW cars beamers or guys who call ineffectual products snake oil.
I think the reason why people do this is because Paul is not answering the question as well as making some rather large technical explanation mistakes. I like listening to Paul and agree with most things he says in his videos but some are not very good. Entertaining videos though.
Capacitors can introduce audio distortion through variations of ESR or capacitance with the instantaneous voltage and current across the capacitor. Consider a high-value ceramic capacitor in a basic 1000hz high pass filter. A 100hz signal will be greatly reduced, but the capacitor value will vary up and down due to the 100hz voltage across the cap. This will introduce 100hz modulation on higher signals, strongest 100-2khz. An X7R ceramic cap's capacitance can fall 50% at it's rated DC voltage vs 0VDC. ESR of an electrolytic capacitor is far from an ideal resistor. It is after all passing a signal through a chemical bath (electrolyte). Lots of opportunity for diode-like effects. Dielectric absorption has been suggested as a factor, but it generally occurs on a time scale of seconds or longer, outside the audio band.
Paul, thank you for teaching all those cool stuffs freely and for not making it a secret (like the paralel capacitor trick). byebye be well and thank you for your generosity have a very good day Paul.
i love working on speakers. interesting video. one question how do we calculate how much microfarad would be right for with the speaker. suppose we have 4 Ohm tweeter and 8omh woofer. also what all products are required for a cross over and how do we calculate those products value?
Very informative and timely to me since I'm upgrading some vintage speakers. Replacing all the old electrolytics with polypropylene ones, perhaps Mundorf oil based ones. Great video. Thanks!
At higher voltages electrolytic capacitors go bad after a few years or even decades even when they are not used. Polypropylene capacitors do not have this problem because they have an indefinite shelf life. They also have less ESR than electrolytic. This makes them better for plate voltage power supply filters and this is why I use them in my vacuum tube amplifiers, especially the 1000 Volts I use for my 833A SET. You can get them rated at 2300 Volts which is a comfortable over-design safety for this. I see electrolytic capacitors used in vacuum tube amplifiers costing 5 figures or more and this is why I prefer to make my own amplifiers.
I was eagerly awaiting for the original question to be answered but apparently it was not to be. Instead, a completely different question was answered with "because it sounds better". It's pearls of wisdom like this that make TH-cam so amazing...
Excellent video! I've been reading about capacitors all week! Nice timing. I just took the lid off of a Yamaha B-2 last night. If I can get it to work, I want to do a full restoration. Living in Japan, I got it as junk for $200. It turns on, but no sound. If anyone has restoration advice for the B-2, hit me up! Thanks!
Unplug and not turn on! Have a tech look at this. There are plenty of posts about refurbing this amp on diyauidio. B-2 amps that have not been maintained by a tech "frequently" kill the vfets. If you are lucky, your problem is different as the B-2 uses vfets which are unavailable. Regardless your amp may have some vefets that are still good and can be sold. Good luck
also, the conductors in the film capacitor ends are supposed to be connected not to each end of the film but more importantly to each side of the film where the film is supposed to isolate two conducting sides on the film and thus form a capacitor
mrlithium69 True, and I suppose that when he is doing these on the spot rather than a studied reply he is bound to make a few errors here and there. Overall, Paul does a great job making complex issues more understandable to the layperson.
This video provided some information about capacitors and their use in audio equipment that is premised on the idea that film caps sound better. It didn't in any way attempt to answer the question of WHY they sound better. I understand that there may be some motive to keep these videos informative and approachable to the layman. The issue is that you've selected a question that is only properly answered in ways that may be intimidating or out of reach of the layman. I propose a better route would have been to select a question that allowed an answer that is the type of content you'd like to provide, as opposed to what this video is (something that may fool the layman into thinking they've gotten a technical answer or explanation, when they have not). This would also go a long way to diseude the less patient among folks like myself from yelling "snake oil" as we are wont to do.
No mention of dielectric absorption? Look on the web for articles back in the day by Walt Jung and Richard Marsh. They did some very interesting work on why different caps sound different back in the 1980's.
What what what I'm talkin about is we're going to make a movie theater sound so great with sound system lives there but we're going to add a few things to it to get the sound out Ray that's beautiful you're holding out on me man
The actual real differences are in manufacturer tolerances, leaking, polarized vs non-polarized, potentially speed in the dielectric, and mechanical ability to handle wattages. First in tolerance, which is the primary reason for "better sounding" : a high end capacitor will have a tighter tolerance. Whatever a capacitor is rated at, it actually will have capacitance (or capacity to hold charge) with said tolerance. So a tighter tolerance will be more consistent, which makes a difference in perception of a speaker line because they'll be more consistent with the manufacturers intended design, but also if there are multiple capacitors in a circuit with wider tolerances, they can have potential mismatches and cause frequency drops or gaps, etc. The to leakage: all capacitors leak somewhat. If you charge one up, a non-leaky capacitor, or a perfect capacitor, will hold that charge indefinitely if there's no circuit to ground it or bleed it off. Indeed some really big electrolytic capacitors can hold lethal currents for years after last use, old tube amps and CRT monitors/televisions were notorious for this. However, there's no such thing as a perfect capacitor. Eventually they all leak and lose their charge. And eventually as current passes across the plates, ions of the plate metal are lost through electrolysis. So the capacitance is also modified and diminished. Some types are more resistant to this based on the material(s) of the anode or cathode (which can actually be different materials), the more 'inert' the material, the longer it will last, but a lot of inert materials aren't great for storing electrical currents, many are too conductive or not conductive enough. This is why semi-conductors are typically preferred (transistors are very similar to capacitors, and this is why silicon is used in computer chips). And the leakier they are (typically through inductance) the less reliable and consistent they are, and of courses inductance can cause undesirable noise when you don't want said inductance. Then polarized and non-polarized: polarized will only allow a signal to pass a certain way, non-polarized, both, which has implications primarily in AC circuits, but there are times either way where you'd want a polarized vs non-polarized cap. Typically electrolytic and tantalum are polar, where most Paper-in-foil, ceramics, etc are non-polarized. In my experience, most of the time you don't want polarized caps in an audio signal where you do in a power circuit. In a power circuit this leads to cleaner power. I'm not 100% certain why you tend to see more non-polar in audio signals other than it might not make a big difference in low voltage applications and electrolytics tend to not last as long and are more expensive. Then there's the dielectric or "insulator" in the capacitors. They aren't true insulators, or they'd never pass a current. Instead they're typically materials designed to be the right amount of resistance so that once the charge builds on the plates, they pass the right amount of current at the right pace. Some have some different behaviors. Then there's mechanical ability to handle wattages. Typically as long as the wattage it's rated for exceeds what you're putting through it, there won't be much of a difference. Though, higher wattage capacitors tend to be bigger, therefore better made, and more durable and consistent. But they also tend to be more expensive, partially due to the cost of the extra material and manufacturing. But also certain types like ceramic disc don't make a ton of sense to make large enough to use in the high wattage situations that call for an electrolytic or tantalum, and might likely be cheaper but too large and heavy to be practical. Of course this is all still a simplification and I've generalized some things that may not be technically correct. But generally speaking, more expensive capacitors are going to be more consistent electrically and more durable, leading to somewhat better, but more consistently good sounds for longer.
We must also consider equivalent series resistance. Because capacity × resistance = a time constant. And 5 times that will give charge or discharge times, which does affect sound quality. .
Paul,We've been using Sprague electrolytics in Fender guitar amps for years now.The prices have been going way up.Starting to use JJ caps.Half the price. Illinois Capacitors are the budget ones but look cheap.Orange Drops have been used widely for coupling caps.I've started using the 150s.They sound a little smo6other to my ear.What do old filters sound like?I tell people old caps are like looking through an out of focus camera and new filter caps are like dialing the focus on.Have you ever messed with a Fender tweed Bassman? How about an Ampeg SVT?The SVT has six 6550 power tubes,700 volts on the plates and 300 watts of humping bass tone.O.K.What's a good guitar tone ?Listen to AllmanBrothers Band,Eat A Peach,Mountain Jam.Duane Allman does a guitar solo towards the end, after the drum and bass solo.It'a a one four chord progression,kinda gospel sounding.A 50's sunburst Les Paul through a 50 watt Marshall amp with one or two Marshall 4-12'' speaker cabs.Duane gets everything from sweet and clean to full on tube saturation.The Marshall is a copy of that Fender Bassman 5f6-a circuit.Here's the funny thing about Fender amps.I read an interview with Seth Lover and he said Fender amps are nothing special.They are so logical and straight forward,easy to work on and built with common parts.If I was gonna go on a trip across the cosmos in a space ship,I'd take the old hand wired Fender.You could teach a class on good layout just from looking at it.Other people have said it.Leo's genius was layout and grounding.Sorry,this wasn't supposed to be so long.I fell down the rabbit hole.Happy Listening and Playing.
A capacitor doesn't pass "voltage" (battery or otherwise), neither current. I'm sorry if I'm seeming harsh, but capacitors are isolators. However, they allow the electric field to propagate, thus adding electrical charge to one plate and removing it from the other plate. Since charges won't go through the dieletric (unless it is leaky), the charge difference remains. Plus, there is no such term as "passing voltage". Voltage is a charge difference, while current is a charge movement and thus, only current has the ability to get transferred. To add, I believe that an electrolytic capacitor may sound different if it is leaky. The rest, I take it as pure audiophoolery. Never noticed any difference, even with an oscilloscope. Notice that oscilloscopes are far more reliable that the ear (or brain).
Not quite! You can use the scope's FFT, or better yet, a spectrum analyzer to check distortion. Analyzing how capacitors sound by ear is not an objective test. But yes, I agree to disagree.
Electrolytic capacitors are rolled tightly and put into that can. The rolled construction takes on some characteristics of a coil with high frequency. A choke coil resists frequency change, and so does a rolled capacitor.
A tip: If there's an electrolytic in the signal path, DON'T replace it with a tantalum. Tantalum capacitors have less leakage, and (presumably ?) last longer, BUT, their capacitance vs applied voltage characteristic is nonlinear. Not by much, but any nonlinearity is too much, and will introduce distortion (mostly IMD, the most objectionable kind). They're fine for bypassing, but not coupling.
As a retired analog microchip designer with 35 years of experience, I have a good practical knowledge of capacitor characteristics. Caps have three basic electrical characteristics: capacitance, equivalent series resistance, and equivalent series inductance. Depending on the circuit in which the cap is used, one or more of these might be completely negligible. Film caps have much lower series resistance than electrolytics, but most of the series inductance is in the leads, so there is not much difference between the two types. In audio circuits, resistance and inductance are almost always negligible because the frequency of operation is so low. At audio frequencies, series inductance is practically zero. Series resistance along with the capacitance results in a tiny phase shift of the audio signal, but it's not at all clear that such tiny phase shifts are audible.
Rather than providing an explanation, Paul, all you've done is *declare* that film capacitors sound better than electrolytics. To provide an explanation, you would have to deal with the capacitor characteristics I described above, by *showing* how an audio signal is altered in a way noticeable to the human ear.
For example, tube amplifiers sound different from transistor amplifiers because tube characteristics are different from transistor characteristics. Almost all audio amplifiers provide gain by using a feedback circuit to control distortion. Tube amplifiers have inherently much lower gain than most decent transistor amplifiers, and end up having much higher distortion, mostly in the odd harmonics, than transistor amps. It's that distortion that is actually pleasing to the ear, and for poorly known biological reasons, "sounds better" than an undistorted signal. That's the sort of explanation you would need in order to explain why "film capacitors sound better than electrolytic capacitors. To be thorough, you'd have to provide a representative circuit schematic of some amplifier and explain exactly why using one type of capacitor in one location produces an audio signal that "sounds better" than if using another type.
Also keep in mind that electrolytics are not used very much in audio circuits (except perhaps very low frequency bass circuits), but almost exclusively in power supply circuits.
Alan, don't tubes produce even order distortion rather than odd order distortion?
And Alan, dielectric absorption might be the biggest factor. Yes ESR and ESL are important, especially for bypassing and circuits that pulse (switching regulators) but DA is the most likely differentiator. Agreed, lead inductance has no bearing at audio freq. Pease wrote articles about this, calling it a memory effect. Also a changing voltage and/or bias voltage across a cap influences the charge available which changes the capacitance. This might be a minor effect.
Well while you've been gaining book smarts for 35 years, he's been listening to this shit for about as long, so I'm gonna take his word on what sounds better
@@TheChadPad I guess you can't read
@@philipwebb960
They produce both. Clever designers use staging and topologies which tend to cancel even harmonics, so in practice it's more of a myth than reality, that tube circuits produce mostly even harmonics.
But considering the overall frequency distribution of distortion harmonics, it is generally true that tube circuits produce more energy in low-order harmonics and less energy in the very high-order range, compared to class AB transistor circuits, for example.
I'm still really curious about the answer.
I could be wrong, but my take is this. Capacitors are not actually perfect,,, actually they filter imperfectly. (They will "leak" freqs that should be blocked and "lose" freqs they shouldnt.) Different caps result in different styles of leak, just like transistors and tubes have different clipping and compression. ,,,, but i could be trippin.
@@tsmspace Shrooms?
@@dannyverhamme7970 capacitors,,,, are like snowflakes. In a pile of snow they are all the same.
OMG! MICROFarad...one millioneth of a Farad, not 1,000th! (More coffee Paul!)
Old video but if you're still curious it's because different materials charge at different speeds. There is also the issue of linearity where some types of capacitors don't charge and discharge with as smooth a curve as others.
This video doesn't address the question posed in the title.
you just did not listen
why, it's mostly because of the ESR rating and capacitance, generally speaking, in a well engineered circuit, it would not matter, for example you can replace the caps with "better" ones (for your own definition of better), and it won't make any difference
@@Rights4Life I must have missed it. Can you please tell us the answer, since you now know it ?
Because of their makeup
Well, it's a question not a statement, lol. Maybe if it said 'Why capacitors sound different' then your point would have a leg to stand on.
My background is psychology, so I really appreciate these informal, but informative monologues. Thanks to my fellow listeners for their clarifying commentary, I.e. distinguishing the powers of micro and milli.
That didn't answer the question. At all.
But it did probably sell a few $1000 PS Audio power cables...
He did though
@@HakeemKaree He explained that they sound different, but why do they sound different?
Did you listen??? Maybe your caps are bad
the shortest answer to the title is ESR and tolerances.
Two years back I visited a web page that went in depth talking about tone caps, there were even audio samples.
You can have two capacitors of different types with the same exact Farad and voltage and the tonal differences are due to differences in tolerance and equivalent series resistance.
there is more to it than that
I wasn't looking for information about capacitors in an audio-specific set up, but I found myself watching the whole video anyway. Nicely done!
In short: some caps have more electrical resistance and unwanted inductance than others which could emphasize certain frequencies and diminish others and cause phase shifts. Electrolytic caps have relatively high internal resistance because the electricity passes not only thru metal but also thru this paste with water and salts, which doesn't conduct perfectly. The chemical reactions inside can also create tiny tiny gas bubbles which when created and vanish create variations in capacitance and resistance that manifest as noise. Because of their build with rolled up foil, they tend to have more inductance also which makes them better suited for low frequencies like filtering the 50/60 Hz out of line voltage. Now if these things are built with great care, these effects are smaller than with cheaper ones. Still, generally one would put a non-electrolytic cap in parallel to short any radio frequency interference.
It's simple ac LOW FREQ AUDIO electronics Paul, not rocket science. C=ak/d & xc=1/2 pi fc, ESR= ESR=DF*Xc=DF/(2* π*f*C. If you as a "HI-END" source buy quality parts; COTS, ISO 900X and screen them properly then there should NEVER be a CAPACITOR failure in your boxes if the design passes muster. Caps, if made properly have similar finite lifetime as OTHER solid state electronic.
Paul is a BS artist. Really, at Paul and his competitors prices you should be getting milspec, ever hi-rel traceable products. Hi-End audio thrives on fear/ ignorance. Fear you say? Yes the fear that your system won't measure up to your lawyer co-workers at you're pot/alcohol & cigar bar party. Just kidding, Paul. We love you.
one thing to remember when using an Electrolytic cap, it has polarity, if you put one in backward it will explode and smell really really bad :)
K Carney Only a polarized cap. Non-polarized caps don't care what direction they face. So long as it adheres to Feng Shui mythology.
The interference is high frequency AC on top of the DC. Your film cap is parallel to the motor and shorts the AC component produced by the motor. It does not short the DC cause caps don't conduct DC.
powertothebauer in short (pun intended), your unwanted motor interferences are A/C signals and are passed (shorted) through the capacitor in a rather brute force way: parallel-connected to both inputs of the DC motor. BUT for speakers, the connection is in series, like a paper dolls_chain holding just their hands, and so imagine one of the dolls is very little so she simply cannot stand to be shaken too hard with a large-duration pull, but indeed does very well when transmitting little alternating waves through herself. The little waves are high frequency because the speed of electricity must always move at a fixed speed throughout any conductor. That is what those formulas tell us. Why it wasn't put in simpler terms for an undisciplined hobbyist- well it is not your fault for not understanding because the electrical properties of motors are not externally apparent. They're what we consider black boxes of a sort, that nobody knows how they'll react until they're probed by meters or carefully connected. I suppose just that you're not careful because the manufacturer specifies a value and you simply throw it on without paying much attention. No big deal, we experiment more is all, but we also realize that DC voltage is not going to fry up your speakers if the current is next to nothing. Lots of other components that would be fried up by DC are actually fed little amounts of DC in a technique that is called biasing. Think of chip biasing as the old vacuum tubes being warmed up before they could start working, except this DC biasing has to be continually applied because of other characteristics. Of course the chip would fry up with a high bias-current, but resistors and especially capacitors block that from happening, which in the latter is related to how low frequencies behave more like DC while INSIDE any component. Clearly pure DC does not alternate, but AC signals can be biased to the point where the most negative troughs never reach 0V, and look on a scope like pulsed DC. You're probably only familiar with balanced inputs and 0V grounding, not these signals that legitimately 'float' above a 0V ground.
It is amazing how much I learn with your videos, as a former Electronic Engineer who abandon the career for computer science, I have the basic knowledge but I love how easy you explain all these complicated topics. Thank you so much.
So, You are a 'rocket surgeon' lol, yet Grade 5 English grammar eludes you?
@@mr.blackhawk142 English is not my native language but I speak 3 other languages how about you?
The letter author explicitly asked "if they have the same specs (i.e. capacitance!), what is technically different and how does it translate to audio?" You then proceeded to suggest the poor audio quality is due to using the wrong size capacitor (using a 4000 mfd electrolytic vs. 0.01 mfd film cap). Total nonsense answer.
can you connect your speaker to compare with cheap mundorf 47uf Mcap tin cap(white.color) vs 47uf Mcap Alum vs 47uf Mcap supreme silver oil vs 47uf Mcap Supreme silver/gold/oil EVO. Does it sound different ! Live Video have ? 😍😍. ( can u do a video with that can ? It will be very Fun to try )......."//
THE REASON IS, ESR OF CAPACITORS - See the explanation given below if needed.
1. Capacitors are meant to block DC and to pass AC.
2. If the frequency of a signal (or current) is Zero Hertz (the unit of frequency) - it is DC.
And if the frequency is One or more Hertz, then it is AC.
3. We use capacitors with suitable values to block or pass the some frequencies - Higher capacitance values can
pass low-freq signals and vice-versa.
4. The electrical audio signals are AC, varies somewhere between 20Hz to 20,000Hz - Here, the lower frequency signals
are supposed to be handled by the Woofers/Sub-Woofers and the higher frequency signals are by Tweeters and the
mid frequencies are by Mid-Range speakers. We must pass only the intended frequency range to the respective
speaker type, otherwise, it may sound strange.
5. The mentioned "different sound quality" is mostly observed on the low frequency ranges - here reveals the actual problem.
6. All capacitors do have ESR (equivalent series resistance - it is an AC resistance, it decreases with increase in frequency)
and this parameter will offer some sort of blocking to the lower frequency signals which pass through it.
7. Since the low frequencies needs much current to be reproduced effectively, the current limiting by ESR will be
a villain (bass may not be as deep as expected, with lack of expected current)
8. Also, in crossover networks, we use capacitors to bypass the unwanted frequencies to ground and to pass only
the wanted frequencies to output, but, with this ESR, those will not be passed/bypassed effectively, and the
speakers which are connected to the output will sound different.
9. Polypropylene capacitors (the small yellow one shown in the video) are at-least 10 times better than electrolytic
caps in terms of ESR and hence those are called "audio-grade". (Any caps with lower ESR can be audio-grade in fact)
Yep! And an aged electrolytic cap could "develop" inside a ESR value of several ohms, which may conduct to silent tweeters in speakers. Bought some Telefunken RB 70 speakers (made more than 50 years ago) with dead-like tweeters and with weird sounding low and middle frequencies. After caps changing , the tweeters come to life and the speakers have a very pleasant sound.
I feel like the question posed at the beginning was never fully answered. The writer asked if swapping a cheap cap with the same specs as a fancy dancy $$ cap had any audio differences.
A Micro Farad is one millionth of a Farad. Sorry I couldn't help myself. Thanks for all the great info. Love the vids!
Sounds like a tiny bicycle in German
A Farad is the unit for electric capacitance, I think this is what he should have told...
Great Info? Well what a Con-Artist he is!
More expensive ergo must sound better....?
If you buy something way too expensive it has to be good, right?
This is a better explanation about different types of capacitors: th-cam.com/video/WytU5uj78-4/w-d-xo.html
For comparison, a AA battery holds ~6000 farads. Not that you can compare the two, but just a bit of perspective :)
Sometimes “I don’t know” is the correct answer and making stuff up just confused the hell out of every one
You see sir that's where you're wrong,
Every opportunity that you genuinely don't know the answer is an opportunity to completely twist things up in the most creative way that you were able to devise on the spot, it's a challenge if you will, and you see you already don't know the answer so should somebody come along and try to tell you oh yeah you're so dumb well you already know you don't know the answer so screw them it's not going to hurt you or you ego in anyway, and
the hilariousness should some of this twistedness catch fire and take off it's priceless. Lifes of game, and a scoreboard/count of who's winning the losing isn't necessarily as obvious as a lot of people seem to think. Carry on now with that backbreaking old burden Truth...,
@@dont.ripfuller6587 What?
@@marklowe7431 um... I don't know? 🤷🏻♂️
What was "made up"?
Personally, I feel the “What is a capacitor?” could have been explained more clearly. At it’s fundamental level, a capacitor is an analogue electronic component capable of storing and releasing an electrical charge. The rate at which it can store and release that charge is determined by its characteristics. Some graphics would also helpful.
I graduated from university in Electronics and Communications Engineering. Power supplies and audio circuits were a big part of my course.
For people who don’t know what a capacitor is, the video isn’t helpful.
MatchstalkMan I don't see "What is a" in the title nor do I see any misleading click bait graphic in the thumbnail that disappeared in the actual video, so sorry if it wasn't what you wanted but you shouldn't have expected anything that wasn't indicated in the table of contents.
MatchstalkMan so do more expensive capacitors sound better? If not what makes certain electronic sound better than others?
Leaving aside the error of a micro-farad being one thousandth of a Farad, actually, it's one millionth, these videos suffer from not making reasonable assumptions about the knowledge of the audience. If you start assuming the audience knows nothing - for example, the difference between AC and DC - you can't possibly provide a technical explanation of different capacitor types within the time available. That's a pity. I also think a picture explains things better than hand waving in mid-air.
Good job, you completely failed to answer the question.
Spot on , Nick , it reminds me an old song from Frank Zappa : " We're only in it for the money" ; )
At a certain point, you have to sell snake oil when you're asking thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for A/V system components.
The answer is,
Dissipation Factor.
www.reliablecapacitors.com/oldRC/www.reliablecapacitors.com/pickcap.html
you don't even listening.......he already answer, paper cap are great passing sound then electrolyte.
@@tukangboboBut EVERYBODY already knows that.
Still does not explain why two equal capacitors have different sound (if any). The only argument here is that the more expensive ones must sound better!
Ventsislav Simonov A voice of reason amongst the noise. I built your diamond buffer headphone amp a few years back. Turned out very nice.
in my experience, low value caps compared to high value/quality caps of the same type whilst passing signal, shows a difference in frequency fall off in dB very much sooner in the low value cap. In my view, low value/quality caps are close to a bandpass filter.
It is audiophoolery, basically. If we were talking about RF, where the type of capacitor plays a big difference, yes. But for audio frequencies, not by a long shot. You don't have any capacitor in which the inductance is significant at frequencies up to 20KHz. But the placebo effect and being in denial to the fact that one spent much money for nothing? Well, that is significant.
semahnai I guess capacitors work differently in your part of the world. Must be a gravitational delta coefficient difference. Or simply that your understanding is hokum. You shouldn't try to design anything electronic.
Ok, I need proof on that. Show me tests being done on oscilloscope, live (I don't accept bogus images), showing differences in audio distortion caused by different caps. By the way, I don't have audiophile hearing. I can't hear above 15KHz. Thus, I can't hear supersonic frequencies, like 48KHz or so.
1:06 erm... a capacitor will not pass battery voltage... really? / i don't think that's a great description...
After watching, I still don't know why capacitors sound different.
Not just cheaper parts, but different TYPES of capacitors are made for different functions. Use a capacitor in the wrong application and you can introduce massive amounts of distortion, even among the same QUALITY caps. Cannot simply substitute one for another.
ie: ceramic capacitor microphonic effect
mrlithium69 Exactly, Sir.
Summary:
"capacitor is _any_ two conductors that are insulated from one another...dot!" and the various electrical properties associated with the capacitor depend on myriad of physical factors. Like the surface area of the conductors, insulating material, distance between conductors etc. etc. etc... And these cause myriad of effects that an ideal capacitor seen in circuit analysis doesn't have such as polarity, unwanted series resistances, inductances... susceptibility for DC-bias etc. etc. and all of these effects can and probably will distort the signal that's passing trough the capacitor if it's in series with the signal.
That's why we have gazillions of different kinds of capacitor technologies and they all have their places and prices. But all in all it matters only if one can measure (or if you're an audiopho-- audiophile, hear) the difference.
Mtaalas: thanks for writing, very well explained
I wish I could have had this lesson 30 years ago. Great information presented well.
what he was driving and did not clearly define was that the electrolytic is less efficient in passing audio signals but better at storing a large charge. Audio passed through an electrolytic gets cloudy or dark in the upper frequencies as the bulky materials take longer to charge and discharge and don't track the high frequencies as well. The small signal cap with its thin plastic insulator and super thin foil layer reacts more smoothly and efficiently at high frequencies. Otherwise an excellent presentation. think of it this way you might wear size 10 shoes, but a construction boot and a running shoe will behave differently in walking and running dynamics even though they would both fit you. The smaller lighter materials respond to ac changes faster and with truer fidelity.
As much as he gives info out in these videos, I bet Paul is learning from our comments as well sometimes. Anyway I appreciate the daily videos from an "old head" in the audio gear biz.
mrlithium, Learning is always, or at least SHOULD be a TWO-way street! I went back to 'school' in 2006, to learn to be an electrician, but I was AGHAST at what they were teaching students. One very popular teacher actually told us that FLOURIDE in our water supply is good for us!?! Needless to say, I got OUT of there ASAP!!!
"It's got what amps crave. It's got electrolytes"
Paul, I enjoyed this. It's not easy trying explaining capacitive reactance (Xc) to the average guy. It generally takes a semester to do that at University, but you did a good job in 9 minutes.
@ TheZooman22, it's university, NOT University, unless the word is used in a title, as in "Purdue University". Also, "trying explaining" is NOT correct English, but "trying TO explain" is. I only went as far as Grade 9, yet I can see MANY mistakes everywhere online in basic English grammar, punctuation, and spelling. If you want any semblance of credibility here, using correct English helps to attain that.
@@mr.blackhawk142 *"@TheZooman22," quote "university" and "University," and the period goes in quotes at the end of a sentence.
Since you know credibility is more important than being insightful or appreciative, try harder next time :)
I had heard of running different quality caps in series like that to get better quality sound, but didn't know the why's and wherefore's. Thanks for the explanation!
Hare deLune Not different QUALITY caps, but rather different TYPES, e.g. film cap bypass of a larger electrolytic. The film cap make the electrolytic behave in a more linear fashion.
Darin Brunet
O.K., thanks! : )
Parallel not series
mathyoooo2 Yes, parallel, not in series.
Excellent video but I don't think you answered his question, wasn't he asking given the same capacitance as well as all the other parameters like ESR how come film capacitors sound better than electrolytic capacitors ?
I had my Fender Deluxe Reverb in for a upgrading. So called low quality caps were replaced by high quality caps. The guy is supposed to be a certified repairman. However, the amp I got back sounded worse than the one I delivered. My experience so far; be prepared for disapointment.
@@retroflection Might have been that you actually liked the distortion of the original sound better, than the "cleaner" sound?
Guitar amps aren't made to perfectly reproduce exactly what is played, but rather add "color/character" to the sound.
In a stereo setup you'd want more clinical sound like that of "better" capacitors. I don't know you might already be aware of these things
Also I am no expert.
@@gastank43 or maybe those high quality capa have slightly different parameters which does change the sound of the amp. The amp is then 'out of spec' with the designers engineering.
I do agree with Paul on his views of capacitors. From some of the comments I read, he may not have explained it to a deep enough level. He did not talk about dissipation factor of the dielectric. Capacitors are not perfectly efficient devices, electrolytic capacitors will tend to hold a small charge even after being shorted out. Electrolytics have a ripple current rating, series impedance etc. I personally like using film capacitors whenever space allows, because they sound better than electrolytic caps. I have not tried the super expensive audiophile film caps to see if they are substantially better than the run of the mill film caps.
What - no praises for the subjectively excellent sound quality of Rubycon Black Gate capacitors?
Sir, you explain it in very simple way. No complicated heavy talk.
Thank you.
This is not a description of a capacitor. You need to learn basic electricity theory.
And what's this about passing through the cap ?
Gerhardt from Calgary, if you're listening, the answer depends on your level of interest and appetite for technical specifics. Capacitors, like cables and connectors, are the things most customers can see or are aware of. Therefore more attention is paid to them because manufacturers are able to convince the customer of their intrinsic value. Much more attention is paid to capacitors than to resistors for example, because resistors are small and difficult to remove. Capacitors are bigger and with some rudimentary soldering skills, can be removed and refitted with newer and more expensive equivalents. In short, it's another example of snake oil on which this industry is built. I design and build my own range of amplifiers that sound lovely and measure beautifully and I couldn't tell you which brand of capacitors I am using; as long as they are the right value, material and spec, I use what I can get quickly from my suppliers. A basic rule of thumb is to use film caps in the audio path rather than foil caps as foil caps can exhibit hysteresis which is where the cap doesn't discharge completely - like stretch marks in your sweater! Explained here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_absorption .. Hope that helps
To anyone reading this and thinking it might be snake oil or it might be marketing. I actually tried it. I changed out electrolytic capacitors in a speaker for solen and also oil caps. They all sound different. I've also tried this inside amplifiers. You can notice a difference. The change is how the sound resonates in your ear. even if it measures the same which I'm not sure if it would. You can make two different sounds that appear exactly the same on a scope but they sound different to your ear. Caps absolutely have an impact on total balance. At least if you have a good ear. If you happen to be one of those people that think amplifiers all sound the same you might not notice it. However, there's only one way to find out and that is for each person to try it
I will answer, more expensive capacitors usually have a lower series resistance(ESR), large capacitance values(in thousands of uF) are usually electrolytic, these however have poor leakage, so better designs use low leakage types such as polypropylene-however they are physically large and expensive. There are also other factors that determine capacitor quality aligned to the application it is used in too, but in a nutshell ESR is arguably the most important in general in audio.
Paul is right about putting a film capacitor in parallel with an electrolytic to lower ESR, however that does not prevent leakage, so a high end design should try to avoid electrolytics. Although if the design is using a linear power supply you really cannot avoid using them on the smoothing section; replacing them with film would be very expensive and you would end up with a box full of capacitors to make up the 100,000uF or whatever you wanted to smooth the DC with.
Also note that the better capacitor manufacturers have better noise immunity by better plate design, using higher quality electrolites, and also lower ESR lowers thermal noise.
Now why do they sound better?..well thats hard to answer as capacitors are used in many different apps in an electrical circuit; dc blocking, smoothing, filters and so on. So refer to my first paragraph to cover all apps.
To anyone who doesn't think he answered the question or misunderstood, what he's saying is make sure the capacitor you have is the right kind. He's essentially saying a film capacitor will give you better sound quality than an electrolytic capacitor because of how they work so even with equal uF they'll sound different simply because of how they're designed.
When you are a true audiophile person you also care about the longevity of your investment. Most often, capacitors are the first components to wear out in any electronics and using better capacitors makes a lot of sense from this perspective.
ThinkingBetter, good point! You also typed two LEGIBLE sentences with NO spelling mistakes!?! This is a FIRST in the history of the internet!!!! Can I be your friend??? L0L
When I was a teenager, in 1981, a guy working for the Electronics magasine Radio & Television did a blind test on a bunch of audiophiles. He put some capacitors considered "bad" along with a few low slew rate 741 op-amps (and some other "bad" stuff) in series with "high end" audio equipment at "line level". Swithed them in and out several times. None of the blind folded "golden ears" could determine when the 741 or the "bad" capacitors were included in the signal chain or not. Since then, I lost interest in this expensive quasi religion and started concentrating fully on the music itself.
That said: There are also audible differences, of course! Speakers sound very different, for instance. So did cassette recorders. Varying damping factors in power stages driving bass speakers are indeed noticeable. Some recordings from the 1970s have terrible distorsion in the treble, and so on. (Possibly that famous "TIM", transient/dynamic intermodulation due to too hard feedback on too many or slow amplifying stages.)
The "Tip" at the end of the viddy has got me rummaging through my box of spares to find a cap to parallel with some of the cheap stuff they bung in musical instrument amplifiers...especially valve designs. Thanks.
Thanks for answering my question Paul! I always look forward to your video at the end of my day.
at last someone telling me about the crossover and bas mid and tweeter. 3:55 into the video. I am fixing my old Magnepan MG II speakers and looking for capacitor info. thank you for all the nice videos you upload . Jan From Sweden.
I stopped watching the moment he said "battery voltage".
Best explanation of what capacitors do I’ve heard!
A capacitor's function is to store and release energy. It's definition is to offset inductance by 180 electrical degrees.That is why we can power factor correct inductive motors so when done correctly Cos Phi is almost equal to 1.000
The problem with electrolytic caps is the electrolyte which transfers the signal via ion transfer which is much slower,lossier and noisier than the electron transfer of a film cap.The exception being Rubycon Blackgate electrolytics which employ a unique carbon powder impregnated separator which eliminates this problem.These caps ceased production in 2006 but Rubycon are remanufacturing them under the Audionote brand name and should be available second half of this year.
Thats good to know as they were great sounding electrolytics and I used them in my mods.
Good to know about the Rubycon, thx.
I listened to 10 minutes of this just to not get any answer at the end. In case you were wondering where did those "dislikes" came from, they were from people like me expecting something about non-linear voltage-load ratio, dc leaking and other measurable effects. Not just ""This is 1 dollar a piece, so it sounds better"
Thanks for sharing.
Maybe you could tell about the why the difference in prizing? you can bye two capacitors with exactly the same data and same electrical measurements (i.e. on an oscilloscope) but the one cost 50 cents and the other 50 dollars.
Fried Mule Different materials, construction method, tolerance, voltage capacity.
Because marketing shows that there will be people stupid enough to buy them.
Paul’s just trying to keep it simple. Every insulator must charge and discharge to pass current to the target conductor. Different insulators charge and discharge at differing rates. Hence the output of a capacitor is distorted, relative to variations of insulations, and resistance in conductors.
I found some $20K/mF caps you should use. They are perfect because they cost more. I guarantee it.
Finally! I have been searching for this exact info for a long time, and you nailed it. Explaining it only the way someone with such technical knowledge combined with a down to earth radio personality can do, a rare gift indeed. Thank you Paul and keep it coming.
Working with electronics as I do everyday I found his explanations to be confusing and badly laid out, no offence intended.
This is the best explanation yet, that I've heard on how this works... Thank you for that Sir
Unfortunately I wasn't a fan of this video, after liking lots of other videos of yours, this one didn't really seem to answer the question directly and seemed to talk about other factors instead. Also everyone else has already stated the uF vs mF mixup. I'm still left not understanding how the physical makeup of the capacitor alters the sound.
Current doesn't flow through the capacitor, it's just an illusion of current flowing through. Rather, it's electron charges "accumulating" on both sides of the plates as a result of the ELECTRIC FIELD being generated across the capacitor plates.
The thing that’ll REALLY make your head itch is the fact that the energy doesn’t actually flow through the wire. 🤔Thanx for explaining crossover caps. Never had to use any in a guitar amp so I wasn’t sure what they were doing in some cabs.
@William, I take the BUS, or hitch-hike, bc I can't afford 'cabs'! BTW, try to stay on SUBJECT here OK! lol
How about measuring capacitance vs (varying) bias voltage - this might be a starting point towards characterizing (one of) the non-linearities of the components, and it is non-linearity that you 'hear'.
@ Mark, HYPHENS are used to JOIN two or more words together, NOT as commas, or periods.
So they are better because they cost more? I missed the question answer? Edit, found in comments. Great explanation of what caps basically do for a beginner like myself. Thanks for sharing your knowledge from audio design and manufacture experience. It's one of those, 'Well, if anyone knows...' moments for me.
Pending an ab/x demonstration of difference/superiority, paint me skeptical.
Capacitors will pass alternating current above a particular frequency, and block direct current. A capacitor essentially stores a static charge that the alternating current signal alternately charges and discharges. This is how is passes on alternating current - because the stored charge on one side of the capacitor creates an exact opposite charge on the other side of the capacitor. The amount of charge (in volts) that can be stored dictates the amount of alternating current that can flow.
Capacitors and inductors in combination form what is called a resonant circuit. Resonant circuits form the basis for all tone controls and all analog signal filters of any sort.
The different types of capacitors - made from different physical materials - have different properties. Among those properties is also a degree of inductance. And the different types of capacitor have different amounts of inductance. Interestingly, inductors also have a degree of capacitance. The trick is to combine inductors and capacitors in such a way that you get the right amount of capacitance and the right amount of inductance in resonant circuit for what you need.
An inductor is similar to a resistor, but is frequency dependent. A resistor inhibits the flow of direct current, and an inductor inhibits the flow of alternating current above a given frequency.
Thus, a capacitor filters out low frequencies, and an inductor filters out frequencies above a particular point, and what you get is a band of frequencies that the resonant circuit will pass.
Some inductors are just resistors working with an AC signal, and other inductors are coils of wire. Transformers have an inductance and a capacitance rating.
They don't! It's all in your head.
Capacitor becomes more conductive when frequency up, coil becomes more insulate when frequency down. Resistor kills unwanted frequency. Thus you can seperate audio frequency through a filter. This principle is same also in radio and video frequency. Good component matters as to capacitor, but not as much to coil and resistor.
"coil becomes more insulate when frequency down" ? It becomes more conductive with lower frequencies and more insulate with higher frequencies.
Capacitors pass AC - block DC
Inductors pass DC - block AC
Absolutely brilliant explanation Paul! Thank you for all your efforts.
I’m sure it was just a momentary brain fart, but of course a microfarad is one millionth of a Farad, not one thousandth. That would be a millifarad
not a brain fart. this is the crippling side effect of living with the imperial units
Jako-Priit Raud Farads are used to measure capacitance throughout the world. There is no other measure.
+gotham61 Lol, thank you.This metric vs imperial battle, I use both, and have the same difficulties in both systems :) As far as the "these sound way better" thing about caps is kind of non-sense. If the right spec & type cap is installed in the particular circuit, say a guitar tone circuit, or a crossover network, and swap brands, at same values, etc. not many an ear will pass a blind test. But hey it sells caps, and $1237.99 RCA cables too :)
90% of the time while attempting to watch Paul's videos as a total novice to audio products my a.d.d. kicks in and I have no idea what I just watched lol. Sounds good though.
Grandpa: "In my younger days ... bla, bla bla., and bla bla bla, and then I said: yak, yak, yak and yak, yak, yak ..." and 9 minutes later: "Sorry what was the question again?"
I am sure you have a lot of knowledge on the subject(s), but you are wasting the time with nothing.
Just play his videos at 1.5x speed.
the capacitor symbol is theoretic, fictitious , but essential to understanding the electrical behavior of an ideal capacitor .
A real, physical capacitor has parasitic elements such as ESR and inductance that change the behavior of a real capacitor when compared to its theoretic behavior.
A real capacitor becomes a resonant circuit at some high frequency due to the parasitic inductance. A 100uf electrolytic will resonate with its parasitic inductance at 10khz.
In order to maintain the effects of 100uf at frequency above 10khz it is necessary to
add a mylar capacitor of say 0.1 uf in parallel which will effectively bypass the 100uf
at frequencies above 1khz.
m.shen
Not a very scientific explanation, AC doesnt just pass through the capacitor because its AC and not DC, it is because of the electrons flowing out of the plate and attracting more electrons on the other side (they never cross the insulator only build up inside). This causes electron potential (AKA voltage) between the plates, if the capacitor stops charging up (voltage is the same as the power supply) no more electrons will be attracted to the other side so then there will be no current flowing "through" (actually too and from) the capacitor, so current from a DC source stops once the capacitor is full until the voltage changes again. What happens differently with AC is that after the first peak of the wave the electrons now start flowing in the opposite direction, into the depleted plate, pushing electrons out of the filled plate. This is all in order to equalize with the potential that the amplifier is currently at. PLEASE UPVOTE
Ahh the old debate of whether current actually flows thru a capacitor), your explanation is far too scientific for the majority of readers, but good on you for taking the time).
Exactly. it can NEVER pass thru a cap. they don't conduct. As you seem to explain current flows thru the circuit one way charges cap. as the current alternates the cap charges the discharges etc. etc. etc. allowing current to flow thru the circuit. Drives me crazy when people say a cap lets ac pass! The value of the cap will determine the freq. at which it will charge n discharge. Putting it simply.
It is still current flow though, virtual or not, whats important is the outcome which looks as if it passes AC.
BTW: the value vs. frequency is an over simplification as you say, as it depends also on the series and parallel resistances as well as any other caps or inductors within the same part of the circuit (1st order, 2nd order and so on)
Paul McGowan: Haha thats the trick isn't it, its not easy communicating on a specialist subject in general terms; but I think you made a good job of it. I think I could spend hours talking to you about Audio with all that experience you have.
I am answering the question of how a capacitor works not what does a capacitor do. The question is in the description but was never answered in the video: "And, for that matter, what is a capacitor and how does it work?" The reason people ask basic questions is that they do not understand the basics.
You explained this much better than my industrial electronics teachers. Thanks!
When can we expect the video on the scientific/engineering merits of megabucks power cables? And laughing my ass off over here - he basically comes out and says "We use cheaper capacitors in power supplies because they're not in the signal path" at the same time as they're selling $1000 power cables with the claim that they improve audio performance. Welcome to 'audiophilia' people - where even trained engineers and scientists will stoop to psuedo-science in order to make a buck.
All in all it's rather depressing given that PS Audio does make some great equipment based on sound electrical and mechanical engineering principles. Shame.
Two caps of the same type and same value must sound the same. The more expensive cap might last longer but when the two caps are fresh out of the box they necessarily must sound the same. Different sound indicates different values and if nothing else caps must perform to the stated value regardless of price. Differences in cap style make different sound.
Not really. The more expensive capacitor might be made with better quality materials than the cheaper one of the same type and value. That may result in smaller non-linearities (the change in capacitance with applied voltage) and that is the key factor in how a capacitor "sounds".
With electrolytics, even if they are being used just as smoothing capacitors, a better quality one is likely to have a lower ESR than a cheap one with the same capacitance. That might mean a noticeable increase in ripple voltage with the cheap part, and that can cause clipping on loud signals. You'd certainly hear that.
Bob Carver said modern components are better than the ones that were around 20-25 years ago.
yup, notice especially how much smaller electrolytic caps are nowadays and that means less unwanted inductances, for example.
They are. Back not that long ago, you'd find 10% electrolytic caps in crossovers. Those are high ESR and induce audible issues. For just $2.00, you can get 5% metallized film caps, which are vastly superior. They are low ESR and act more like wire, without rolloff or smear like the old caps. In the DOZENS of speaker repairs and upgrades I have done, in EVERY instance, swapping stock electrolytics for $2.00 metallized film resulted in an obvious and profound imnprovement that even non-audiophiles can easily hear. Expensive speakers like yamaha NS-1000M and Kef 104/2 had poor caps in the crossover. Re-capping them (projects listed online) resulted in a dramatic improvement not possible back in the 80's.
Scott Lowell True, but it is not the percentage SPEC that made them sound poor.
You can get a tiny little 1 farad capacitor (HUGE value) to keep your digtal tuners' values, but that doesn't make better sound.
BionicMerlin I could be wrong but I don't think he was referring to sound quality but he was talking about longevity and reliability.
BEAUTIFULLY explained to such a novice, as myself, in electronics! Now it makes sense. Thanks! I love your channel.
Witchcraft
altops There is much SCIENCE in capacitor design.
perl man Agreed 100%!! But not all is snake oil or witchcraft. Just because one may not understand the science behind certain design elements doesn't relegate it to the Hokum bin. Unfortunately, so many here are neither scientifically educated, nor are audio engineers, makes an amusing read. I always try to dispell audio mythology where I see it. It does the consumer no good.
Darin Brunet yes but not much explanation.
altops It's not always easy to make complex issues simple while maintaining accuracy for the layperson. Mythology tries to oversimplify things and while there MAY br a grain of truth to it, doesn't hold water in real world design. Paul does a fairly good job of explaining things and does the typical consumer a good service. He only goes off the wagon when trying to appease the "cognoscenti."
perl man Why do people insist on using the phrase snake oil incorrectly? Snake oil is the genuine article. I don't know who is worse, the guys who call BMW cars beamers or guys who call ineffectual products snake oil.
Paul another highly engaging video, I can't beleave some people give you a Thumbs Down, these people have no idea, keep the good work up👍
I think the reason why people do this is because Paul is not answering the question as well as making some rather large technical explanation mistakes. I like listening to Paul and agree with most things he says in his videos but some are not very good. Entertaining videos though.
Capacitors can introduce audio distortion through variations of ESR or capacitance with the instantaneous voltage and current across the capacitor. Consider a high-value ceramic capacitor in a basic 1000hz high pass filter. A 100hz signal will be greatly reduced, but the capacitor value will vary up and down due to the 100hz voltage across the cap. This will introduce 100hz modulation on higher signals, strongest 100-2khz. An X7R ceramic cap's capacitance can fall 50% at it's rated DC voltage vs 0VDC. ESR of an electrolytic capacitor is far from an ideal resistor. It is after all passing a signal through a chemical bath (electrolyte). Lots of opportunity for diode-like effects. Dielectric absorption has been suggested as a factor, but it generally occurs on a time scale of seconds or longer, outside the audio band.
A microfarad is a unit of capacitance equal to one millionth of a farad.
1 x 10^(-6)
Paul, thank you for teaching all those cool stuffs freely and for not making it a secret (like the paralel capacitor trick). byebye be well and thank you for your generosity have a very good day Paul.
Paul McGowan: always interesting. From the title I thought the question had to do with brand and not merely types of capacitors.
i love working on speakers. interesting video. one question how do we calculate how much microfarad would be right for with the speaker. suppose we have 4 Ohm tweeter and 8omh woofer. also what all products are required for a cross over and how do we calculate those products value?
Very informative and timely to me since I'm upgrading some vintage speakers. Replacing all the old electrolytics with polypropylene ones, perhaps Mundorf oil based ones. Great video. Thanks!
At higher voltages electrolytic capacitors go bad after a few years or even decades even when they are not used. Polypropylene capacitors do not have this problem because they have an indefinite shelf life. They also have less ESR than electrolytic. This makes them better for plate voltage power supply filters and this is why I use them in my vacuum tube amplifiers, especially the 1000 Volts I use for my 833A SET. You can get them rated at 2300 Volts which is a comfortable over-design safety for this. I see electrolytic capacitors used in vacuum tube amplifiers costing 5 figures or more and this is why I prefer to make my own amplifiers.
I was eagerly awaiting for the original question to be answered but apparently it was not to be. Instead, a completely different question was answered with "because it sounds better". It's pearls of wisdom like this that make TH-cam so amazing...
Sarcasm ? XD
Excellent video! I've been reading about capacitors all week! Nice timing. I just took the lid off of a Yamaha B-2 last night. If I can get it to work, I want to do a full restoration. Living in Japan, I got it as junk for $200. It turns on, but no sound.
If anyone has restoration advice for the B-2, hit me up! Thanks!
Unplug and not turn on! Have a tech look at this. There are plenty of posts about refurbing this amp on diyauidio. B-2 amps that have not been maintained by a tech "frequently" kill the vfets. If you are lucky, your problem is different as the B-2 uses vfets which are unavailable. Regardless your amp may have some vefets that are still good and can be sold. Good luck
John Reardon Always best to have a few on hand from which to use parts. I use to own 3 back in the late 70s. Good luck with the project.
also, the conductors in the film capacitor ends are supposed to be connected not to each end of the film but more importantly to each side of the film where the film is supposed to isolate two conducting sides on the film and thus form a capacitor
Jako-Priit Raud FINALLY, a correct answer.
everyone makes mistakes even Paul
mrlithium69 True, and I suppose that when he is doing these on the spot rather than a studied reply he is bound to make a few errors here and there. Overall, Paul does a great job making complex issues more understandable to the layperson.
This video provided some information about capacitors and their use in audio equipment that is premised on the idea that film caps sound better. It didn't in any way attempt to answer the question of WHY they sound better. I understand that there may be some motive to keep these videos informative and approachable to the layman. The issue is that you've selected a question that is only properly answered in ways that may be intimidating or out of reach of the layman. I propose a better route would have been to select a question that allowed an answer that is the type of content you'd like to provide, as opposed to what this video is (something that may fool the layman into thinking they've gotten a technical answer or explanation, when they have not). This would also go a long way to diseude the less patient among folks like myself from yelling "snake oil" as we are wont to do.
No mention of dielectric absorption? Look on the web for articles back in the day by Walt Jung and Richard Marsh. They did some very interesting work on why different caps sound different back in the 1980's.
What what what I'm talkin about is we're going to make a movie theater sound so great with sound system lives there but we're going to add a few things to it to get the sound out Ray that's beautiful you're holding out on me man
The actual real differences are in manufacturer tolerances, leaking, polarized vs non-polarized, potentially speed in the dielectric, and mechanical ability to handle wattages.
First in tolerance, which is the primary reason for "better sounding" : a high end capacitor will have a tighter tolerance. Whatever a capacitor is rated at, it actually will have capacitance (or capacity to hold charge) with said tolerance. So a tighter tolerance will be more consistent, which makes a difference in perception of a speaker line because they'll be more consistent with the manufacturers intended design, but also if there are multiple capacitors in a circuit with wider tolerances, they can have potential mismatches and cause frequency drops or gaps, etc.
The to leakage: all capacitors leak somewhat. If you charge one up, a non-leaky capacitor, or a perfect capacitor, will hold that charge indefinitely if there's no circuit to ground it or bleed it off. Indeed some really big electrolytic capacitors can hold lethal currents for years after last use, old tube amps and CRT monitors/televisions were notorious for this. However, there's no such thing as a perfect capacitor. Eventually they all leak and lose their charge. And eventually as current passes across the plates, ions of the plate metal are lost through electrolysis. So the capacitance is also modified and diminished. Some types are more resistant to this based on the material(s) of the anode or cathode (which can actually be different materials), the more 'inert' the material, the longer it will last, but a lot of inert materials aren't great for storing electrical currents, many are too conductive or not conductive enough. This is why semi-conductors are typically preferred (transistors are very similar to capacitors, and this is why silicon is used in computer chips). And the leakier they are (typically through inductance) the less reliable and consistent they are, and of courses inductance can cause undesirable noise when you don't want said inductance.
Then polarized and non-polarized: polarized will only allow a signal to pass a certain way, non-polarized, both, which has implications primarily in AC circuits, but there are times either way where you'd want a polarized vs non-polarized cap. Typically electrolytic and tantalum are polar, where most Paper-in-foil, ceramics, etc are non-polarized. In my experience, most of the time you don't want polarized caps in an audio signal where you do in a power circuit. In a power circuit this leads to cleaner power. I'm not 100% certain why you tend to see more non-polar in audio signals other than it might not make a big difference in low voltage applications and electrolytics tend to not last as long and are more expensive.
Then there's the dielectric or "insulator" in the capacitors. They aren't true insulators, or they'd never pass a current. Instead they're typically materials designed to be the right amount of resistance so that once the charge builds on the plates, they pass the right amount of current at the right pace. Some have some different behaviors.
Then there's mechanical ability to handle wattages. Typically as long as the wattage it's rated for exceeds what you're putting through it, there won't be much of a difference. Though, higher wattage capacitors tend to be bigger, therefore better made, and more durable and consistent. But they also tend to be more expensive, partially due to the cost of the extra material and manufacturing. But also certain types like ceramic disc don't make a ton of sense to make large enough to use in the high wattage situations that call for an electrolytic or tantalum, and might likely be cheaper but too large and heavy to be practical.
Of course this is all still a simplification and I've generalized some things that may not be technically correct. But generally speaking, more expensive capacitors are going to be more consistent electrically and more durable, leading to somewhat better, but more consistently good sounds for longer.
One of my speakers' tweeter section just broke and i was wondering if it's the capacitor that broke. Now i'm sure! Thanks!
Very helpfull information, Thanks Paul Sir.
We must also consider equivalent series resistance. Because capacity × resistance = a time constant. And 5 times that will give charge or discharge times, which does affect sound quality. .
Thanks again for another informative, educational and simply put explanation in layman’s terms. Your a great teacher.
Your, YOU'RE....pick Juan! 😁
Paul,We've been using Sprague electrolytics in Fender guitar amps for years now.The prices have been going way up.Starting to use JJ caps.Half the price. Illinois Capacitors are the budget ones but look cheap.Orange Drops have been used widely for coupling caps.I've started using the 150s.They sound a little smo6other to my ear.What do old filters sound like?I tell people old caps are like looking through an out of focus camera and new filter caps are like dialing the focus on.Have you ever messed with a Fender tweed Bassman? How about an Ampeg SVT?The SVT has six 6550 power tubes,700 volts on the plates and 300 watts of humping bass tone.O.K.What's a good guitar tone ?Listen to AllmanBrothers Band,Eat A Peach,Mountain Jam.Duane Allman does a guitar solo towards the end, after the drum and bass solo.It'a a one four chord progression,kinda gospel sounding.A 50's sunburst Les Paul through a 50 watt Marshall amp with one or two Marshall 4-12'' speaker cabs.Duane gets everything from sweet and clean to full on tube saturation.The Marshall is a copy of that Fender Bassman 5f6-a circuit.Here's the funny thing about Fender amps.I read an interview with Seth Lover and he said Fender amps are nothing special.They are so logical and straight forward,easy to work on and built with common parts.If I was gonna go on a trip across the cosmos in a space ship,I'd take the old hand wired Fender.You could teach a class on good layout just from looking at it.Other people have said it.Leo's genius was layout and grounding.Sorry,this wasn't supposed to be so long.I fell down the rabbit hole.Happy Listening and Playing.
0.02hz makes more sense now, thanks Paul.
A capacitor doesn't pass "voltage" (battery or otherwise), neither current. I'm sorry if I'm seeming harsh, but capacitors are isolators. However, they allow the electric field to propagate, thus adding electrical charge to one plate and removing it from the other plate. Since charges won't go through the dieletric (unless it is leaky), the charge difference remains. Plus, there is no such term as "passing voltage". Voltage is a charge difference, while current is a charge movement and thus, only current has the ability to get transferred.
To add, I believe that an electrolytic capacitor may sound different if it is leaky. The rest, I take it as pure audiophoolery. Never noticed any difference, even with an oscilloscope. Notice that oscilloscopes are far more reliable that the ear (or brain).
Not quite! You can use the scope's FFT, or better yet, a spectrum analyzer to check distortion. Analyzing how capacitors sound by ear is not an objective test. But yes, I agree to disagree.
Electrolytic capacitors are rolled tightly and put into that can. The rolled construction takes on some characteristics of a coil with high frequency.
A choke coil resists frequency change, and so does a rolled capacitor.
love that big variac you got sitting behind you
What else to say, THANK YOU so much for this video, regards Mr. Paul.
A tip: If there's an electrolytic in the signal path, DON'T replace it with a tantalum. Tantalum capacitors have less leakage, and (presumably ?) last longer, BUT, their capacitance vs applied voltage characteristic is nonlinear. Not by much, but any nonlinearity is too much, and will introduce distortion (mostly IMD, the most objectionable kind). They're fine for bypassing, but not coupling.
That was spitting gold, right there, at the end. I must say... thank you, for that idea! ! ! Wow! ! ! 😳
The greatest mystery of electronic technology will always be things with the same specs performing wildly different in real world applications.