Reliable Sources for Nichicon MUSE Capacitors

[jazzie366]

I can't seem to find a good place that sells Nichicon Muse, I have a Sunfire True Subwoofer MKII that I got at an auction for 50$. It had Jun Fu capacitors capping the whole thing. Two were bad, all the rest test as if they were brand new. I replaced the two bad ones with some Nichicon caps, but I want to do the job the rest of the way. Are there any good places for Nichicon MUSE capacitors?

Also for those who don't know, the sub is a 2000$ subwoofer, I'm honestly shocked at the poor capacitors choice.

[stj]

Re: Reliable Sources for Nichicon MUSE Capacitors

dont make the mistake of using audio caps in the power section.

[mariushm]

Re: Reliable Sources for Nichicon MUSE Capacitors

Digikey has a bunch of audio caps including some from the Muse series of Nichicon, also Silmic and tonerex from elna and others : https://www.digikey.com/short/3nzqp1

Mouser also has audio capacitors from Nichicon and others, here's the Nichicon ones: http://www2.mouser.com/new/nichicon/...on-Audio-Caps/ and here's all of them : http://www2.mouser.com/Passive-Compo...5hqt?P=1yztuat

[jazzie366]

Re: Reliable Sources for Nichicon MUSE Capacitors

dont make the mistake of using audio caps in the power section.

All the caps are tone caps, such as 25v 470uF, 50v 1uF, etc. They're all the small caps on the board. The ones that bulged were power caps, they were replaced with some non-audio Nichicons. They'll last forever.

[linuxguru]

Re: Reliable Sources for Nichicon MUSE Capacitors

All the caps are tone caps, such as 25v 470uF, 50v 1uF, etc. They're all the small caps on the board. The ones that bulged were power caps, they were replaced with some non-audio Nichicons. They'll last forever.

FWIW, I've measured the tan(delta) of various Nichicon MUSE series caps including the flagship KZ, and they were average - around 1 to 2% in most cases. Some generic low-ESR caps from other manufacturers, including Panasonic FM/FK, Rubycon YXA/YXG/ZL/ZLH and several others measure better, and in most cases sound about as good as MUSE. There are a few Nichicons that have exceptional linearity, including UD (SMD), but they're not generally stated by Nichicon as being made specifically for audio.

For low capacitance values below about 3.3uF, I've switched to using film capacitors like Wima MKS2XL which are compact enough to fit in the same 5 mm pitch. For larger values, I use a mix of generic low ESRs from various manufacturers as stated above. For anything in the signal path, only film capacitors. For feedback DC blocking, the most linear cap of the required value, bypassed in some cases by a film cap.

Parts Connexion has (or used to have) MUSE KZ in stock, and they're always authentic. The only MUSE series that was has been extremely useful for me is the subminiature (5 mm height) MUSE SW, which fits in various consumer boards with tight clearances, including sound cards, CD/DVD players and so on - YMMV. KZ is fairly bulky for its ratings, and can be tricky to fit in lots of consumer-electronic boards.