What are "for audio" capacitors ?

[CON]

I am seeing most major capacitor manufacturers have come up with a different series which are marketed as "for audio". Like Muse. What exactly is special or different about these capacitors then the rest ?

[willawake]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

mostly the price

here is some details
http://www.acoustic-dimension.com/bl...e/techEcap.htm

[Fizzycapola]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

Audio capacitors need to have electrolyte which doesn't have magnetic particles in it.

[AKBessy]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

So, is this kinda like "audio CDs" versus regular CDs?

Fizzycapola, I like your quote for the day.

[gonzo0815]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

Well, there is more abouth the price... . Audio caps do not have that a deeply etched aluminium foil (reduces capacitance, but improves the frequenzy liniarity ort something else...), some have additionall layers of silver or thin foil to avoid coupling.
Duno if that is realy something wich cout`s in real world, but those enthusiast may hear the difference.

[Logistics]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

Black Gate's are regarded as some of the absolute best electrolytic caps for their application and are often used in power stages for headphone amplifiers or preamps when people are trying to create clean power, while the non-polarized versions are sometimes used in signal paths/crossovers, but even people who use them will admit that if ever possible you should avoid using an electrolytic capacitor in a signal path. Electrolytics are considered one of the worst things for an audio signal to pass through by many. Typically, they are only used when low cost is needed or space requirements have to be met or because of the amplifiers design it's simply impossible to find a cap with the needed capacitance in anything but an electrolytic.

Non-metallized Polypropylene Film are the standard high end cap for signal paths. The drawback is that as a rule they will never be anywhere near as large in capacitance as an electrolytic, will be far larger in size and will cost a whole lot more.

Trying to find a 100uF polypropylene film cap is a joke. The highest you will see is usually 10uF, with some exceptions. Moving to metallized polypropylene you can find 100uF and even 200uF, but you'll pay at least $20 a cap and they are always gigantic axials averaging 50mm in one direction and about the same in the other.

For someone trying to eek out every last bit of quality of their audio equipment, this is worth it. Even crazy things like silver in oil, blah blah crazy caps that cost over $100 each. But the cost vs. return is laughable.

Muse caps are tantalum? Tantalum is not regarded as audio quality, but then Muse' are only listed as a solution for mobile audio which is never regarded as quality either.

[willawake]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

interesting info. who has first hand experience in this stuff?

[Maxxarcade]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

Well, I do know that Tantalums suck for audio... I've replaced tons of them on jukebox amps with Panny FC's after the tantalums caused all kinds of trouble, mostly random static from DC leakage.

[starfury1]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

not that I have looked into it in any big way in a very long time


There would be true technical reasons as to why a particular cap construction would be better for audio use.


you are dealing with a band of frequencies from 20 Hz to 20Khz
So (mostly) you want them to be transparent to the this and not "colour" the sound (using visual terms for audio...why do we do this?)

How well or how much this is going to effect audio is another story, and were the controversy begins I suppose

So a lot of these "Audio" caps will be more Hype for $$$ and small return.
(as more or less stated above)

But there are types of caps that are better for audio use as pointed out in previous posts and probably some manufacturers may have tweaked them for this application without getting into the hype side of things

herer a link on Capacitors,
it is technical and this site is into Audio but at a technical electronics level
The author does put it in a more lay terms way so it shouldn't be hard to follow.

Here

section 2.4 is probably more relevant here and have a read of 7.0

Main Page HERE

Another page I found Here

Can't seem to find the main page on this one

it can all get quite a bit controversial

Sound is a personal thing I think...find what makes you happy and be happy

When you think most of the world seems to be happy to listen to MP3's through ear buds you have to wonder were audio is going anyway

HTH


Cheers

[999999999]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

For decoupling, you want caps with good linearity but this is often claimed for more than it's worth. It's fairly trivial compared to whether the circuit requires any pariticular level of filtration, has everything to do with the noise frequency on that rail (whether upstrream or induced by the active, powered parts on the rail).

For coupling you want caps with low loss. With small signals, loss matters more than capacitance (given enough capacitance that it doesn't become a high-pass filter), so some construction differences emphasize low loss instead of max capacitance. This is done while simultaneously striving for the higher capacitance of electrolytic caps. If you don't need that high capacitance you're still better off using any generic industrial grade film cap instead of an audiophile grade 'lytic.

[linuxguru]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

As a practical matter, you can get good results with fairly inexpensive caps. Elna Silmic RFS/ROS caps are usually great in the signal path. Lower voltage parts are usually better, if the circuit topology allows it, because the foils are spaced closer. In a pinch, Elna general-purpose RE2/RE3 caps are also acceptable. Bypass/decoupling is great with Panasonic FC/FK (I've recently tried FJ, which offers greater capacitance in the same space, with acceptable results).

If you want to experiment without risking anything expensive, take apart an amplified PC speaker set and try replacing the caps - there are usually no more than 5/6 caps to pay around with, including the main PSU filter cap, 2 DC blocking caps for the speaker, and a few coupling caps. Try out the alternatives one at a time, re-assemble, and listen carefully after each mod - you'll get a feel for what is acceptable and what is regressive.

[Logistics]

Re: What are "for audio" capacitors ?

When you think most of the world seems to be happy to listen to MP3's through ear buds you have to wonder were audio is going anyway

That, good sir, is an example of portability, which is where much of audio has gone and is still going. Real High-Fidelity equipment takes up too much realestate to be considered portable in comparison. You can build somewhat portable HiFi equipment, but this is all relative.

If you don't need that high capacitance you're still better off using any generic industrial grade film cap instead of an audiophile grade 'lytic.

Quoted for truth.