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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:42 pm
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Screamin' Armadillo wrote:
What was the purpose of this thread?


It's meant to challenge people's blind faith in advertising copy and hopefully dissuade people from pouring their money down a hole. Which is the polar opposite of what a lot of manufacturers seem to want.

Now more than ever the guitar world is full of dreamers who desperately want to believe that one magic mod or one piece of gear can transform them into the great player they want to be. As a consequence, a great many companies have sprung up selling after-market mods that make ridiculous claims about what their product can do.

All I'm saying is that if you examine the claims dispassionately and with a bit of healthy scepticism then many of them can be shown to be totally groundless. But if people are happier spending $15 on a cap when a 1c one does the same job then hey, that's their concern.

In my part of the world we call a spade a spade, not a geomorphic sectioning implement.

And we don't pay 1500 times the price for it just because the manufacturer says it digs better holes.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:12 pm
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i want to say that i did measure the ceramic cap that i liked the most. it was .0985uf so that is for all intents and purpose .1uf. . i get the effect of the tone controls and the taper when the volume is turned down to 8 and under. remember i'm using a treble booster in front of the vox ac30(normal chanel, cranked chanel volume and the master set at about 1/3 and the tone cut at half way)so i'm getting that treble kick to start with. it sounds great. i've always been a fan of the "cocked wah" and "woman tone" sound. the .1uf cap lets you do the "faux wah" effect very well. i love dynamics. i liked all the caps i tried but the ceramic cap added some rough edges to the notes but not in a bad way. the others were more of a smoothing effect and some weren't as vocal. just take some time and try different caps to find the tone you want. besides it's fun and that's what we all play for anyway. right?


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 6:02 pm
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Last edited by bluesky636 on Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:22 pm
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Sorry, I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone designs a guitar's tone circuit with a high frequency rolloff point so specific that it requires more than 10% tolerance for the cap rating. That's not good design, that's splitting hairs.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:23 pm
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GilgaFrank wrote:
Screamin' Armadillo wrote:
What was the purpose of this thread?


It's meant to challenge people's blind faith in advertising copy and hopefully dissuade people from pouring their money down a hole. Which is the polar opposite of what a lot of manufacturers seem to want.


Battle the snake oil!

I gotta go buy an extremely expensive HDMI cable now, be right back.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:48 pm
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Its funny how some peps worry about other peps $$ :idea:


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 10:45 pm
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GilgaFrank wrote:
No. Different VALUE capacitors roll off treble at different rates. Or rather different values of RC.

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I don't see any factor in that equation to adjust for the composition of the resistor or the cap. Maybe someone should come up with different laws of physics that apply only to guitars.

Your physics is correct and this will surely benefit you on your PE exam. However, mathematics is ideal but most capacitors or not. Most caps have varying internal resistance and this is usually not stable or measurable except under steady state conditions. Playing guitar is far from a steady state condition. As a matter of fact the transients can be torturous at times.

So although your equations are correct it is often difficult to impossible to know what value to apply to the variables. There still may be a great deal of truth to your assertion but there's enough gray area in the real world physical implementations that you might consider toning down on the absolutes.

Cheers,

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 11:47 pm
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Her Wanna wrote:

I play all my guitars stock and, using a solid state Mustang 4 v1 amp, get perfect tone every time. lzozlozlzozlzoz

In fact the mustang is so much fun it's bad for my OCD. So many tones and effects to play with....I have a hard time figuring out what to do next.


Nothing wrong with that, everyone hears things differently, and gets turned on differently. Mustangs are very versitile good sounding amps. My main amp is TUBE but if I were to buy one for a backup, it would be the Mustang III.

I cannot tell the difference with CAP types generally, so am not too phased with what I put in my guitar. Reliability is more important.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 12:59 am
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GilgaFrank wrote:
Screamin' Armadillo wrote:
What was the purpose of this thread?


It's meant to challenge people's blind faith in advertising copy and hopefully dissuade people from pouring their money down a hole. Which is the polar opposite of what a lot of manufacturers seem to want.

Now more than ever the guitar world is full of dreamers who desperately want to believe that one magic mod or one piece of gear can transform them into the great player they want to be. As a consequence, a great many companies have sprung up selling after-market mods that make ridiculous claims about what their product can do.

All I'm saying is that if you examine the claims dispassionately and with a bit of healthy scepticism then many of them can be shown to be totally groundless. But if people are happier spending $15 on a cap when a 1c one does the same job then hey, that's their concern.

In my part of the world we call a spade a spade, not a geomorphic sectioning implement.

And we don't pay 1500 times the price for it just because the manufacturer says it digs better holes.


Thanks Matt.

Nicely done shinkicker
"wow....light the fuse and stand back. ok, i went through some caps i have on hand the other day, just because i was bored. i soldered some aligator clips to the tone pot in my favorite strat and tried out PIO, ceramic,O.D. 225p, and some greenies and some asorted other film types. i was looking for one that had the best taper,best tone responce when i rolled it to near mud(with the volume on the guitar at different levels.i was running it through my homemade rangemaster into my ac30c2. i used all .1uf caps because i wanted as close to the original strats as i could get (my strat is wired normal,neck and middle with tones bridge no tone)i use 57/62 pups in it. when i had the guitar dimed and the amp really overdriving you could get that "heal down wah" sound or "woman tone" with the tones turned to 2-3, at 1 it was almost mud but still vocal. when i backed the volume down to different levels the amp cleans up and you can hear some nice smooth o.d. to clean tones and the taper of each type of cap can be heard. so basicly i found the sound i wanted surprise it was an older .1uf ceramic cap(likely it's a R.S. from the early 2000's). the only cap that was the unusual one of the bunch was the orange drop 225p, it had a muffled midrangey sound when i turned the tone to 1 and had it cranked. but it was cool and fun. wasted time...maybe."

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:26 am
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GilgaFrank wrote:
There is no difference in sound between a $50 paper in oil capacitor and a 1c ceramic disk capacitor of the same value.

Anyone who claims to be able to hear the difference is deluded...


I guess that I'll have to break the news to you; you are the one that's delusional. Frequency is not the only consideration, you must also consider charging rate, ESR, and other factors. If you were as knowledgeable about electronics as you claim, you should know that different cap types produce very different waveforms due to their charging rate and ESR, which definitely affect tone. If you had the equipment, you could try running a signal generator into your amp, and compare the sound of a sine-wave vs a square-wave vs a sawtooth-wave. I suppose you think that you can use orange-drop caps, instead of electrolytic for the power supply in a tube amp? Why not? They are the same capacitance value, and the same or higher voltage rating, they should work fine according to your hogwash notions. :lol:

What is the problem with those that don't have great hearing? It is as if the lack of aural ability has affected their brains too. You have certainly become a turd in this punch bowl. :roll:

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:46 am
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shimmilou wrote:
I guess that I'll have to break the news to you; you are the one that's delusional. Frequency is not the only consideration, you must also blah blah blah blah frickin blah


So can I assume that you've done a blind test of your audibly different caps?

Funny how the people who get upset about this are usually the ones who've paid ridiculous prices for caps and desperately want to believe it's made them sound better.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:52 am
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mhowell wrote:
Your physics is correct.


Why do I sense there's a BUT coming?

mhowell wrote:
However, blah blah blah blah I paid for expensive caps and I desperately want to believe they make me sound better/


Truth is, if someone sneaked in one night and replaced everyone's military spec PIO caps with cheap ceramics then no one would notice. Absolutely no one.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 3:11 am
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Yes I have tried a few caps in my day, and I didn't have to pay ridiculous prices for them. I have even made my own caps. They sucked but they worked. Personally, I usually prefer orange drops for coupling caps in amps and ceramic discs for guitar tone pots, and I also understand why some prefer PIO, the sound is different, and what is pleasant to one ear might be unpleasant to another. The blue molded caps in vintage amps are also quite nice. I understand the placebo affect, I've seen it, and I agree that it does happen. However, there are legitimate scientific reasons for using different types of caps in different parts of the circuit in electronic devices, tone shaping is just one reason. Many times, cost will win-out over a subtle difference in tone, so "close enough" might be just fine for most people. Haven't you ever wondered why different types of caps are used in different parts of electronic circuits?

There are subtleties that people are willing to pay big bucks for, that many of us are not willing to pay for. For example, why buy expensive cologne if your girl can't smell it? :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 3:13 am
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GilgaFrank wrote:
...if someone sneaked in one night and replaced everyone's military spec PIO caps with cheap ceramics then no one would notice. Absolutely no one.


:roll:

So, if one person is color blind, that means that everyone else must be too? Surely you aren't that pig-headed, are you?

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:17 am
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seems like a waste of practice time thinking about stuff like this. Even if it did make a slight difference, your audience would never notice. If you spend more time practicing, they'll notice that.

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