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Post subject: Re: Thinking of buying expensive PIO caps?
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 10:37 pm
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I have to agree with Jah here. Although I don't think charts lie, but they only show one thing, not the whole picture. And they're generally scale adjusted for what makes sense to an engineer, not what makes sense to an ear. It doesn't matter if it's 99% identical if that's 99% where you can't hear a difference anyhow, or if that remaining 1% affects where your ear is the most sensitive.
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And I don't believe hype. In fact, the more something is hyped, the more skeptical I am.


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Post subject: Re: Thinking of buying expensive PIO caps?
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 11:38 pm
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The test is odd. The guy disconnected the tone pots and, from what I gather, recorded a master clip using only the volume pot? Then did what? Filtered a recording with caps? And to top it off, did the recording in a Godawful crunch sound. I honestly don't trust his conclusions. Call me a massive skeptic, but it would be too easy for some crackpot to make one recording, attach it to every cap in the list (which by the way, only a selected few have sound clips) to pump his own weird "hype buster" blog. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

I might not be as skeptical if I didn't do my own experiments on two completely identical stock Schecters and Squiers. I've heard the differences with my own ears already. My personal conclusion is that this guy is wrong. His conclusions are false.

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Post subject: Re: Thinking of buying expensive PIO caps?
Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2013 5:50 pm
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Yes this thread, almost exactly word for word has been posted on the Fender forum before.

As a person who has used many different cap types in comparisons I am certain of two things. 1. This test was flawed, perhaps intentionally colored to mask the inherent differences in distortion between various capacitor types. 2. The graphs are NOT identical.

In a passive tone filter circuit the primary difference in different type tone caps of the same value is variance in the distortion characteristics, not in how many highs it rolls off or whether it makes the waveform stronger or weaker.

Between some cap types (Mylar Orange Drops and Vitamin-Q's for instance) differences are very subtle and I would be hard pressed to guess what type of cap it is. However with single coil pickups into a good preamp, clean power amp and full range cabs about anyone could learn to tell the difference between a Sprague Vitamin-Q paper-in-oil and a vintage ceramic disc of the same value in 5 seconds or less.

In the test cited in the original post the amp, processing and EQ settings used obviously color over any minor distortion differences in the different type of caps tested. The person set out to prove a point, but the results are not accurate and fail to impress me as an accurate comparison of the distortion characteristics between different cap types of the same value.

I assure you there is a tonal difference between different cap types when used in a passive electric bass into a clean preamp pushing a clean power amp that feeds a full range cab with crossover. Depending on how you adjust the EQ and drive the difference between the type of cap used can matter a little or it can matter a lot.

Add in a bunch of distortion and I couldn't tell the difference either. But with a clean amp pushing a pair of full range cabs I can tell very quickly. Make that more like very, very quickly.

I've compared the charts. They are showing waveforms, not harmonic distortion characteristics. Even then there are differences in the charts visible. I can absolutely tell the difference between some cap types. The differences between vintage ceramic disc and Sprague Poly Orange Drops is very subtle. However the difference between paper-in-oil and a ceramic disc is glaring when you have the right amp and cab setup. With a typical combo it won't matter much, nor will it matter at all when using any overdrive at all. The added distortion with some cap types is most apparent when using a full range cab that includes a driver and a tweeter/horn with a clean sounding crossover since most of the harmonic distortion will be passed by the tweeter/horn. Turning off the horn, turning down upper mids and highs, or adding gobs of distortion or overdrive makes it unlikely that anyone could tell any difference.


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Post subject: Re: Thinking of buying expensive PIO caps?
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 1:39 am
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Brother Dave, I've been using Orange Drops through a Roland JC for the past 5 years. I know that clean channel better than I know my own voice. Once you've had the same amp for a good length of time, it's very easy to hone in on subtle differences. The clean channel in a JC is very transparent.

One thing I do know is that the Orange Drops will sound just slightly different than if you disconnect it altogether. Anyone who has ever used a no-load tone pot with one would tell you that the difference between 10 and 9 are noticeable, but very slightly. Just barely.

But when you listen to the master sound clip in the article compared to the Orange drop sample, it's a huge difference. All of his cap samples sound that way. If all tone caps muffled the sound by that much, I'd refuse to ever have any of them in any of my guitars. It's a joke. The test is ridiculous. The article is ridiculous.

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Post subject: Re: Thinking of buying expensive PIO caps?
Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 8:29 pm
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Interesting article Andy, thanks for posting. :D

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Post subject: Re: Thinking of buying expensive PIO caps?
Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 10:47 pm
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I'm an electrical engineer, not an audiophile. As an intern I worked with a buyer in the oil exploration business. All components we used had to meet very specific requirements. Capacitance was only one of the requirements for capacitors. Some caps are more sensitive to temperature than others and will drift as the circuit heats up. All caps have internal resistance which will affect the total RC and thus alter the filtering of a circuit. Get the filtering wrong on a sensitive circuit and you've got yourself an oscillator, which likely ain't what you intended. These are known, measurable, physical characteristics of capacitors.

Anyone that says all caps are the same based on just the capacitance spec doesn't know what their talking about. Go ask anyone doing RF design.

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