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I built Zaph Audio SR-71 kit that I REALLY enjoy VERY much. Excellent speaker!!!!
For the tweeter capacitor I used a Solen metalized polypropylene cap from Madisound. The original design has, or uses the Clarity Cap SA 12uf. Which is no longer available.
Is there much difference between the Solen, Clarity SA and the more available Clarity cap ESA polypropylene. And is it worth pulling apart my speaker for????
Thanks
Charles
Follow Ups:
Caps in the crossover have to be commensurate in value to the drivers used in a system. A top-of-the-line Mundorf wouldn't benefit a 2" cone tweeter very well, where it might have a significant effect on a top-of-the-line Scanspeak or Hiquifon tweeter.
And yet despite the look on my face, you're still talking.
Solen is probably the least resolving metalized poly capacitor. Clarity SA is slightly better, but really not very good. Zaph designs nice, economical speakers. Economical with a capital E. He does not believe in boutique capacitors, and he is correct that more money is better spent on drivers. There is no cap that will make a bad tweeter sound good. He is somewhat aligned with Madisound, which sells his products and his designs as kits. Madisound also carries Solen and Clarity capacitors, along with a few premium brands. So guess which capacitors Zaph uses in his designs. Nothing against Zaph or Madisound, but take his cap recommendations with those two grains of salt.
The best tweeter cap I have heard (and I have tried lots of them) is the Mundorf Silver/Oil, but it is not cheap. You would not want to buy a pair of 12uf instead of two or three tanks of gas, plus a set of new tires for your car. If you have really good tweeters, a really nice system that you love to hear at its best, good hearing, and plenty of money to spend, then buy better caps. There are plenty available for not crazy amounts of money, and almost ANY of them will improve on a Solen.
One thing to consider is using a smaller, high value/quality cap in parallel with a larger value, cheaper cap in the ratio 10%/90% to attain the total design value. This, which is called bypassing, can provide almost the full benefit of using a single expensive cap.
Peace,
Tom E
Maybe consider Obbligato Gold Premium capacitors. Parts Connexion has their full line available.
A friend just did a side-by-side comparison over a three week period and found the Obbs to actually sound better (to his ears and in his system) than the (supposedly) world's greatest copper-based capacitors: the Duelund CAST-PIO.
Obbligato Gold Premium caps are simply the best value in capacitors today, period.
You might wish to check into them. Or not. Your call, of course.
Again, I hope this helped you.
Cheers,
WS
Charles, I have used both of these caps on tweeters, and neither is all that great. Yes, they do sound different. The ESA is the best of the bunch. If you wish to read about different caps, check out this amazing site:
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html
Yes I was reading that site for quite a while now.
The SA's are no longer available. And I just didn't know if the sound difference was worth doing all that work to change out that cap?
charles
Most MKP (metalized Polypropylene capacitors) will sound about the same because, despite what the various marketing departments tell you, they are all built with the same materials in the same way and in many cases on the same machine. MKP capacitors have metalized aluminum plates and polypropylene dielectric. The difference in capacitors generally comes in the material used for the plates since polypropylene or paper make a good dielectric. Foil sounds better than "metalized" plates and copper foil sounds better than aluminum foil.
In the end, the best bang for the buck in capacitors is the Russian military MBGO paper dielectric and aluminum foil plates encased in oil. The case and oil damps any microphonics. You will need to parallel several caps to get the correct value. For instance for 12uF you may need a 10uF and two 1uF caps in parallel.
I usually put the crossover outside the speaker and run in separate cables for woofer and tweeter. In this way you don't need to pull the speaker apart to experiment.
So you recommend not to, or don't bother, changing out one poly for another.
But if I do change it out, then go for something in the tin or copper foil line?
Sounds like "sound" advice to me.
Thanks
charles
I replaced all my MKP caps with the Russian military MBGO.
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