The sound when replacing the electrolytics with film caps is amazing... but if the electrolytic is too big value you can replace it with several paralleled smaller electrolytics, this lowers the caps ESR and inductance.
Right on. There also is a big difference in the sound of film caps. I just took advantage of Partsconnexion Sept sale where they ran 30% off on all film caps. Those sales come up pretty regularly and are worth waiting. Long story short, I replaced some Solen caps and some Russian PIO caps with Obbligato Premium Gold. The Solens were in crossovers and the rest were coupling caps in tube amps. It was one of those need to listen to the entire music library upgrades. Significant improvement of low level information. The Obbligato are a taste of high end without the exorbitant prices of Deulund or Vcap. If you are replacing electrolytic you are in for a treat.
I recently recapped my Urei 813c's with film caps and the difference was amazing. To be fair these were 35 year old speakers and the lytics were clearly done so they were not sounding great. Took a little creativity to get everything to fit but fortunately I had a decent amount of space to work with. These were not the highest end films out there and I'm sure it could have been better with even higher end ones but this was the biggest sound improvement I've gotten for $120 ever.
Tried this tweak back in the 1990s - the immediate effects had got me saying " I never knew that conventional speakers can mimic this close - let alone mine - the actual sound of an unamplified drumkit."
Back in the late 70s early 80s as a wee lad, I watched Mr. Rodgers and loved it. I'm older now. Paul McGowan my new Mr. Rodgers. Paul, your voice is whimsical, soothing and you make me feel like a kid again. Please wear a red cardigan sweater on a video for me this winter.
Hah! You're very kind. Given my background www.amazon.com/99-True-Paul-McGowan-audiobook/dp/B07SPG6M9R/ I don't think I qualify as Mr. Roger's clean. But thank you.
Paul is absolutely right in what he says !! Polyester or polypropylene are more expensive than electrolyte but they are MUCH better in almost every way!
Also upgraded resistors or anything in the crossover path makes a huge difference, Think what is the weakest link, A little bracing of any type for the cabinet helps. Good luck.
I retrofitted my crossover on a 3 way. 2nd order, fairly cut and dry. Went from all electrolytic caps and iron core inductors to film with air inductors. I just built a whole new board.
Yes I did this in the early 80's with my now vintage speakers. I replaced a 25uF cap with a bank of 25 1uF film caps soldered on a bread board and screwed to the inside wall of the speaker, next to the cross-over board.
@@DeanTheDoctor To be honest I don't know. I purchased my Celestion Ditton 25s as damaged floor demo speakers at the end of their production life. I had disassembled them completely to refinish the cabinets, replace a tweeter, and make minor cone repairs to both woofers. Since they were apart it made sense to me to modify the cross-overs, but their original sound is unknown to me.
Yeah, Parts Connexion is great. I’ve bought a lot of parts there for upgrades, mods, or DIY stuff. Great selection of stuff and reasonable prices for the most part too.
The higher uFD film are HUGE. I laughed when he mentioned it, because the second I opened the shipping package for the capacitors I said you're kidding. Saw the problem right away. I couldn't believe how big they were in comparison to the electrolytics. Anyway, I ended up soldering them into the board backwards and using RTV162, since I had the room due to how the boards were mounted.
My god this was a quick one ! But a subject near and dear to me ... With caps it's all about the tan of the loss angle .... and yes Mylar film caps trump electro types anyday ! In the Spice XO network designer and also LEAP modelling programs we use a series resistance of 0.25 ohm for film caps and 0.5 ohms for electros.
Capacitors can change the character of a system quite a lot, and sound different after some power cycles. So it's difficult to find the right replacement. The ESR is important, but the actual impedance relative to frequency is what, I think, gives a cap a 'sound'. That is important for power decoupling caps. For signal path, low loss is required which is why film caps are much better... In theory. The very low level signal of a SS preamp does not distort much over an electrolytic cap.
Replacing caps can be exactly about getting a lower ESR. If a cap sounds better than another cap, whatever is different is also measurable. I tend to stay away from any over-priced cap that doesn't even have a proper datasheet.
I’m a little confused…. Aren’t electrolytic caps polarised while film caps aren’t? Does it matter in this case? A little new with some of these things…
I don't believe that's as simple as Paul describes. The problem is that many electrolytic caps loose capacity as a signal frequency goes up. But the film capacitors don't. So replacing electrolytics with the same value would result in a different filtering and a different frequency response. It seems in order to get the same result that replacement film cap value has to be somewhat smaller than an original electrolytic cap.
Getting rid of electrolytics isn't merely about ESR. Electrolytic capacitors are quite nonlinear, especially when the voltage across them swings negative. In other words, they are a strong distortion source. The types used in speakers are "bipolar" which means they are actually two polarized capacitors in series, back to back. In this configuration, they tend to accumulate some DC bias which helps their performance, but only in the case of steady signals, so transient response can still be rather distorted. Today we have cables with batteries, but where are the speakers with batteries that maintain some DC bias on the electrolytics, to help with their issues?
@@marianneoelund2940 They just got the pdf file with regards to the K2 online. It´s quite easy actually (4 times the capacitance and some Meg-Ohm resistors). You can find some information on the Lansing Heritage forums. Have fun
I replaced some cheap 1 uF film caps with WIMA 1 uF film caps. I hooked it up and thought what the hell did I do wrong I mean it sounded like SHIT!!! After 30 minutes it got better then better and better, wheeew. If people say that components don't need burn in, they just simply have no idea what the hell they are talking about. Those WIMA caps are BAD ASS!!!!!!!!!! It took about 4-5 hours for me to know I was in the clear.
@@ranbymonkeys2384 I replaced the input coupling caps (4.7) as well as the 10uF O/P caps, the load is 47K, so the low end roll off is very minimal, I learned this hack from superaudiobestfriends site on the TC-750, mine is the 778
@@ranbymonkeys2384 If the amp or device that is connected has very low impedance, then there will be bass roll off, no audio amp out there is lower than 47K on it's input, John audio tech has just done a video on coupling capacitance, a small audio amp board he was showing had a 0.47uf cap loaded by 15K, rolling the bass below 100 Hz, he found replacing it with 1uF fixed the issue, this vid had nothing to do with my mod since I done it a year ago
What about Metalized Polypropylene capacitors? I knew to stick away from the electrolytic capacitors but I used Metalized Polypropylene capacitors from Parts Express for my speakers. How do these compare to Film caps?
I have a pair of British Mordaunt Short Pageant speakers at around 41 years old and they sound AMAZING! Why would I want to mess around with them? If it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT!
they may have some sort of non-electro caps in them, oil filled paper or metalized polyester, modern speakers 99/100 have electro caps in them, I yank em out and replace with polypropylene caps
@@TheMildperil I had a brand new pair circa 1980. My current pair were bought second-hand in 2010 on eBay for £70. They're in perfect condition, and as far as I know all original. They sound SUPERB! Vocal clarity is stunning, and bass is deep and extended! A cracking pair of vintage speakers!
I have been thinking about doing the same with some vintage speakers I have (out of laziness still not done). In extra I want to replace the coils. Now here the question arises if the Ri of the coil is part of the filter design? I live In Germany, here there are plenty of on-line shops that sell Mundorf and Jensen Caps and Coils.
Erm, no, ESR can be pretty substantial if the capacitors are small enough in value. With electrolytic caps, as the capacitance goes up, the ESR goes down. So you may find that replacing larger electrolytic caps with film caps won't change the frequency response much. This is a good thing, in fact, because you don't want to change that too much when you're just recapping your crossover. So, if you have a relatively small electro cap in series with your tweeter (as is often the case), you may want to add half an ohm or an ohm of series resistance to maintain the frequency response. Now, you still should replace all those electrolytics with film capacitors, but that's because you want a lower tangent of loss angle, which is basically how much energy the capacitor wastes. Film caps always have a much lower Tan-delta than electrolytics! Where you must use electrolytic capacitors, check the datasheet and try getting a higher voltage rating. Tan-delta tends to go down as the voltage rating goes up (but they get bigger, too)
Hi there I have a few bennic electrolytics in my speakers that are between 72 and 82 uf Im wondering what you would recommend as a replacement capacitor. FIlm caps this size are super expensive are there any decent electrolytics?
@@Canadian_Eh_I I know that Mundorf makes a series of non-polar electrolytic caps called the E-Cap AC. Those would be a nice option. Nichicon and Elna probably both make decent non-polar electrolytic capacitors for speaker crossovers, too, so would be worth checking out. The Audio Note Kaisei are awesome if you have a lot of money to spend. Parts Connexion is a great supplier for all of these (if you're in North America)
my only comment is don't be afraid to experiment. the poly caps all sound different. some may work well in one speaker but not others . they all have different tonal characteristics
On the theme of parts quality, I need to recap my tube amp and tube DAC. I figure that I need to replace them by the same capacitance value. One answer I can’t find though is about voltage rating. I’d be grateful if someone can weigh in: I can choose a replacement capacitor of the same voltage or higher. Many of the nice capacitors sometimes have a higher voltage rating. Although from an electrical point of view it is safe to use, is there an effect on the audio quality to replace a cap with higher voltage rating? Thank you!
Hello, I live in the UK, near London, I own a Wharfedale E50 speaker (Early 80'ss ) and would love to upgrade its Cross over and Speaker unit would appreciate your kind advice.
On the CROSS OVER: - Original Capacitors used are: 1 x ELCAP (Electrostatic Capacitor): 16uf (MFD), 50V 1 x ELCAP (Electrostatic Capacitor): 50uf (MFD), 50V
Anyone who knows a bit about speakers knows that electrolyte capacitors are the worst type you can have in a speaker !! film capacitors or as they are called (polyester) (polypropylene) are the best that also give the best sound. they are not leaking and last almost forever. As a rule, always use polyester or polypropylene.
What about changing the caps in e. g. a Walkman? Im planning on changing the electrolytic capacitors because they all leaked and now im basically re doing all the traces... I don't want that to ever happen again so im willing to change everything to a different type f cap.
iron core or putting any ferromagnetic screw to hold the coil down will introduce a slight phase shift and bandwidth reduction in contrast to a purely air core inductor. this is very audible even if you have a slightly decent system.
Can somebody Please Tear down the Mundorf Silver cap & Show us all whether Mundorf Silver cap is really using Pure Silver Foil inside. Is it real or Fake ? Video Please..
Can you Cut open the Mundorf Silver Gold Cap vs Solen Silver Cap to view the inside can ? Is it real Pure Silver Foil or basically just a Fake Foil ? Video have ! ( Surely u will have Billion of Billion of Viewer in your RU-vid)....,
Have to disagree with you there by changing resistance you are changing the inductance on the coils will change it sound characters not necessarily worse it might be better but any inductor in the circuitry will be affected of change of resistance.
And no one even gave you a thumbs up for this once in a lifetime achievement? Let me be the first good sir. Tonight we shall raise a glass to your good health and vitality. Last, seeing this reminds me that Epstein didn’t kill himself.
