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Topic: Are these caps worth it? |
Jay Ganz
From:
Out Behind The Barn
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 5:37 am |
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Anyone try these?
They're the Hovland musicaps. Are they really worth the extra $$$ compared to the Mallory 150's? |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 6:13 am
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I've used the Hovlands in my stereo tube preamp. They're nice, but I think they do fall under that category of way overpriced audiophile hyped components. They actually may be a higher performance cap than a Mallory 150, but in a guitar or steel amp, I really like the tone of the Mallory 150, and the Hovland may be relatively more boring sounding.
Here are my current favorite affordable audio cap's for guitar and steel amps. This changes from month to month:
Orange Drop 225p series (mylar film/foil - same cap as the old blue molded Fenders still made today - current fave's)
Mallory 150 (metallized mylar film)
Angela Tin caps (polypropylene and tinfoil)
Mojo Dijon (mylar film and foil)
Orange Drop 716p (polypropylene and foil)
Solen Fast Cap (metallized mylar film)
Brad |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 6:48 am
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| A good thing is low a ESR rating. Another thing to look for is the plus or minus variation. 5% is better than 20%. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 7:52 am
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| Quote: |
| Are these caps worth it? |
Only if you think they are.
I don't. |
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Stephen Gambrell
From:
Over there
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 9:13 am
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| I replace the tone caps in ALL my guitars with Hovlands. I don't exactly know how to put it, but the tone controls are more "linear," or "smoother," than the cheap stuff Fender and Gibson use. |
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ajm
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 6:19 pm
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| Have any of you guys tried the Sozo caps? |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 23 Oct 2008 6:37 pm
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I did try the Sozo cap's. I was excited to try them actually. They are supposed to be a very good sonic clone of the classic "mustard" colored mylar/foil cap's found in the classic Marshall amps. Real nice company and they're very passionate about what they're doing. I did not try their premium line, just the basic Sozo line. They strongly recommend that the cap's break in to really hear them, so I did that for well over 100 hours. My net feeling about them was that they seemed to have a "glare" or a slight harshness that I just couldn't get my mind off of. I tried to come back to them and hear them with a fresh and open mind, but the same reaction every time. Mojo sells their "Dijon" cap which is made by (or for) Tube Amp Doctor out of Germany. Their "dijon" cap's sounded much less harsh to me. Now to be fair, I did not try the Sozo's in a Marshall overdriven as they are sort of meant to be, instead I tried them in clean Fender type circuits like a Deluxe, a Tweed Deluxe, a Princeton Reverb, a Champ, and my Revelation preamp, which is similar to a clean Twin. I just couldn't fall in love with the Sozo, and I tried. I may want to try their premium line instead.
The Sozo or Dijon approach is based on a mylar cap with aluminum foil. When it comes to a mylar/foil cap, I'm currently really favoring the 225p series of Orange Drops. The Mojo Dijons are also very sweet and clean sounding, almost in an audiophile way. Mylar has a zingy, lively, somewhat "plastic", and very musical sound. Definitely more color and character than a polypropylene cap. Then the foil factor always seems to add a depth and dimension and detail to the sound. So mylar/foil is this category, and the 225p Orange Drop wins out for me currently.
The higher end approach that I favored for years, and still like a lot is the polypropylene and foil. Polypropylene is cleaner, less colored, and generally higher in performance due to lower ESR, lower hysteresis, etc.
Then you compare aluminum foil to tin foil, and again there's a sonic difference.
The very well liked Mallory 150 is metallized mylar. That means there's no actual foil, but instead the conductor is sputtered or sort of electroplated onto the mylar as a film layer instead of a truly separate layer of foil. These Mallory 150's just sound killer, especially once broken in. Any cap with high voltage across it seems to have a break in period. I've been using these Mallory 150's a LOT in the past year, and man they're very affordable, and just very musical sounding. Capacitor snobs may look down on them, but that could only be because they're not expensive. But they just sound killer, whether it's a clean amp or a dirty and driven Tweed Fender circuit.
Lately I've been liking a combination of the Mallory 150's with the 225p Orange Drops. Both are mylar, and the foil of the 225p helps with some depth and detail, and the Mallory 150's are kind of like pouring butterscotch over the sound. Real smooth and sweet.
But I digress.... Someone stop me....
Brad |
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ajm
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 24 Oct 2008 12:10 pm
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Just curious......
Inter-stage coupling caps, cathode caps, tone stacks.....
Where do you use these caps in your designs?
Is there one type you prefer in one location over another?
Thanks in advance. |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 24 Oct 2008 12:29 pm
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Currently I'm using the 225p Orange Drops in the tone stack (silver mica for the small 250pF), and Mallory 150's for interstage coupling.
Brad |
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Ken Fox
From:
Nashville GA USA
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Posted 24 Oct 2008 3:37 pm
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Even if the Mallory 150 are not foil caps they do show a need to be polarized in the circuit. I use the Aiken's scope method to test them and they shows all the signs of being noisy and tone slightly muted if installed in the wrong direction!
Here is a good article about the method I used:
http://www.aikenamps.com/OutsideFoil.htm |
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