[Dan C]

So I'm sure there are many threads out there on this topic... And some of you will probably just end up linking me to them

BUT, Is the an audible difference between Orange Drop Caps and the Ceramic Disk Caps? I will be using a 0.001 in a treble bleed thingy ma bob. About to order parts and thought why not ask

Thanks to any help you can offer!

Dan

[damacleod]

Originally Posted by Dan C

BUT, Is the an audible difference between Orange Drop Caps and the Ceramic Disk Caps?

In a passive guitar circuit? No. No difference at all. And unusually when talking about guitar tone, that is fact not opinion.

http://www.aqdi.com/tonecap.htm

[Dan C]

Perfect! That's what I thought, fact not opinion.

Cheers for the link, some good reading in there for a novice like myself.

Thanks!

[tartanphantom]

Originally Posted by damacleod

In a passive guitar circuit? No. No difference at all. And unusually when talking about guitar tone, that is fact not opinion.

http://www.aqdi.com/tonecap.htm

Exactly. In a passive circuit, the signal only "sees" the amount of capacitance, NOT the fancy housing of the capacitor, nor how much you paid for it! The only real difference might be tighter tolerance specs on more expensive caps, but this is not a rock-solid axiom. More expensive caps do not necessarily = better caps.

Now try and explain that to a Gibson "bumblebee cap" fanatic and watch his eyes glaze over.

[TV the Wired Turtle]

most ears arent going to hear it, but the response is noticeable to us golden ears. You'll see folks say "this is warmer sounding, or this is brighter" when the reality is that its more like; polystyrene is more immediate and polyester film is slower...
a bad example of this is solid state rectifier vs tube rectifier.. the later tends to make the ear think they are hearing a warmer and more saturated sound..when its just less immediate a response between finger and ear. (pay no attention to cross talk distortion)

[MatchlessMan]

Orange drop capacitors always sound better because they have been soaked in snake oil at a crossroads at midnight. Fact!

[Synchro]

Originally Posted by MatchlessMan

Orange drop capacitors always sound better because they have been soaked in snake oil at a crossroads at midnight. Fact!

You nailed it. Circuits much more crucial than guitars and amps have employed ceramic caps with no problems. Radios deal in frequencies many times that of audio frequencies and the effects of caps is much greater but they don't use special caps. Capacitance is capacitance. If the cap has the right value it will perform predictably in a low voltage circuit such as the tone circuit in your guitar. Deeper inside an amp is a somewhat different story because of higher voltages involved; high voltage can breach a cap and this requires capacitors designed for that voltage. Assuming equal tolerance in accuracy there is no advantage in using high-buck caps in a passive tone circuit.

[6stings]

Ay yuz paper in greese kondenzatrya from CCCP.
Da, dey teist horosho with Stolichnaya too.

[Michiel]

I wouldn't expect much difference between the types of caps in a guitar. The actual values of the caps will make a bigger difference.

However, check for yourself:

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

[stevo]

I was convinced that Jensen oil-in-foil's sounded better than stock in my Guild and my son's Ibanez. While a guitar is a passive thing, it's not linear, so you're still dealing with reactive components and those components can be interactive.

Note that I said "I" was "convinced". Like most others, I didn't do an A to B comparison because it's difficult to do it in a reasonable way. I knew I spent $40 on those tone caps and by gosh, they were bound to sound better.

I do think Jensens are warmer. There is something that makes a difference between caps, but I'm not sure if it has anything to do with material, tolerance, voltage rating or whatever. There are too many potential variations to be sure what's making the difference without a true double blind test with a large sample of each type of cap.

Michiel's post is the first time I've seen anyone try to be objective about this subject. Bravo.

[cybermgk]

Regardless of the tone debate, for a treble bleed, ceramic is just fine. Almost never hear of anyone using anything but a creamic disk for a bleed.

But, that IS one thing to consider. Some generic ceramic disc and chiclet caps can vary dramatically as far as spec.

[Michiel]

Originally Posted by stevo

Michiel's post is the first time I've seen anyone try to be objective about this subject. Bravo.

I have to say it's not me in that vid. But big kudos to the guy who did that vid!

[NickGretsch]

Originally Posted by Michiel

I have to say it's not me in that vid. But big kudos to the guy who did that vid!

Indeed, big respect for that guy and the trouble he's gone to.

What a find though Michiel, many thanks for posting it. Gonna have to run off to my little studio and hear this on decent monitors, the iPad just doesn't cut it although some differences were quite apparent.

[Michiel]

Indeed, I have big respect for the guy!

There are a couple of parameters he doesn't have under control in his setup: room reverberation for one (at least it's constant), color of his pants... you name it

But regardless of that I admire and appreciate the effort he's gone through to present the experiments. He's the first I've come across that made a decent pass at it.
And the one thing the videos show is that cap value has a far more dominant effect over cap brand.

I fully intend on doing something similar for my own entertainment to what conclusions I can draw for myself. (So no vids, sry) I like his idea of just sticking everything into a piece of cardboard. Very easy to change / swap / etc.

BTW, beter use some closed shell headphones; that works better than anything for this kind of comparisons. Let's you capture more detail than listening over monitors.

[Synchro]

Originally Posted by cybermgk

Regardless of the tone debate, for a treble bleed, ceramic is just fine. Almost never hear of anyone using anything but a creamic disk for a bleed.

But, that IS one thing to consider. Some generic ceramic disc and chiclet caps can vary dramatically as far as spec.

Most components are available in tolerance ranges, 5%, 10%, etc. I definitely would not suggest going to Radio Shack and buying tone caps unless they are marked as being a certain tolerance range.

Sent using G-T Forum app

[rcboals]

My own experience I like the old ceramics. I will use them before orange drops any day. Been there done that and no real noticable difference except cost which is minor anyway. Here is a pic from my treble bleed master volume mod what a difference in tone control no treble loss when rolling the volume off. Don't know why Gretsch just doesn't do this in the first place on at least the higher end guitars like my G6129T Sparkle Jet.
Here is the how to link made easy.
http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/te...lume-easy.html

[stevo]

Originally Posted by Michiel

Indeed, I have big respect for the guy!

There are a couple of parameters he doesn't have under control in his setup: room reverberation for one (at least it's constant), color of his pants... you name it

But regardless of that I admire and appreciate the effort he's gone through to present the experiments. He's the first I've come across that made a decent pass at it.
And the one thing the videos show is that cap value has a far more dominant effect over cap brand.

I fully intend on doing something similar for my own entertainment to what conclusions I can draw for myself. (So no vids, sry) I like his idea of just sticking everything into a piece of cardboard. Very easy to change / swap / etc.

BTW, beter use some closed shell headphones; that works better than anything for this kind of comparisons. Let's you capture more detail than listening over monitors.

The interesting thing about it was that I could hear definite differences between some of the caps. The one I tended to like best was the original Epi with the Russian second. But I'm not sure any of the tones were so much of "good vs. bad" as much as just, "different". I'm sure some more time with them could help narrow it down.

[GretschGhost]

Originally Posted by TV the Wired Turtle

most ears arent going to hear it, but the response is noticeable to us golden ears. You'll see folks say "this is warmer sounding, or this is brighter" when the reality is that its more like; polystyrene is more immediate and polyester film is slower...
a bad example of this is solid state rectifier vs tube rectifier.. the later tends to make the ear think they are hearing a warmer and more saturated sound..when its just less immediate a response between finger and ear. (pay no attention to cross talk distortion)

This is basically what I was going to say. I am an Electrical Engineering student and this is a pretty good "layman's terms" example of how this works.

Most people refer to this as "sag", which in a nutshell is the delay in response on a signal due to a "slow" capacitor.

There's not really a "good" or "bad" comparison, as Stevo said, but more just "different". A lot of the older guitars used Orange Drops in place of ceramic or film caps, as did amps.

Then again, there's always the wax-in-paper caps, which I like in amps and definitely give a different sound in guitars, but it's all subjective.

One thing to try, if you're ambitious, is making a test kit like our guitar tech uses. Basically, he sets all the wiring up on a board with alligator clips (to avoid soldering anything) where possible and switches out components to test the various tones.

[Michiel]

Stevo, I'd have to check again to check what I could hear. I'm wih you on the 'different'. Which vid & time stamp made the biggest impression?

IIRC for me it was the point where he played the org Epi followed by the mustard cap (he calls it vintage grey cylinder). It seemed to me the difference was largest there and because I could hear a difference, I immediately felt that therefor the latter must be better. Sorta what you said in your earlier post.

Had the order of the caps tested been different, I'd probably have ended up at a different conclusion.

In tube amps, the differences are much larger between cap brands (muuuch higher voltages and atronger signals). On guitars the differences are subtle, but indeed audible sometimes.

[Michiel]

Originally Posted by GCGhost

Most people refer to this as "sag", which in a nutshell is the delay in response on a signal due to a "slow" capacitor.

The trouble with describing one sound over another is that there are as many words to describe the effect as there are people!

What I call 'sag' is the effect of the power supply voltage collapsing when the power tubes demands a high current.

The effect you call sag is the effect I tend to refer to as 'punchyness' or 'responsiveness'.

But than again, the effect of 'sag' (my sag) is an exaggeration of 'punch' again. Go figure...