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Capacitor rolling.

My son is getting to the Audio World.  Bought a Vincent Hybrid Pre-Amp and Vincent Hybrid Amp.

Both us MKP Film caps on each signal line-out paths. He wants a little more warm from the/voice- strings

Audio Note offers  some of their Caps for those Cap rollers. In Silver/Gold./ Cooper &Alum foil.

Very pricey compared to MKP caps. 7 times+

By the way MKP is widely used by many high-end electronic audio gear Mfg because of their very-very neutral sound & fast transits. Has anyone in this forum  have any feed back on CAP rolling? And Audio Note Caps??

Trust Me signal path Cap rolling can produce more changes than Tube rolling does in some cases..


tubes444
rodman99999
3,557 posts
 
The difference in sound, when reversing capacitors, is noise. And YES, it has everything to do with the inner and outer foil. Personally, I’ve always tested caps, with regards to their lead orientation and noise, even when marked. My Cast Copper PIO (coupling cap) Duelund’s leads were not marked(though pretty obvious), and supposedly, the design is not susceptible to noise. Like every other cap I’ve tested, they were. The goal is to connect the cap’s outer foil to ground(when applicable), or the signal source(lower impedance), to shield from induced noise. http://www.blueguitar.org/new/text/threads/from_adam/components/mallory-outer-foil.pdf and http://www.justradios.com/auriINSTALL.html
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
4,637 posts
 
Noise is certainly part of it on some caps, but it is more than that. It is surprising how tone and other SQ factors change slightly with direction. This is especially true in passive crossover networks. I spoke with the manufacturer of some very high end caps and he shared that these differences in Sonic character are not always worse, but just different depending on application and other system variables. Couple this reality with burn in SQ changes and we have fuel for extreme audiophile anxiety.
rodman99999
3,557 posts
 
" Couple this reality with burn in SQ changes....". I can’t help but wonder: how many actually let the capacitors being auditioned, "burn in" for the length of time required, to sound their best(as with tubes, cables, etc)?
kosst_amojan
2,095 posts
 
@geoffkait 

It's already well known that most caps are directional by nature of their construction. It has nothing to do with some hocus pocus wire directionality fantasy and you can absolutely measure which direction is the best. In any capacity with rolled substrates the outside layer terminal always goes to ground since it shields. Putting them in backwards runs the risk of injecting noise into the circuit. Some makers mark the outside terminal with a line but most don't. If you're not sure, test them. 
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
That’s pretty much the same hogswallup folks spew about cables, that it’s not the wire, it’s the shield. Yet unshielded cables exhibit directionality. Follow?
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