Andrew Heck
Active Member
Howdy, I'm changing out the caps in my HH Scott S-15s and I'm looking at the electrolytics I ordered and it dawned on me that maybe they should be films. Could someone please advise.
Best capacitors for speakers?
- Thread starter Andrew Heck
- Start date
Yes. Change them for polypropylene film caps. Electrolytic caps are not good in passive speaker crossovers as they dry out and most of them are +/-20% anyway. 1% film caps are normally available at reasonable prices. But note that film caps are bigger and cost more than electrolytics.
You can then go completely mad and buy wildly expensive esoteric caps (in order to impress your friends) or just buy decent quality ones for a tenth of the price which basically do the same job. I use 250volt Solen caps and they seem to be O.K.
You can then go completely mad and buy wildly expensive esoteric caps (in order to impress your friends) or just buy decent quality ones for a tenth of the price which basically do the same job. I use 250volt Solen caps and they seem to be O.K.
Andrew Heck
Active Member
Great info. I'll be searching for 25v 5uf and 35v 10ufs. Thanks for the heads up on Solen and warning me not to spend on "fancy". I appreciate you.
Andrew Heck
Active Member
Excellent. Thanks for the pointer. Now, where abouts should I shop? I'm not having the best luck with the 5ufs.
Parts Express sells the Q4's. If they don't have a 5 buy two that add up to 5. Capacitors add together in value when run in parallel.
H713
New Member
Madisound has a very nice selection of caps for pretty good prices. (I always buy from them when I can because they're semi-local to me). I used the carli branded capacitors they have (Cheap!) for my crossovers, and they're fine. They also sell Solen plus some fancy Mundorf ($700+) capacitors. The Bennic poly caps they sell are a pretty good price too.
If it has any really big caps (Like in the 30 uf range) then you might choose to go with electrolytic for them, since a 30 uf poly caps are going to be expensive.
If it has any really big caps (Like in the 30 uf range) then you might choose to go with electrolytic for them, since a 30 uf poly caps are going to be expensive.
Andrew Heck
Active Member
thanks,,, i've got 4 5ufs and 4 10ufs. shouldn't be that bad.
Darby Crash
Well-Known Member
How can you tell the difference between polypropylene film and electrolytic caps?
Andrew Heck
Active Member
From what I understand, at the least, they are larger and tend to be less rounded in the edges. That is probably a generalization. I do know that they will have much tighter tolerances and lower ESRs (better efficiency). If I'm wrong let me know. you can change a electrolytic with a film to get better performance.
