Do new capacitors in a crossover need breaking in?

[drbiggles]

Hey loopstick,

You bet. I was speaking in the very dangerous realm of Generalities. But yet, of course.

Biggles

 

[BillWojo]

DrBiggles, I know where your coming from as I have an engineering back ground myself. I'm used to figuring things out with numbers and equations although it's been years since I've had to do much of that sort of thing. Like you I figured all this stuff about caps breaking in was hogwash, that people where hearing what they wanted to hear.
That changed when I recapped my Heresy's. The first time I hooked them back up to my Mac tube amps I thought that I had screwed something up. But I know I didn't, the crossovers are very simple but why the horrible sounds that where coming out of them? At the advice of a friend I just let them play and within a few hours they sounded better than ever. By horrible sounds I mean they screeched and squealed at times, unbearable to say the least. Never in a million years did I expect that behavior and I have no way to explain it. Seems that nobody else can...Yet.
Sort of expected the same sort of bad behavior out of my Altecs upon recapping yet they sounded smoother than ever, so who knows what is the root cause of this and why some recaps react badly.

BillWojo

 

[drbiggles]

Hey Bill,

I get those same results, although a lot more subtle from the lesser EV/Klipsch horns and they never get better. But that's just me, my psyche doesn't like them. In my smaller listening space the horns compress and drive an ice pick through my earbones.

I can say that with vintage speakers, horns and standard drivers can sit for a long time in questionable environments. They also get knocked around, maybe even just a little bit during transport. First fire up after a recap or the latter can be a nail biting experience. I've had all kinds of horrible sounds, or complete lack of performance that vaporize after about 2 to 4 hours of play time. Everything will loosen back up, get seated in its groove and continue on its merry way.

I agree, sometimes it all comes down to magic. Something we cannot explain, but there it is.

Biggles

 

[50nstillhifi]

OK.... so let use the similarity in the flow of water... as in "heated" water. You run it at first, its cold. But when you let the mixture flow for a while, it becomes just right.

Perhaps there is something to a capacitor and its flow of electrons that would have it "tune" to a just perfect flow... completing the circuit and as a result other circuitry behaving well.

H..... mmmmm?

Could a person actually "hear" this is in audio circuit...? I suppose as we do become part of the circuit as a "listener"

 

[drbiggles]

Well, there are operating temperatures. But the word on the street is that capacitors require hundreds of hours, upwards of 300 hundred hours to break in. That comes to nearly 40 days at 8 listening hours a day. Or lets say you bought some really nice caps and they only need 100 hours of break in time, that comes to nearly 13 days at 8 listening hours a day. I don't listen to music that often, not nearly. I probably listen to 3 hours a day, maybe 4 days a week. I'm sure it's probably less, I spend most of my day hacking on speaker projects out in the garage. I would need to wait 8 weeks or probably more for my caps to break in. Whatever happened with temperature fluctuations in that time would have to happen in a matter of a few hours, probably less. And I'd have to be pushing some serious power through them, not just the 2 watts I generally listen to when wandering about.

If I was told by Parts Express, Madisound, Mouser, or Erse that I had to wait 8 weeks to see optimum performance out of my capacitors I would have found another hobby. Putting the word on the street into how long it will actually take to break in a cap is kinda depressing.

Biggles

 

[gkimeng]

A friend of mine asked me about this after he changed out the caps on a pair of speakers he acquired and experienced the "sounded awful at first but got better after you listened to them for a while" phenomenon. I went over to his house, and darned if he wasn't right; they sounded awful at first, but got better after I listened to them for a while.

He didn't keep the speakers.

 

[Freddymac2]

I was very concerned with the sound when I first turned my system on after the re-cap, and I left it on until the next morning it did not take 100 hours, and it was a bit of an edge. My speakers run every day for the last 36 years and the re-cap took 24 hours. If I can hear the difference in my systems sound characteristics by changing a turntable mat, that is repeatable, I did not just think there was an edge or peak that was there. The ability of my speakers to reproduce the fine detail, texture, and clearer transient response of a quality recording has improved a great deal since the re-cap, and that is all I care about. You are probably right, I am crazy!

 

[drumbum]

Some evenings, what ever system I'm listening to sounds bad. Clean the tape heads, check connections, change source, volume up-down, adjust tone controls, Dolby in-out... nothing helps. Next morning, somehow the "system" fixed itself...weird. I wonder if I have some revolting caps?

I think I might send my wires out to be treated.

 

[Drugolf]

Answer: Yes

 

[bambam428]

Ugh, I told myself I'd never get involved in one of these debates, but I just can't help it. If someone could tell me what parameter is changing and how it knows when to stop, I might believe it. Put me in the camp of ear/brain adjustment. I could even believe that drivers break in from being exercised within their excursion limits; they "stop" breaking in when they achieve maximum compliance within those limits. But those are electro-mechanical devices, emphasis on the "mechanical" in this case. Your tubes are warming up, your neurons are adapting, and maybe your drivers are reacting to being fed the proper frequencies (or the voicecoils sound different when warm), but I don't think the capacitors break in. These things are rated for tens of thousands of hours; if they change over the first 5 or 10 or 100, there's nothing to stop them from changing subsequently. Capacitor break in would also complicate speaker/crossover design enormously. How do you design around a moving target?

 

[Bodyblue]

Interesting so far. I recently restored the crossover in my KLH Twenty Plus system with Daytons and am now running my own little experiment.

For years I have had tinnitus (ringing in ears). Some sounds make it temporarily worse and one of those sounds is hard, edgy tweeters. With the KLH set when I first added the Daytons I had an increase in ear ringing while listening. Now, after several hours of play, maybe 20 or so, I can listen a bit longer without that increase in tinnitus ringing. Does this mean that the caps are smoothing out - or does it mean my ears are getting used to the edgy KLH Twenty tweeters?

It will be interesting to see how more hours with the KLH and Daytons affect my tinnitus.

As someone that also has tinnitus (mine sounds like air hissing) I can tell you that it is probably your ears. Some days it is worse than others and some days I barely notice it. I had a hearing test done earlier in the ear and was told I need hearing aids in order to compensate for the higher frequency loss the tinnitus is giving me. The Dr told me it is normal to have good days and bad days and that I may not need the HAs all the time because of that. I have decided to wait for now since it still is not that bad (I am 50 yo) but it will only get worse and never better.

Oh and they said it was probably the result of hundreds of concerts and loud music since I was a teenager. The biggest damage they said was using headphones at high volumes.

 

[Donkey Karma]

Ugh, I told myself I'd never get involved in one of these debates, but I just can't help it. If someone could tell me what parameter is changing and how it knows when to stop, I might believe it. Put me in the camp of ear/brain adjustment. I could even believe that drivers break in from being exercised within their excursion limits; they "stop" breaking in when they achieve maximum compliance within those limits. But those are electro-mechanical devices, emphasis on the "mechanical" in this case. Your tubes are warming up, your neurons are adapting, and maybe your drivers are reacting to being fed the proper frequencies (or the voicecoils sound different when warm), but I don't think the capacitors break in. These things are rated for tens of thousands of hours; if they change over the first 5 or 10 or 100, there's nothing to stop them from changing subsequently. Capacitor break in would also complicate speaker/crossover design enormously. How do you design around a moving target?

Well stated BamBam. While I do not the need to make myself commit 100% one way or the other. I tend to lean in this direction. I do however try to stay open to my mind being changed.

I will say the only reason I even 2 cented in on this conversation at all is because it is one of the few discussions on the subject I have read that has overall maintained pleasant demeanor, avoided argumentative assaults and ppl just plain "men and micing" there personal held beliefs.Such a silly subject to pry from someones cold dead hands.... The insecurity that some of these subjects seem to conjure does seems to stuff the "placebo effect" ballot box for me even more.

Way to State your case DrBiggles. You always seem to be able to present your thoughts with respect, kindness and intelligence.

Whats next Speaker Wires Hokum or the REAL DEAL or Patch/USB Cables OR Vitamins??

 

[loopstick]

These things are rated for tens of thousands of hours; if they change over the first 5 or 10 or 100, there's nothing to stop them from changing subsequently.

There's nothing likewise to stop the rate of change from decreasing subsequently.

 

[bambam428]

the only reason I even 2 cented in on this conversation at all is because it is one of the few discussions on the subject I have read that has overall maintained pleasant demeanor

Ditto, I meant to qualify my comments similarly.

 

[teisco]

Well I am still unsure about this. After 100 or so hours of "breaking in" the new caps I think I hear a difference but this is impossible to qualify because of the time between new and "broke in". The only way to be somewhat sure is to have two speakers, one with 100 hours on the caps and one with no hours on new caps and A/B them.

I do know my Scott 340a sounds a bit smoother after half an hour warm up. I also know I have found speaker wires to make a difference in the past. At the risk of repeating myself ( I am 73 so it is allowed) I will say that back in the day when I was a manager at Best Buy the HiFi section (yes they had a good audio section back then) would meet at my house once a week to test items from the audio store. One week we tested speaker wires and, using my Maggie Tympanis with an Ampzilla on each side, we found some wires to sound better than others (or maybe it was the Budweiser).

 

[gkimeng]

How much Budweiser?

 

[teisco]

A lot. We did prove that Budweiser makes systems sound better.

 

[loopstick]

People hear all kinds of stuff in audio gear that can't be empirically measured.

Does this process involve any vibration of air molecules?
.

 

[loopstick]

Believe it or not, it does!!!

That's a relief. So electronics are able to faithfully reproduce and "transduce" into vibrations signals the presence of which they cannot detect. That's remarkable.

 

[arts]

Just some food for thought,from a very well respected capacitor manufacturer who has been in business for a very long time,and supplies some very highly regarded end -users with their products. Refer to the last line at the bottom of the page.

http://www.reliablecapacitors.com/audiocap_1.html