Electrolytic Capacitors Dive
- Thread starter francisleo75
- Start date
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Here's my rule of thumb:
Audio grade or film (stacked metallized polyester is fine) for caps in the actual signal path. This will add the least "color" and have the lowest distortion.
Low leakage or film caps anywhere the manufacturer used them (usually orange or yellow Elna caps in vintage units). They are low leakage for a reason.
For filter and de-coupling caps I use low ESR caps (Nichicon UPW is a favorite, but they are going out of production in small sizes). The reason for low ESR caps here is that they are removing noise or serving as power reservoirs (or both) and the lower the effective series resistance the more power they can provide when needed and the cooler they will run.
Any other specialty caps should be replaced with similar, especially bi-polar caps. Polar caps, due to the structure of the foils and electrolyte, will overheat and explode when reverse biased. Not a good thing!
Electrolytic capacitor type and use can be a real rabbit hole, but if you look carefully you will notice that the manufacturer used ordinary general purpose capacitors in most places. Since caps degrade with time and use, almost any modern electrolytic cap you put in will be considerably better than what is there now.
Audio grade or film (stacked metallized polyester is fine) for caps in the actual signal path. This will add the least "color" and have the lowest distortion.
Low leakage or film caps anywhere the manufacturer used them (usually orange or yellow Elna caps in vintage units). They are low leakage for a reason.
For filter and de-coupling caps I use low ESR caps (Nichicon UPW is a favorite, but they are going out of production in small sizes). The reason for low ESR caps here is that they are removing noise or serving as power reservoirs (or both) and the lower the effective series resistance the more power they can provide when needed and the cooler they will run.
Any other specialty caps should be replaced with similar, especially bi-polar caps. Polar caps, due to the structure of the foils and electrolyte, will overheat and explode when reverse biased. Not a good thing!
Electrolytic capacitor type and use can be a real rabbit hole, but if you look carefully you will notice that the manufacturer used ordinary general purpose capacitors in most places. Since caps degrade with time and use, almost any modern electrolytic cap you put in will be considerably better than what is there now.
