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Recap my Fortes?

10 percent tolerance is just inexcusable on the part of a cap manufacturer. Worst case is that you could have 10 percent off in both directions in two channels and that adds up to 20 percent. Yes, I think those caps must be a heavy dose of snake oil. Just what are you being expected to pay the high price for if you get some of the worst specs in the industry? Yellow color?

You know, I doubt if there is more than 25 cents worth of material in any of the caps. So, manufacturing with good quality control must be most of what we pay for. 10 percent tolerance just doesn't say much for quality control. It just says they can be pretty sloppy and still meet their very wide specs.

Now, Yes, I like Sonicaps pretty well. Rated at 5 percent and typically test better than 2 percent.

Bob Crites
 
...just a vote for whatever Bob puts in his...I have 2 pair of Heresys...bob refreshed the crossovers in both...I thought Heresys sounded great before...he really tightened up the bass and the midrange stepped up a bit...at the very least they sound as if they aren't nearly 28 and 26 years old a pair...WELL worth the price of admission...
Bill
 
BECtoo said:
Yes, I think those caps must be a heavy dose of snake oil. Just what are you being expected to pay the high price for if you get some of the worst specs in the industry? Yellow color?

Now, Yes, I like Sonicaps pretty well. Rated at 5 percent and typically test better than 2 percent.
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Well, here I sit eating humble pie! I'm returning those Thetas, as I have no way of testing them. Poo. Will get some Sonicaps and see if white caps are as good as yellow caps... :D
 
Bob,

Can't you at least spray those Sonicaps with aluminum paint so they'll look right in Heritage installations?

;)
 
Redboy said:
Well, I ordered the Theta caps yesterday, should get them on Monday. My Forte's sound pretty great to me too, but the driving force behind this whole hobby for me has been "What else can I hear in my music?" My first vintage purchase opened my ears to how much I was missing before - I want to take that ball and run with it!

I got my Forte's for a song, so the cap refresh seems like a fairly inexpensive upgrade that I'll recover should I ever decide to part with these speakers (seems an unlikely scenario at this point!).

I also ordered the Dayton non-inductive resistors as replacements to the existing 40 ohm 5 watt ones in there. Anyone have any feedback on these?
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My Forte outboard crossovers.

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SET12
 
Looks cool, SET12, but I'm not sure what I'm looking at. I've seen your stuff as I was searching for information on doing my crossovers. What caps have you settled on?

I'm officially going with the Sonicaps now. I'm green enough to all of this that I'm going to go with Bob's recommendations to the word right now.
 
I am using a matched set of Hovlands and small value MIT matched Polystyrenes as bypasses because the Hovlands were hard sounding. I won't recommend the Hovlands as they took forever to break in but they are sweet now! I guess it depends on how far and how much you want to spend and what the Forte's mean to you my motivation was for experimentation with ease of parts change and BTW I wraped my horns with foam then velcroed the foam in place as well.

I tend to like Film and Foil types for their current capacity and dynamics one cap that I'd like to try is Mundorfs Gold foils and oil but they are very expensive I also have an inkling to try MIT Polystyrene film and foils because these are some of the most dynamic caps that I have ever heard in RIAA networks and I heard that Thiel prefers these in his loudspeakers they would be cheaper to try over the Mundorfs. The Mundorfs cancel internal inductance by actually constructing their caps by two series ones a very expensive way but perhaps very effective soniclly!

I just went to Sonicaps site WoW! Those are expensive and I thought the Mundorf's were! I need some new Caps! By all means keep me inform on your work!

SET12
 
I'm going to be using the Gen I Sonicaps, not the high buck Platinums! The six caps I needed came to less than $50 with shipping, so this is a fairly affordable experiment. I stuck with the cheapo caps from PE for the woofers as Bob suggested earlier. I figure the speakers already sound pretty phenomenal to me, and the setup I have is far from TOTL so there's no need for me to go absolutely nuts with this... yet.

I'll be replacing the internal wiring at the same time with the same Canare stranded wire that I use in my system. This is a pretty nice 16 gauge stranded cable, the stuff used by Blue Jeans cable.
 
Redboy,

If you want to take the next step, like SET12 did, that is a good thing to do with the crossovers that are built on the input terminal cups. Here is a picture of one for a Heresy II that I did that way. All parts are re-used from the original except the caps are new. The terminal strip is added also. The input terminal cup is still used to input the signal and a pair of wires is run from it to the terminal strip on the "new" crossover.

Bob Crites.
 

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I'm tempted to try the "outboard" rebuild. Is the main advantage simply the ability to swap components more easily? I don't see much in the way of soldered leads in either of your boards... wouldn't that give you better conductivity?

Bob, do you just use those generic aluminum spades that I can buy at Home Depot?

If I'm not going to be rebuilding this on a regular basis, is it better to just solder everything on the existing board if I can make it fit? Maybe I'll try some sort of hybrid, moving the crossover onto a board, and incorporating the terminal strips.

Your thoughts, gents? SET12, I gotta say, that thing is muy cool looking! :thmbsp:
 
I got an opportunity to sample Sonicraft caps in a couple (amongst several other) MnIntosh MC-30 rebuilds. One had the whites, the other had all platinums. Now the whites - pretty good, and I could have lived with them......but once I heard the platinum capped version, I had to give my MC-30s the LOVE! These capacitors refined my MC-30s to a level I never thought possible: The background is quieter/"blacker", the music is clearer, and the release of the notes is much more relaxed yet detailed - no constriction or clutter whatsoever. They are VERY "SET" like, yet with testicles :thmbsp: These caps simply elevated the class of performance of these components by more than a step or two, that's for sure!

I never was much to worry about caps. In fact, I have a set of Bob's recapped networks, and they have thier allure. But then I got to sample some AA Jensens, and have heard Auricaps and several other versions - and YUMMEE, is there a lot to sample! For the DIY'er, there's many things to try, and they are worth trying. And them hearing several different MC30 rebuilds with different cap quality levels......and OH YEAH, I'm now a believer in using high grade caps to squeeze the best performance out of your investment - especially if it's a component you wish to keep.

The Sonic Craft whites are definitely good caps. But the platinums are another animal entirely. I was told they are a Sonic Craft version of a "V Cap" (and when you hold a platinum cap in hand you'll go "whoa" - they are heavy)! I don't know that much about caps, but in my amps, they showed their worth. Considering I'm keeping my 30s permanently, I thought them worth it.

Another point when evaluating caps: They DO change in sonics after a while. ESPECIALLY the "high resolution" stuff like Hovlands/Auricaps/Sonicaps and so forth.....so give them some time if you are sampling new ones. My platinums are still "relaxing" after about 300 hours. I'm told that they need 500 hours to be completely burnt in.

I've got another pair of MC30s to recap and am considering the Mundorfs for those.

Bob will think I'm crazy, but that's life when listening through horns. Everything makes a difference. Good caps for rebuilds, good tubes, it all adds to the performance! So feel free to sample! :music:
 
Yes, I would take issue with some of that. The caps when new are perfect in doing what a specified capacitor should do. That is, provide capacitive reactance and nothing else. Now if anything changes in any way, we move away from perfect and toward bad. Must be that we move toward bad since if perfect to start with, bad is the only direction left. I would say that if a cap changes in any way over a few years, that is a bad cap.

The Jensen PIO caps start out life as bad caps. They are so poorly constructed that there is the equivalent of a 1/2 ohm resistor in series with them when new. That will cut the highs back some, but using a poorly performing cap to do that job is certainly the wrong tool to use. A tone control makes a lot more sense.

Auricaps...10 percent tolerance. The cheapest Daytons and Solens are good to 5 percent. What is up with that?

Bob
 
Well, while you guys were arguing caps, I got mine today and finished the job :D . I'm really quite pleased with the results! :yes: Pictures show the original crossover, the board with caps removed, and the finished product.

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The new caps were a little larger than the originals (except for the woofer cap which was actually smaller) and crowded out the resistors, so I ended up mounting them under the boards. Drilled new holes and scraped down to the trace for new solder points. The resistors were way larger than the originals too, so this ended up being a good way to do it. Each board is then raised on little plastic standoffs. New leads run to the terminal cups.

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So there you have it! I haven't yet reinstalled them, so I'm not 100% sure they actually work yet... but I'm fairly confident they will!

I'll post again once I've had a chance to listen to them and evaluate what I'm hearing.
 

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Redboy said:
Got 'em in, and they work!!! :banana: Sigh of relief... Now to listen.
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They look great! How do they sound?

Once I decide on the brand of caps I will do my fortes crossover. I plan on doing one at a time so that I can do an AB comparison. Since my fortes are older (crossovers mounted on the back of the round cup) I plan on installing the components on a block of wood so that I have lots of room.
 
They sound sweeter than they did before! I was listening for about two hours last night while the solder cooled...

The highs are more detailed, and I get the sense that the soundstage has gotten bigger.

I know it's too early to pass judgment, but so far so good!
 
Nice Job Nate! I never heard the pre-new cap Fortes but would love to hear them now.

Sounding good with the Eico I bet.

RC
 
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