Substitutions for discontinued capacitors

M

Matt Giarra

Member
tl;dr: With some of the community’s favorite lines of electrolytic caps going away, what will/have become the new preferred components? Is it “Panasonic FC or bust”?

I’ve been having a hard time sourcing certain electrolytic capacitors. In particular, many of the conventionally-recommended lines of caps appear to be end-of-life, soon to be (or already) no longer manufactured. Below is what I’ve found regarding some of the more popular product lines, focused on those mentioned in the (famous?) “Capacitor Shootout” thread.

Elna
Digikey’s website shows a note on the product pages of multiple Elna Silmic II caps indicating that they’re no longer produced. Is this right?

Elna ROA (“cerafine” from the capacitor shootout thread) are listed as “active” on Digi-Key, but appear to be non-stocked at Digi-key or mouser. Not sure where to find these.

Elna ROB (“Tonerex”), whose datasheet places it a step down from cerafine, are in stock at Digi-Key, but only in four different capacitance values, the smallest being 47uF.

Nichicon
Nichicon UES and UFG appear to be on their ways out too. UKZ series caps appear to be in production, but that line seems to be limited to capacitance >= 10uF (at least on Digi-Key and Mouser), which leaves out many required values.

The Nichicon UDB series of bipolar caps is listed as “active” on Digi-Key, is marketed as an audio cap, and is sold in many of the capacitance values that have been hard to find in the other lines. Does anyone have experience w/ Nichicon UDB caps?

Panasonic
Panasonic FC (mentioned in the capacitor shootout thread) appear to be in production and in stock at Digi-Key, except all the 1uF models are shown as “obsolete.” Beside that they seem to be reliably available.
 
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Why is this in the Marantz subforum?

The only cap I'm worried about losing is the Nichicon KL low leakage series.

I'm glad they're stopping production of all the "audio grade" BS. Who cares.
Nichicon DB is meant for cheapo speaker crossovers.
 
ivandezande said:
I'm glad they're stopping production of all the "audio grade" BS. Who cares.
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Actually, UKZ and UFG are the only ones being EOL'd
UKA, UKT, UKW, UFW, UES and UDB continue with the first 4 and UES losing the 5 and 6.3mm Φ sizes. Most of what we would use if we were to go for the Audio Grade caps. They also have large and chip type Audio Grade caps.
 
Matt Giarra said:
I want to know what components work well for these systems.
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Any capacitor that fits and is available at Digikey or Mouser will be a lot better than the old, tired crap in a Marantz.

Spread your wings and look at the Nichicon and other sites and compare them to the offerings from other makers to see what will work for you. Since the EOL notice many here have bought a year's worth of inventory and might not be using other caps yet. You can be an early adopter and clue us up on what worked well for you.
 
There are plenty of other other brands that will fit the bill perfectly. I just plug in the values and specs I'm looking for and pick from the list that pops up. I don't get too hung up on brands. A lot of caps that were used in consumer electronics were was just general purpose to begin with. The tolerances were worse back then also.
 
Lavane said:
There are plenty of other other brands that will fit the bill perfectly. I just plug in the values and specs I'm looking for and pick from the list that pops up. I don't get too hung up on brands. A lot of caps that were used in consumer electronics were was just general purpose to begin with. The tolerances were worse back then also.
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I understand how to find a capacitor that matches a certain specification. For the purposes of this thread, I’m more interested in the intangible qualities of the various options that have garnered the affection of many listeners for years. The previous post, and perhaps the one before that, seem to say that “it doesn’t really matter what caps you use.” I understand that perspective, which is true from a technical standpoint. I’m interested to hear from people who do have opinions about which caps produce preferable results.
 
Matt Giarra said:
I understand how to find a capacitor that matches a certain specification. For the purposes of this thread, I’m more interested in the intangible qualities of the various options that have garnered the affection of many listeners for years. The previous post, and perhaps the one before that, seem to say that “it doesn’t really matter what caps you use.” I understand that perspective, which is true from a technical standpoint. I’m interested to hear from people who do have opinions about which caps produce preferable results.
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A lot of it can be subjective. I've rarely heard a difference between cap values with the same specs. Especially with electrolytics. I have noticed a few differences when it comes to film caps, but not many. I build a lot of my own equipment, mostly tube gear. I've played with swapping various brands of caps both electrolytic and film. Only a couple made a noticable difference. And even then, that was due to replacing mylar film caps with polypropylene or Russian PIO's.
 
Matt Giarra said:
Elna
Digikey’s website shows a note on the product pages of multiple Elna Silmic II caps indicating that they’re no longer produced. Is this right?

Elna ROA (“cerafine” from the capacitor shootout thread) are listed as “active” on Digi-Key, but appear to be non-stocked at Digi-key or mouser. Not sure where to find these.

Elna ROB (“Tonerex”), whose datasheet places it a step down from cerafine, are in stock at Digi-Key, but only in four different capacitance values, the smallest being 47uF.
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avionic said:
RFS is silmics...
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Yes, I know, thanks. I was responding Matt's initial question.
 
Matt Giarra said:
I’m interested to hear from people who do have opinions about which caps produce preferable results.
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We haven't done this in years and since then the caps that were preferred went NLA. And what is a preferable result? Different sound is something that can bring discussions as to which is best.

Nichicon still makes audio grade caps, albeit the larger sizes, bigger than 5 or 6.3mmΦ. Silmic and Silmic II have been discontinued. Black Gates are long gone.

There were some Marantz pieces with cap swaps evaluated but it did not lead to a you must use these caps kind of list.

Just follow the general guidelines, film below 4.7µF when they fit and good quality above that and a bit more capacitance in the big caps depending on manufacturer. Some make them 10% low but well within the ±20% allowance to save money in parts. Others make em close to the specified value.

Might be time to do some recaps with brand a and repeating it with brand b and seeing if there is a difference.
 
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