Why is everyone so against electrolytic caps in crossovers?

[SimplySound]

I'm not everybody, just one guy, and I'm only against using them in MY speakers.

You and me both Musichal... if they were 'lytics to start with, might as well be 'lytics to end with! I guess that makes us "Us"!

First on Page 5 of yet another 'lytic vs. poly post!

 

[89grand]

Well in the effort of accuracy and clarification, I didn't start a "lytic vs poly" thread. I only asked why so many are against lytic caps. This thread was started about 3 months ago, I'm not sure what jump started it again.:scratch2:

I recapped my DCM TW3's, since I had them all apart anyway, and replaced the lytic caps with Mundorf lytic caps, and they sound great.

 

[Soundminded]

I mean there is thread after thread after thread of people saying to ditch the electrolytic caps and replace them with expensive alternatives. I understand that the electrolytic caps can dry out some over time, but it seems to take many many years. I can even understand replacing them, sure why not if you're already in the speakers and can solder, but why not just replace them with similar caps that were there in the first place?

I mean if the speakers sounded good when they were new, it makes more sense to me to try and keep them the same, using the same caps, electrolytic caps. For one, they are WAY cheaper, so if you need more than two, and many speakers do, other, non-electrolytic caps can get very expensive, and number two, so many of us here swap out speakers, sell some, get other ones, that most will probably never need to replace the caps again anyway, or even if you do, what 10-20 years down the line?

I'm considering swapping out the caps on my newly purchased Time Window 3's, and it's a fraction of the cost to use the original type electrolytics vs say Dayton metalized caps, and I'd be more closely following the original design to boot. I was listening to my Time Window 1's last night, and they're incredible, and yet they have original caps in the them, they're too hard to get into to bother, plus they sound great, and they're 30+ years old.

I know there are some rational thoughts on replacing the "lytics" but it seems to be more of a sheep thing, where everyone just keeps doing it because everyone keeps saying it without much if any data to back up the benefit.

Discuss

When I recap my old vintage speaker I use Parts Express Non Polarized Electrolytic caps. I find nothing wrong with them. One of our resident skeptics on another board compared to identical pairs of speakers, one with NPEs and one with a high priced brand and heard no difference. Then he changed his tune. Personally I think it's just another audiophile gimmick to make products more expensive than they need to be, find a new markets for solutions looking for problems. Business is business.

 

[Wigwam Jones]

How do you compare caps? Now thats should be pretty difficult, you have to solder some test the speakers, then open up resolder some others test again after some hours,
I find acceptable to hear difference when replacing 30 years caps, but with new ones, its like finding the right ammount of damping material,
putting expensive caps on a 40 years design speakers is like driving cheap bookshelves with a 10k amplifier...

Listen to a given speaker recapped one way, then listen to it recapped another. In a stereo set, you could do one and leave the other alone, or change both to brands/types X and Y and see which one you prefer.

Tough stuff, depending on one's own ears and preferences. I realize it must sound insane.

 

[kb9qkc]

i put in what i took out on my 3.0's and i dont regret it.

 

[Dr. Morbius]

Well in the effort of accuracy and clarification, I didn't start a "lytic vs poly" thread. I only asked why so many are against lytic caps. This thread was started about 3 months ago, I'm not sure what jump started it again.:scratch2:

I recapped my DCM TW3's, since I had them all apart anyway, and replaced the lytic caps with Mundorf lytic caps, and they sound great.

I've used those Mundorfs in a few projects also. They are considerably better than what was available when DCM built those speakers.

I also like to use Solen, Erse or Audyn caps where possible. They aren't the uber expensive metallized polypropylene caps. I'm not sure I could part with $77.90 of the long greeen to get a 1uF Mundorf silver/gold/oil cap. That's just not how I roll. But $1.85 for a Solen 1uF? Sure.

I've also bought some 1.5uF and 3uF Panasonic Metallized Polyproplene film caps with a 3% tolerance to redo the time delay circuits in my TW-3 and TF-700 crossovers. These are what Steve Eberbach recommended.

For those interested, here's a video of Steve Eberbach and he does discuss using polypropylene caps as replacements in DCM crossovers. Starts at 9:35 into the video.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19914615/highlight/234880

 

[Robinhawaii]

I would think that if a type of capacitor was so crucial in defining a speaker's signature sound or voice, the manufacturer would spell out by name the exact make and part number in the service manual.

Take care,

Rob

 

[Mystery]

My idea is simple.
If the original is electrolytic, replacing with electrolytic or Poly is okay in my book but I don't want to replace original Poly with new electrolytic.

I replaced Polk 7's crossover with electrolytic for electrolytic and poly for poly.
So far so good. I do believe Poly could be better.
I'm not perfectionist but if price is not much difference, I go for what other consider better (Poly).

 

[mech986]

I would think that if a type of capacitor was so crucial in defining a speaker's signature sound or voice, the manufacturer would spell out by name the exact make and part number in the service manual.

Take care,

Rob

While I agree, if we're talking vintage speakers, there may not have really been that much into voicing with parts apart from the frequency response needs unless its a high end speaker. At the lower end where a lot of vintage speakers lay (say below $400 a pair) crossovers had to compete with cost as part of their design. if an inexpensive design worked, the prevailing thinking back then was it works, and if another cap was cheaper, as long as it met other design criteria, it's an ok sub.

At one time, Apt Holman preamps and amps had higher quality electrolytics in them as the primary design called for. Later, upper level bean counters bought cheaper ones in same size, voltage, and capacitance. However, according to my sources, many of those caps failed or sounded worse, and they had to do a bunch of reworks early and later as caps died.

speaker caps, being mostly bipolar or non-polar (schizo caps?), may have had less quality issues, seeing as they would see higher signal levels, so initially they may be at a "higher" quality level. Also, most cap makers were well known to the speaker industry (at least here in the US for domestic makers) so there was likely good references for routine brands and models of crossover caps.

As mentioned before, very few were using film caps due to size and cost to replace large value electrolytics usually chosen for size and capacitance efficiency.

 

[allsmith]

Well in the effort of accuracy and clarification, I didn't start a "lytic vs poly" thread. I only asked why so many are against lytic caps. This thread was started about 3 months ago, I'm not sure what jump started it again.:scratch2:

I recapped my DCM TW3's, since I had them all apart anyway, and replaced the lytic caps with Mundorf lytic caps, and they sound great.

That was me, i was the jump starter I was hoping to get some input on this question ...
So if one was to change out there aging electrolytics with polys that are in series with the midrange and tweeter,what value resister would i use to add back the lost esr,if i think there sound is too bright ? Or should i say what values should i start out with so i could play around and experiment? Also where would i install these resistors? Would they be in series with the driver(just installed into the positive wire going to the driver), or across the drivers leads?

 

[89grand]

That sounds overly complicated. I'd just replace the electrolytics with the same value of electrolytics myself, or if inclined with the same value of poly cap.

 

[Dr. Morbius]

That was me, i was the jump starter I was hoping to get some input on this question ...
So if one was to change out there aging electrolytics with polys that are in series with the midrange and tweeter,what value resister would i use to add back the lost esr,if i think there sound is too bright ? Or should i say what values should i start out with so i could play around and experiment? Also where would i install these resistors? Would they be in series with the driver(just installed into the positive wire going to the driver), or across the drivers leads?

What value resistor is used would depend on the ESR of the capacitor and if you wanted to make the tweeter brighter or tame them.

Here's an example of an in-series resistor in a pair of speakers I made several years ago. In this example there are 2 resistors used in series and 1 used n parallel.

 

[Pete B]

Doc, that schematic says CALSOD optimized, are you a CALSOD user?

 

[allsmith]

That sounds overly complicated. I'd just replace the electrolytics with the same value of electrolytics myself, or if inclined with the same value of poly cap.

I've already replaced the original npe's with poly caps. The bad part about my case is that i never got to hear the speakers before the recap,because of blowed drivers, missing inductors and some tiny radio shack npe's somebody else put in. So i don't know what they original sounded like.

I guess since i have an extra pair of crossovers i will recap them with all npe's and swap them out to compare the sound difference. I know its more work and money but if i don't i will never know if the poly caps with low esr is effecting the sound in an undesirable way, like many ppl say can happen because of putting poly's with very low esr in place of npe's with higher esr.

Some recommended when switching to poly's you should add some resistance to make up for the lost esr, but i have no idea how or how much resistance to add.

 

[nexus]

i believe that poly caps make a difference (albeit a minute one) in tweeter circuits but only if the drivers are of very high end quality. most vintage speakers will not reveal any difference. but 'lytics do wear out from the old days so the PE offerings are good enough imo.

if we are talking very high end speakers than maybe exotic caps might produce a very small difference.

this whole thing is brother to the speaker wire arguments of these past decades, which are still raging on some boards..

 

[Dr. Morbius]

Doc, that schematic says CALSOD optimized, are you a CALSOD user?

Nope, I'm a Microsoft user.

We just pretty much copied verbatim what was on this site ...

http://www.angelfire.com/music5/audio0/

The only thing we changed was the size of the cabinets. We made them taller with a false bottom so we could put the crossover in the false bottom should we ever need to access it again. Internally they're about the same dimensions.

 

[glen65]

Why is everyone so against electrolytic caps in crossovers?[/B]

They work fine,
But when you can get a cap made of a better material, and fairly inexpensive to boot,
it only makes sense to select the better of the two. Even if you don't hear a significant difference.

 

[89grand]

They work fine,
But when you can get a cap made of a better material, and fairly inexpensive to boot,
it only makes sense to select the better of the two. Even if you don't hear a significant difference.

But...the main point of the thread was that maybe a "better" cap is not better when used in the original design that did not have the supposed better caps.:scratch2:

This is different in ways I guess, but I've seen on numerous car forums where people always think they're "upgrading" from the factory with different parts. Take my Jeep Wrangler for instance, when the radiator in mine took a dump I decided to search the internet about replacements. The amount of threads I read where people thought the factory radiator was insufficient and decided to go with a 3 core or whatever, all metal instead of the plastic tank, lower thermostat etc, and very often those people were wondering why their Jeeps over heated.

I used some very simple logic when I redid my cooling system. If the Jeep didn't over heat when it was new, then clearly the OEM parts work, and work great. I bought an OEM style single core, plastic tank radiator and used the OEM temperature thermostat, and my Jeep runs as cool as the day it came off the assembly floor 13 years ago.

Not always, but often times the factory made stuff works as intended and "upgrades" are not always upgrades. I guess it's human nature to want/think you can always improve something.

 

[Wigwam Jones]

But...the main point of the thread was that maybe a "better" cap is not better when used in the original design that did not have the supposed better caps.:scratch2:

This is different in ways I guess, but I've seen on numerous car forums where people always think they're "upgrading" from the factory with different parts. Take my Jeep Wrangler for instance, when the radiator in mine took a dump I decided to search the internet about replacements. The amount of threads I read where people thought the factory radiator was insufficient and decided to go with a 3 core or whatever, all metal instead of the plastic tank, lower thermostat etc, and very often those people were wondering why their Jeeps over heated.

I used some very simple logic when I redid my cooling system. If the Jeep didn't over heat when it was new, then clearly the OEM parts work, and work great. I bought an OEM style single core, plastic tank radiator and used the OEM temperature thermostat, and my Jeep runs as cool as the day it came off the assembly floor 13 years ago.

Not always, but often times the factory made stuff works as intended and "upgrades" are not always upgrades. I guess it's human nature to want/think you can always improve something.

I admire your logic and agree with it. However, I suspect your words are lost upon the True Believer.

 

[Dr. Morbius]

But...the main point of the thread was that maybe a "better" cap is not better when used in the original design that did not have the supposed better caps.:scratch2:

It may also not be economically feasible for a company to use more expensive/better caps in a production environment when building speakers by the thousands.

89grand, you need to watch this ...

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19914615/highlight/234880