If you bother to look at my profile you would see that I am a practicing designer of audio amplifiers, not retired. I cite polystryene because they are the most stable capacitors with the lowest dissipation factor. They are frequently used in analog filters and RIAA equalization because of their stability. I use paper in oil in gear I design for myself, but they cannot be used in commercial designs which are sold worldwide, at least by a major company.
And, no different life in hours than older caps. They last much longer than 5000 hours. Not junk science. Now, here in junk older capacitors. Read it: Capacitor plague - Wikipedia
More non-sense. Paper in oil last over 100 years. They are just too expensive. Of course, like yourself I also use paper in oil in my DIY designs. So, stop accusing me of being an idiot.
I never accused you of being an idiot - you said that. I don't dispute the stability of paper in oil, but aside from Mundorf, where can you purchase the real-deal military spec ones? I bought out most of the local stocks around my area decades ago. And are you saying that polystryene capacitors aren't used where stability is critical? Have you looked in lab gear?
I been an electronics consultant to Hewlett Packard among other nationally known large organizations. Stop calling me an idiot, wrong or whatever. Projects were in the 10s of millions each just on the electronics. My projects exceed a billion dollars, the electronics were just part of it. Your sales? Be careful with me.
Right, but not every tube amp is a CAT. I’d put my MC30’s up against many (if not most) new tube amps and I’m confident I’d stay with what I have. I believe in science and that technology improves as we move forward. I do think tubes are a notable exception to that rule, they were better at making them 50 years ago. Same thing with pressing records.
Fellas. Please keep it civil. some of us might want to learn from your experience. so tell us more about capacitor quality and sound? why do both of you consider paper and oil the best? And who sells those besides Mundorf? thanks!
Paper in oil capacitors are very colored due to their high dissipation factor. This coloration is not a bad thing, but a euphoric one. Unfortunately the 'oil' part is (or used to be - I don't know what type of oil Mundorf uses) toxic to the environment. New old stocks of military grade paper in oil caps, which are really the only type worth using, were getting rare 20 years ago. I've not even bothered looking for them anymore. I bought handfulls at a local surplus store in the last century.
Here, read: According to this not very colored: The "Sound" of Capacitors (jacmusic.com) A quote from the text here: 'The paper in oil is extremely clean, best of the group. That may be one reason why some people prefer the sound of the paper capacitors. Although not recorded, oil capacitors in general appear to be very linear. These caps also appear to have relatively stable characteristics with change in frequency'.
I suspect there are about the same amount of audiophiles (probably slightly more, gut feeling is all, though I have read reviews of some of the newer stuff like their 8300 CDQ preamp/CD player) that would prefer the sound of the newer China-built gear by Audiolab. Having said that, I have zero experience with that brand. I would think the more modern/made in China gear has: 1) a more neutral sound 2) a faster sound (which gets back to 1), and 3) a cleaner sound (both specs wise and subjectively to some with great hearing). Whether that leads to a preferred sound is another story, but for most(meaning slightly more than half), I think it will.
The technical explanation is here, but what this has to do with audio is basically their distortion profile under signal. This article doesn't have anything to do with audio but is interesting regarding the hazards of PCB oils use in these old capacitors.
I’ve replaced a lot of capacitors and the diffence in how they sound isn’t a much different than talking about speaker cables or inner connects. The key difference being you can measure the values of a capacitor. Many times the improvement one attributes to materials has more to do with replacing a cap that’s out of spec. Said differently, caps of the same value sound much more alike than different. An electrical engineer will tell you, “electrons can’t tell a difference”. An audiophile will tell you his stereo sounds better at night because fewer people are using the power grid. it’s a conversation that will get argumentative, subjective and lacking any real provable science.
Price vs performance has skyrocketed! That is why I jumped back into the rabbit hole. The SQ you can get now a days for not a ton of money is truly amazing. I am not a class d fanboy but, a well designed hypex based amp is very hard to beat for the cost. And paired with the right gear can be even that much better.
Never owned the ( circa 1992 ) ML27.5 so I'll take your word for it. Which earlier ML units do you feel sounded better ?
A few paper in oil capacitors. Blue Jacket, Mundorf, Sprague Vitamim Q, One more item. Unless used in the power supply, capacitors see little heat. The caps are rated life wise at maximum operating temperature of 80C or 105C (176F or 221F). Many caps see only a few milliamps current thru the cap itself and operates at ambient temperature. It is high temps that shorten the life of capacitors. And for power supply caps, Epcos has high capacitance capacitors that handle 35 amps ripple current at 22,000uF @ 63 volts plus rated 10000 hours. They would produce little heat and would survive many times that 10,000 hour life..
I remember a speaker designer, probably in STEREOPHILE, stating that speakers should always get better and cheaper due to advances in material science that are constantly made, unrelated to the relatively small market of hi-fi.