Do Capacitors , Resistors , pots & other parts really make much difference

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

gary o

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 28, 2004
Messages
1,531
Location
uk
Do Capacitors , Resistors , pots & other parts really make much difference to the sound of our DIY...

I know there are differences to be had but what im asking is how much and whats it worth.....Ive noticed myself that capacitors make a difference to the sound but how far can you go the caps in this link are so expensive.....would they sound THAT much better,,,,I cant afford to audition 1 even.....

Do Capacitors , Resistors , pots & other parts really make much difference

Ive noticed pots can sell for silly money !!......I my experience of pots from my junk boxes they dont seem to effect the sound in my applications......but do they ?? again is it worth paying 100 pounds for a pot ?? will my pre sound better??

Resistors ....I have 1 gig resistors in DIY mics I have that I paid 1 pound for is a 10 pound 1 gig res gonna sound better??

Wire in say DIY mics again the expensive stuff will it make a difference?

would be interested to hear anyones thoughts & experiences

thanks for reading....
 
Yes and no, it all depends. There's a lot of info around where and how which passives deviate from their theoretical ideal behaviour. With proper understanding of the circuit at hand it is perfectly feasible to decide which components are more critical and which are less.

Take the example of a pot. It makes a *huge* difference if it is used as a true potentiometer (i.e. variable voltage divider with little current flowing through the wiper) or a rheostat (i.e. variable resistance with full current flowing through the wiper). The later is much more demanding as the wiper resistance--which is very nonlinear and noisy--is directly in series with the signal and must hence be low and consistent even with aging.

It is very important to understand that differences between different parts may show up in one application, but not in another. An expensive pot may show an improvement over a cheap one if used as rheostat, but not if used as potentiometer. Don't fall into the trap (as many others) that once you've observed a difference that difference must exist in every other case as well. Of course this consideration applies to the other direction as well.

Samuel
 
This is too complex to answer completely without a thorough investigation of how components vary.

As Sam mentioned parts can vary, and different circuits will be more or less sensitive to how these components can vary.

Much of the work in professional circuit design is completely understanding how parts can influence the performance and using parts that do the job well, without wasting money using expensive parts that won't make the circuit any better.

A common trap for DIY is thinking that a better (more expensive) part must always make a difference.  Sometimes it is just more expensive.

JR 
 
Great info guys thanks .......so as not to get too complex reference my questions to the DIY kit that we build ie mics, mic pres, eqs, compressors...

For instance an expensive pot in a mic pre prob isnt gonna sound better tho may last longer & be smoother operation.........

thanks for reading...
 
Well, there's plenty of talk on how parts influence the sound. Indeed they do, especially capacitors in the signal path. There's, of course, the rule of diminishing returns, and $700 capacitor will sound only marginally better than $7 capacitor, not anywhere near x100 better...
Now, I think there's another, often overlooked aspect - overbuilding, hotrodding, pimping or whatever a good term for that would be. You can buy a piece of gear, that will serve it's purpose, but it's built with cheap parts, opamps and smd and whatnot. Similarly, you can buy a car, and it will take you places. But then there's people who customize their cars, put on oversize breaks, or a shiny exhaust pipe - expensive brakes will brake better than the stock ones, shiny exhaust will probably exhaust about the same... It's not all about the gain in performance, I think much of this stuff people do just because they can. And I think the same goes with capacitors - if you building something for yourself, you can put some expensive or unusual parts in there, just because you can, even though performance gain will be minimal. And it's COOL!
8)
 
Back
Top