Can I replace s tant cap with an electrolytic?

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bigugly

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
220
Location
Burbank, CA.
First off this place is great!

I was on vacation in June and when I got back my beloved TT was gone! I was in a state of shock to say the least. I went to Gearslutz and got the jist of what happened and that's when I found the link here. Life is good now. Now on to the matter at hand.

I'm currently designing a channel strip based on a 1290 and the Forssell Opto comp. My question is can I substitute electros for the tants in the pre. The 2 reasons for this are that my local electronics supplier has a limited selection of tant caps (and they're not of the correct values) but they have a very good supply of Xicon electros. The other is that I remember reading that tants aren't the greatest from a distortion standpoint.

My goal is not to make a clone of a Neve pre but to make a modern sounding one that is based on that amp design.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

cheers,

James
 
If you don't want the character of the 1290 then you can use electrolytics instead! The tantalums in the signalpath is a part of the "N" sound!
 
Tantalums are garbage, though. They were the bane of my existence when I was a repairman. (They have a tendency to short). I would be inclined to use 'lytics (or, if feasible, film caps) instead if I were building something; then again, I never build clones, so I don't worry about using the exact same components someone else used.
 
I don't have this trouble with tants.
Of the hundreds and thousands of tants I have installed in my gear for the studio here only a few have failed. Usually. they fail early but on occasion an individual may fail years after going into service.

They do stink when they blow up.

The bulk of my tants are 10uf 25 and 35 volt and used on the pos and neg rails of an opamp ... through a 33 ohm resistor.

The gear goes into service and usually stays switched on for life ... some units more that a decade ... UPS power.

Just the run of the mill tag tants from Farnell. :roll:
 
Uhmm, that's quite a lot tants, Kev! Get a life! :green: :razz: :grin:

I have replaced several tants in my life as many as electrolythics. When tants go they usually short, so I wouldn't use them as PSU decoupling ever..

bigugly, it's true that the tants are a part of the Neve sound. You probably also need to find the exact make. But is it important? It's not like Rupert Neve is the only one who knows how gear should sound. Personally I couldn't give a rat's ass as long as I thought it was sounding as cool as I wanted.. but that may just be with tants! :green: :?
 
[quote author="sismofyt"]Uhmm, that's quite a lot tants, Kev! Get a life! :green: :razz: :grin: [/quote]

oh yes
agreed :grin:
I think one of our largest A3 sized circuit boards .. 16 way stereo switcher has over 100 tants.
Sometimes I can even get them ALL on the right way the first time round. :grin:
 
Tantalums have been the bane of many old pieces of gear, I get ARP synthesisers through my workshop all the time with short circuit power supply decoupling capacitors, I now won't service any ARP unless the customer lets me replace all the tantalums in the machine.
 
Thanks everyone for the info. Yeah, I understand that tants are part of the "N" sound but I don't really want to make a "clone".

So I can just substitute an electro of the same value and it'll be fine? What I mean by "fine" is it won't cause any damage to the circuit.

I'd also like to use more modern sounding i/p, o/p xfmrs. Any suggestions? Thanks again.

cheers,

James
 
Ive always equated "modern" sound with jensen. Maybe thats just my impression as a result of new american gear using jensen... I bet a lot of folks would say the same thing about lundahl too. Modern probably equates to "cleaner" to a lot of people, certainly with me... If you were to build a 1290 with lundahls and electrolytics I think youd have something that nobody would confuse for neve.

dave
 
Great, thanks sismofyt & everyone.

Now all I have left is to finish stuffing the pre PCB, complete the PCB design for the input sens SW. etch and stuff the Forssell comp, drill the chassis, ect. ect.. I'l be done by the time my son goes to college. (he's only 11) :?

later,

James
 
yeah, the panasonic fc series. Ive never liked them for audio. I tried the NHT's (am I remembering that right? the ones with the black cans and silver screening) and liked them much better. The last time I had a capacitor comparison thing I wound up chosing the nichicon ultra low impedance series in the brown cans. Mouser carries those. They had a soft and mellow high end in comparison to the FC's which were too bright and stiff in the top in the circuits I tried them in which that day was an api 325, neumann pv76 and a UA 1108 and 1109.

dave
 
where can you get elna caps? Ive never heard anyone ever say anything but good about elnas but I havent ever seen them available from a distributor except for those times when percy will have like, 3 values that wont work...

dave
 
RS Components. I'm not talking ELNAs in general, just the funky little red ones, that you can only get in certain values up to 50V. They aren't expensive or anything and better than some very expensive Black Gates I've tried..
 
www.elna-america.com/ptable5.htm

These ones to be precise:

www.elna-america.com/PDF/ROD.PDF

I can see they even have higher grade ones but I haven't tried those..
 
RS is allied in north america and they dont carry them, which is a total bummer... by the time you get them from england, they cost as much as black gates. grumble grumble...

dave
 

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