Choice of caps

I'm recapping my 30 year Soundcraft ghost mixer. Most of the caps in the signal path are done. I will recap them with their original values. I have read a lot on the web, but can't make up my mind for a choice of caps. I really would love to hear from you guys what's a better choice. Panasonic FC or
Nichicon ES Muse or KZ series. Looking forward to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance

spunky said:

I'm recapping my 30 year Soundcraft ghost mixer. Most of the caps in the signal path are done. I will recap them with their original values. I have read a lot on the web, but can't make up my mind for a choice of caps. I really would love to hear from you guys what's a better choice. Panasonic FC or
Nichicon ES Muse or KZ series. Looking forward to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance

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New caps are better than old ones...

JR

FC's should be fine. Also lifetime-wise; i doubt any of those [ahem] "audio-grade" caps are rated for anything over 85C.

The Muse is a bipolar cap so not a direct replacement.

I'm not a big fan of either Muse or Panasonic FC. They both exhibit a brightness or scoopiness in the mid (to my ear) over Nichicon PW or Nichicon HE.

Also, they're bigger, more expensive, and only 85 degree caps, but if you have a chance to do some listening, also try the Elna Silmic II caps.

spunky said:

I'm recapping my 30 year Soundcraft ghost mixer. Most of the caps in the signal path are done. I will recap them with their original values. I have read a lot on the web, but can't make up my mind for a choice of caps. I really would love to hear from you guys what's a better choice. Panasonic FC or
Nichicon ES Muse or KZ series. Looking forward to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

My choice is Panasonic fm or Nichicon kz for signal path.

Panasonic fm/fr/fc for powering stuff.

https://jwmvmfcvc6fitnfoa3eqificwy-adwhj77lcyoafdy-sweetspot-audio-de.translate.goog/wissenswertes/

JW said:

I'm not a big fan of either Muse or Panasonic FC. They both exhibit a brightness or scoopiness in the mid (to my ear) over Nichicon PW or Nichicon HE.

Also, they're bigger, more expensive, and only 85 degree caps, but if you have a chance to do some listening, also try the Elna Silmic II caps.

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Mid scoopiness? Really?

The FC series is not an "audio-grade" one It's Panasonic's "basic" low-ESR series, very much 105C-rated.

JW said:

I'm not a big fan of either Muse or Panasonic FC. They both exhibit a brightness or scoopiness in the mid (to my ear) over Nichicon PW or Nichicon HE.

Also, they're bigger, more expensive, and only 85 degree caps, but if you have a chance to do some listening, also try the Elna Silmic II caps.

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Since it's a mixer you could do a few channels to start,  each with a different cap, and then see if you have a preference.

It doesn't matter. Any vaguely good modern electrolytic will outperform what was in there. The only real case for high grade "audio" or low ESR caps would be if it were used in a filter with high voltage like in a crossover maybe.

But I have never personally been able to detect a difference in distortion in any conventional small signal audio circuit. Then again I don't have the best test gear. I don't recall if I've every managed to see better than low triple zeros THD.

squarewave said:

It doesn't matter. Any vaguely good modern electrolytic will outperform what was in there. The only real case for high grade "audio" or low ESR caps would be if it were used in a filter with high voltage like in a crossover maybe.

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I ASSume the op is talking about conventional DC blocking caps in line level audio circuits.

Passive loudspeakers crossovers are a whole 'nuther ball game. The issue there is not voltage as much as current. Capacitors in series with loudspeaker drivers must handle amps of current. Non-ideal capacitor parameters like ESR, ESL, etc... are much more stressed by passing amps of current.

If the OP was talking about passive loudspeaker crossovers the answer is "film" caps. For line level DC blocking just buy "new" caps, and try not to lose sleep over the audiophile bloviating.   

But I have never personally been able to detect a difference in distortion in any conventional small signal audio circuit. Then again I don't have the best test gear. I don't recall if I've every managed to see better than low triple zeros THD.

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This too has been well studied but requires cutting edge test equipment to parse out very tiny errors (perhaps search out Sam Groner's work on this subject discussed right here on this forum years ago.)

JR

JohnRoberts said:

This too has been well studied but requires cutting edge test equipment to parse out very tiny errors (perhaps search out Sam Groner's work on this subject discussed right here on this forum years ago.)

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The problem that sets the limit in conventional setups seems to be noise from the computer that the computer audio interface is plugged into. My solution for testing mic pres has been to use a transformer. But still I've never been able to get really low THD numbers. When I get to a point in my life where I have an infinite amount of time and resources, I'm going to go on a low THD test quest.

spunky said:

I really would love to hear from you guys what's a better choice. Panasonic FC or
Nichicon ES Muse or KZ series. Looking forward to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

I would use any Panasonic series that is rated at 105 degrees, all of the Panasonic are really good

Anymore, more than a specific brand or nebulous descriptor like “audio grade,” I just study data sheets and look for:

• 105 or better temp rating
• the highest voltage rating that will physically fit
• 10,000 hour rated service life (if possible)

All else is secondary for me.

Sometimes, for very old gear, I can manage to find a modern film cap (MKP, usually) that will fit. If so, I tend to prefer that for both performance and reliability. But if this isn’t an option, I choose my caps for the parameters above.

Being as critical as possible, I was never able to verify superior fidelity from electrolytic caps marketed as “audio grade.”

spunky said:

I'm recapping my 30 year Soundcraft ghost mixer. Most of the caps in the signal path are done. I will recap them with their original values. I have read a lot on the web, but can't make up my mind for a choice of caps. I really would love to hear from you guys what's a better choice. Panasonic FC or
Nichicon ES Muse or KZ series. Looking forward to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

As you can guess, most of us here are pretty waterproof to audiophile nonsense.
I can only subscribe to the notion that modern 'lytics are far superior to anything before the year 1990.
For coupling caps, reduction in size thanks to modern improvements has made possible to increase significantly the value, which in turn reduces significantly distortion. I will routinely use the largest value size allows.

abbey road d enfer said:

For coupling caps, reduction in size thanks to modern improvements has made possible to increase significantly the value, which in turn reduces significantly distortion. I will routinely use the largest value size allows.

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Interesting! Is there ever a disadvantage to doing this? More to the point, is there ever a scenario where stability could be impacted by increasing the value of a coupling cap by a large amount?

I've always tended to replace like-for-like, but would not be opposed to reducing distortion in some scenarios.

soapfoot said:

Interesting! Is there ever a disadvantage to doing this? More to the point, is there ever a scenario where stability could be impacted by increasing the value of a coupling cap by a large amount?

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There could be risks of motor-boating, but I advocate setting the overall LF response with a dominant zero with an RC circuit using a film capacitor, that does not suffer distortion when submitted to voltage.

soapfoot said:

Interesting! Is there ever a disadvantage to doing this? More to the point, is there ever a scenario where stability could be impacted by increasing the value of a coupling cap by a large amount?

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I suspect abbey means increasing the size from say 10u to 22u or something like that which isn't going to make much of a difference. The size of modern caps isn't that much different. So no, there's probably no disadvantage. But if you go from 10u to 100u there might be. For a conventional modern circuit maybe not. But for discrete designs with DC offsets, it might cause large currents if you switch or plug something in and it suddenly discharges the cap to somewhere not designed for it. And I think leakage goes up with size which might cause bias to shift a little more than it's supposed to.

I do not encourage changing tested designs just because you can, pursuing some more is better chase.

If you keep you cap value increases modest, you probably won't do any harm.

JR

squarewave said:

I suspect abbey means increasing the size from say 10u to 22u or something like that which isn't going to make much of a difference.

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Well, that would decrease LF distortion by a factor 2, at least.

The size of modern caps isn't that much different.

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In 30 years, a 100uF/25V lytic has gone from 10mm  diameter/16mm height down to 6.4mm diameter/10mm height, while its ESR and leakage current have gone down by a factor 3.