Film Filter Caps?

[soapfoot]

Engineering is making sure your resources are allocated in the way that provides the most benefit

If an amp has five large filter caps and I spend $40 on each (as opposed to $8 for an F&T electrolytic), that’s a cost difference between $200 and $40.

I’d want to be absolutely sure those parts were offering an improvement I couldn’t get by spending <$160 elsewhere (better-quality transformer, speaker, tubes, cabinet, etc)

If making a one-off and you have unlimited resources, go nuts! But in most other scenarios, it’s advisable to target spending for maximum benefit

 

[living sounds]

I replaced the cheap chinese film caps in the KT LA2A clones with Solen. It made a surprisingly big audible difference. That said, WIMA polypropylene would work similarly well.

 

[My3gger]

I have several lytics of this type:
https://ie.farnell.com/vishay/mal219096475e3/cap-aec-q200-4700uf-25v-radial/dp/3524051
Bought them at discount, they should endure 6000 hours at 125C, another series i have are 12.000 hours at 125 degrees, very high ripple and all that (will check if they have solid electrolyte. Two Members with Lots of Knowledge don't seem to agree if low ESR (not very low) lytics work well as reservoir caps. If they do, caps like these should last a LOT longer than pretty much any other lytic, maybe even some snake oil filled/platinum foil caps
Two new Mundorf M Cap used for coupling had part of the external foil "unrolled" after a week in well ventilated amp. Otherwise they work fine because internal foil wasn't damaged.

 

[My3gger]

John Roberts wrote it depends:

Do you think using such low ESR lytics are fine for apps like psu reservoirs, support circuitry in linear regulators (low and HV), decoupling and similar? I'm asking because many good quality caps like Nichicon now have low ESR, it seems most of them will have it in the near future.

Low ESR capacitors were developed for use in switching power supplies. They are probably innocuous or a slight benefit in typical DC blocking applications. I would be careful about using them in reservoir applications as that will increase ripple/inrush current, so simple answer is it depends.

- Can't find Ian's post about the same thing, it seemed he said low ESR is ok for low currents as in signal amps/preamps. Maybe i got it wrong because of small grammatical mistake in the post.