recapping khorn advice

[Cut-Throat]

You can try www.partsconnexion.com they say they have them, but when I tried to order mine last month they only had one cap of one value. I ended up ordering straight from the factory.

I checked, I answered the V-cap question as part of the other posters question.

Yes, I see the answer now. I was not looking at other people's posts.

I have another question for you. Let's say that you need a 6.2 uf Cap and they only have 5.6uf and 6.8 uf values. Would either of these work, or would you tie a few caps together to try and and make a 6.2uf? Or would you look for another Cap Brand?

[erik2A3]

As an example: Hovland Musicap: 2.2uf + 4uf = 6.2uf

Parallel them for desired value. Quite Common practice.

[Cut-Throat]

As an example: Hovland Musicap: 2.2uf + 4uf = 6.2uf

Parallel them for desired value. Quite Common practice.

Eric,

Yes, I have done this also. I have also heard that you can introduce some 'not so nice' things when another cap is acting as a bypass cap. I was wondering what Deans opinion on this was

[erik2A3]

Really? What do you introduce, Keven? What the signal sees is capacitance, as if the two comprised a single capacitor, and in fact there can be benefits from paralleling capacitors in something like a pssive crossover. There are high quality capacitors that rely on what the company refers to as self-bypassing, which results in not only the desired value of capacitance, but potentially improved electrical characteristics as well. Bypassing electrolytics with a small percentage of a film type can sometimes be a good thing, other times, depending on application and who you're talking to, maybe not. Regardless, just trying to help -- apologies.

[erik2A3]

Quick reference for others reading this thread who might benefit or be interested. Refreshing, too, that Mylar caps are not treated like the cockroaches of the capacitor world!

http://audio.calsci.com/X-Overs2b.html

[Deang]

Mylars ARE cockroaches, now shut up. :) The only thing I can definitively say about bypassing on a crossover is that it's a royal pain in the rear. I just got done building one that way to "save some money while gaining the advantages of better caps" - and have decided from a business perspective it's stupid - what you save in parts you lose in labor.

[erik2A3]

Yeah, I know those get a bad rap sometimes.... Regarding the other thing: not so much talking about bypassing, as an electrolytic with cockroach, but rather making one cap out of two or a few to get the needed reactance at a certain frequency. Though caps in parallel are additive, there can be a benefit from the subsequent paralleling of each cap's inductance and resistance, which in effect helps a capacitor do its job better. Sometimes the ONLY way to achieve the exact needed capacitance is by combining smaller values, but even then one is still at the mercy of the tolerance specs of the caps being used. I would absolutely opt for paralleling vs accepting the closest value at the expense of something else. Long live the cockroach -- as nasty as they are they seem to persist!