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Are Your Capacitors Installed Backwards ??


Kreg

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3 hours ago, Deang said:


You somehow managed to miss the point. 

no I did not, you brought up another physical difference and you suggested that it would make no difference either. Physical differences in design, differences in materials used, these things have an impact upon what we hear. This is such a crock, things you notice are of course valid, others, not so much. This reminds me of the days of Stereo Review where "everything sounds the same". Perhaps to you it does.

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No, you missed it. The point was the same as @JohnA earlier.

 

It's AC, the caps are bipolar, there is no polarity. Go ahead, measure with any type of meter you want -- reversing the leads doesn't change the capacitance, ESR, DF, or DA.

 

After 20 years of building with every different type capacitor out there, every different way imaginable -- it there was a difference, I would have noticed it. I did these dumb *** experiments while I was going through my stupid phase.

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20 hours ago, Deang said:

When Audience was formed, they bought out Sidereal, which is what the Auricap is. All they’ve done over the years is change the leads. It’s a great part, since they are double wrapped. However, the company is knee deep into the voodoo bullshit.

 

There is no “ground” on a crossover, only “common”. Signal goes one way, turns around and comes back -  the caps could care less. Want to force the signal back the other way, flip your wires! C’mon people!

So you're saying it's an AC circuit?:)

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2 hours ago, Deang said:

No, you missed it. The point was the same as @JohnA earlier.

 

It's AC, the caps are bipolar, there is no polarity. Go ahead, measure with any type of meter you want -- reversing the leads doesn't change the capacitance, ESR, DF, or DA.

 

After 20 years of building with every different type capacitor out there, every different way imaginable -- it there was a difference, I would have noticed it. I did these dumb *** experiments while I was going through my stupid phase.

I expect that you are suffering flashbacks.

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4 hours ago, Deang said:

No, you missed it. The point was the same as @JohnA earlier.

 

It's AC, the caps are bipolar, there is no polarity. Go ahead, measure with any type of meter you want -- reversing the leads doesn't change the capacitance, ESR, DF, or DA.

 

After 20 years of building with every different type capacitor out there, every different way imaginable -- it there was a difference, I would have noticed it. I did these dumb *** experiments while I was going through my stupid phase.

You have that right. There is no measurable difference no matter how you hook up  the meter. Here is some more heresy. I had no 8uf caps on hand but some Sonicaps and did not feel like spending the money on a set of crossovers. So I took a  Dayton 1% 5.1uf and 3uf and it measured just the same as the Sonicap at 8.1uf but better on esr. I just love capacitors and they are second only to conductors for nonsense.

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53 minutes ago, Dave A said:

So I took a  Dayton 1% 5.1uf and 3uf and it measured just the same as the Sonicap at 8.1uf but better on esr. I just love capacitors and they are second only to conductors for nonsense.

 

Paralleling always drops the ESR. Didn't know if you knew that. 

 

There is little to no difference between metallized capacitors using the same dielectric. But some will last longer than others due to build quality. 

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2 hours ago, Deang said:
3 hours ago, Dave A said:

So I took a  Dayton 1% 5.1uf and 3uf and it measured just the same as the Sonicap at 8.1uf but better on esr. I just love capacitors and they are second only to conductors for nonsense.

 

Paralleling always drops the ESR. Didn't know if you knew that. 

 

 

Much like the office gal at my first "real" job who got a raise which bumped her into the next tax bracket, resulting in a smaller paycheck (she was livid!), "lower ESR" just might require padding change for "proper" voicing.

 

2 hours ago, Deang said:

 

As I've been saying...

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10 hours ago, Edgar said:

Um ... no. The initial pressure response of a waveform is either an increase or a decrease. That polarity (initial increase or initial decrease) is maintained as the wavefront propagates through the atmosphere.

 

Point well made and duly noted, though it changes the point of what I'd said little to none.

 

10 hours ago, Edgar said:

That's a different subject

 

As is "absolute polarity" of a signal...

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3 hours ago, Deang said:

 

Paralleling always drops the ESR. Didn't know if you knew that. 

 

There is little to no difference between metallized capacitors using the same dielectric. But some will last longer than others due to build quality. 

Interesting. I have avoided two capacitors when one would provide the right value because I like the neater appearance. Yeah at the age of 66 I don't figure I will outlive those Daytons and put the money in my pocket.

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10 minutes ago, glens said:

Much like the office gal at my first "real" job who got a raise which bumped her into the next tax bracket, resulting in a smaller paycheck (she was livid!), "lower ESR" just might require padding change for "proper" voicing.

Well that presumes we know what the original design specs were with the ESR factored in. I have yet to find the design ESR values for old crossovers.

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5 minutes ago, glens said:

Point well made and duly noted, though it changes the point of what I'd said little to none.

 

Huh? You made a statement about the initial pressure response of a waveform, and then tried to justify it with a statement about steady state waveforms. They are two different subjects, or at least two different aspects of the same subject, and absolute polarity matters (slightly) when talking about non-sinusoidal waveforms. There is research into this. So if that doesn't change the point of what you said, then please clarify because I evidently missed it.

 

Stanley P. Lipshitz, M. Pocock, and John Vanderkooy, “On the Audibility of Midrange Phase Distortion in Audio Systems”, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 30, 1982 September, pp. 580-595.

 

H. Suzuki , S. Morita, and T. Shindo, “On the Perception of Phase Distortion”, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 28, 1980 September, pp. 570-574.

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I'll try to find those two documents for perusal.  Expectation is there will be agreement on my part, but "phase distortions" in my mind implies a relativity throughout the spectrum as opposed to "does the driver initially move whichever way."  As to the trying "to justify it with a statement about steady state waveforms" I admit to being at a loss...

 

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25 minutes ago, glens said:

I'll try to find those two documents for perusal.  Expectation is there will be agreement on my part, but "phase distortions" in my mind implies a relativity throughout the spectrum as opposed to "does the driver initially move whichever way."  As to the trying "to justify it with a statement about steady state waveforms" I admit to being at a loss...

 

It's been a very long time since I read them, but I cited them in my 1999 AES paper as follows:

 

"Though steady-state characteristics have been studied extensively, there does not appear to have been much investigation, at least in the audio and acoustics fields, of the effects of transient waveform fidelity upon perceived sound quality.  Some studies concern themselves not with transient response per se, but with phase distortion – a steady-state concept.  Yet it is interesting to note that the authors of such studies often comment that phase distortion is most audible when using transient or transient-like waveforms containing sharp edges, such as low-frequency square waves, triangle waves, hand claps, and the like [Lipshitz, et al], and short-duration tonebursts [Suzuki, et al]."

 

I would imagine that there has been even more research into the subject in the past 21 years.

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On 2/3/2020 at 9:55 PM, glens said:

I'm pretty sure that video link surfaced in the previous capacitor-orientation thread...

 

Pertinent, perhaps, in a gain circuit but most absolutely definitely not in a crossover, yet again.

That's why I merged this thread with the previous capacitor orientation thread .

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