Crossover A Klipschorn cap replacement help

[captainbeefheart]

Bypassing capacitors is for applications where you need a very large value of capacitance and so Aluminum Electrolytic types are chosen for their small size and cost. If the application requires low impedance up into RF spectrum then one would bypass the electrolytic with a small high quality film cap to reduce impedance up into RF spectrum.

 

 

[captainbeefheart]

Those Tecate caps are showing a DF of .5%

 

Since a polypropylene will be less than .1% and often probably closer to .05% that's a magnitude of 10x difference. A polypropylene should measure ESR at 1kHz of around .039 ohms compared to the polyester .47 ohms.

 

That's of course not taking into consideration the inductance of the capacitor so the reading on the meter may be slightly higher at .045 ohms ESR.

 

C= 2uF

 

At 500mA of current the ESR losses will be 250mV for the Mylar and 20mV for the Polypropylene.

[Deang]

1 hour ago, billybob said:

All cool and everything but, has the OP's questions been asked and answered?

Thanks!

 

Yes. I offered to take all of his money. 

 

He just has to decide if he wants to leave his networks as they are, recap them, or buy replacements.

[Deang]

1 hour ago, captainbeefheart said:

Dean do you have a 2uF Polypropylene you can test at 1kHz?

 

Can you test at 10kHz and 20kHz also?

 

A 2.0uF Sonicap measured .01

 

I can test at 100Hz, 120Hz, 1kHz, 10kHz, and 100kHz. I have several charts like those you posted, we have a good idea of what happens after 10kHz.

[captainbeefheart]

10 minutes ago, Deang said:

 

A 2.0uF Sonicap measured .01

 

I can test at 100Hz, 120Hz, 1kHz, 10kHz, and 100kHz. I have several charts like those you posted, we have a good idea of what happens after 10kHz.

 

Don't bother with the other tests. That's enough information to know that the ESR is quite different between the two dielectrics. That's roughly a DF of .0125% which is excellent.

 

.01 ohms vs .47 ohms will give different results in regard to losses. The real question is how much of this is audible and until we get some blind tests going it's just a fun conversation. People do report their listening results but I have a hard time swallowing these sorts of reviews, I don't trust my own ears unless the sound is significantly different. If I have to question if I hear a difference at all then I probably don't.

[Deang]

The top tips up and you hear less bass. The sound thins out and is more forward. Easy to hear. I've been complaining about it for 15 years.

 

 

[Aoran994]

as im reading , i think the dayton could be my first choice as i like a balanced speaker, and i could save some money, just for info here is my 1969 all originals klipschorn

[Aoran994]

https://www.soundimports.eu/en/crossover-components/capacitors/film-foil-capacitors/?mode=grid&limit=24&sort=popular&max=200&min=0&filter[]=623277&filter[]=638322&filter[]=638376&min=0&max=200   i can find them on this site, for example to reach 13uf i have to get a dayton 10uf and a 3uf? can you point me to the right direction, and as i remember there are another capacitator to change as i saw from the crites website its a 2uf

[Deang]

You are better off leaving them alone than doing that.

[Aoran994]

2 minutes ago, Deang said:

You are better off leaving them alone than doing that.

here they are, i did pick the right ones? ahah, if you tell me this i will leave the original on has they have not leaked

[captainbeefheart]

You can't go by if the capacitors are physically leaking or not, you want to test the ESR to see if they have increased too far and become too lossy.

 

I recommend getting the flat yellows from Dean or in my opinion the best is paper in oil.

 

 

[captainbeefheart]

I just looked at those Dayton data sheets and they appear to be more lossy compared to the Sonicaps, they state a DF of .1%  which is on the high side for a polypropylene. The ESR measured by Dean for the 2uF Sonicap roughly worked out to a DF of .0125% which means it's a really high quality capacitor.

 

Those Daytons are probably a nice middle ground between the flat yellow Tecate with a DF of .5% and a Sonicap of .0125%

[OO1]

3 hours ago, Aoran994 said:

here they are, i did pick the right ones? ahah, if you tell me this i will leave the original on has they have not leaked

unfortunately ,you will lose the original sound of your klipsch Speakers using these capacitors  ,however  you can buy klipsch capacitors  and restore your crossovers back to original  specs   or you're better off not to   touch your Speakers  and leave them as-is ,  to keep the original klipsch sound  

[tigerwoodKhorns]

5 hours ago, billybob said:

All cool and everything but, has the OP's questions been asked and answered?

Thanks!

 

Yes, lets stop this immediately.  This is the first interesting thread that I have seen on this forum in a very long time, no arguing and a lot of interesting technical info.  We wouldn't want any more of this. 

 

I am not critical on this forum, but after twenty years this place is so boring. 

 

Back to your scheduled program gents and thanks for some interesting information!

[billybob]

4 hours ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

 

Yes, lets stop this immediately.  This is the first interesting thread that I have seen on this forum in a very long time, no arguing and a lot of interesting technical info.  We wouldn't want any more of this. 

 

I am not critical on this forum, but after twenty years this place is so boring. 

 

Back to your scheduled program gents and thanks for some interesting information!

Well start your own thread and have at it...

 

Sorry about that Tiger, hope all is swell...

Edited December 9, 2022 by billybob

[Tom05]

4 hours ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

 

Yes, lets stop this immediately.  This is the first interesting thread that I have seen on this forum in a very long time, no arguing and a lot of interesting technical info.  

Right , so do your part and post something interesting 🤓.

[Deang]

2 hours ago, captainbeefheart said:

Their opinion, and that's just what it is, an opinion, is that PWK would have used the absolute highest quality capacitors available today if they were available to them 60 years ago. 

Well, they were available to him when he had passives built for his Jubilee prototypes, and he didn’t use them. 

[geoff.]

Soooo, how long is the break in period for mylar/polyester capacitors?

 

Let’s get this one out in the open, lol

 

 

[geoff.]

17 hours ago, Aoran994 said:

i will try to follow the thread, im not technical at all, i know that they have certain value for example . . .

 

[captainbeefheart]

1 hour ago, Deang said:

Well, they were available to him when he had passives built for his Jubilee prototypes, and he didn’t use them. 

 

Exactly.

 

In 1946 the choices for capacitors made with the capacitance values needed were either Aluminum Electrolytic and Paper. Either paper in oil or metallized paper were the best options compared to the Aluminum electrolytic types so the Klipschorn was voiced into perfection with a paper capacitors.

 

By 1955 polymer caps were being introduced with Mylar being the first film caps. There were some "hybrid" paper and film types around the mid fifties that are actually quite good capacitors and still working today. The Sprague "black beauty" is one of them. The type with the red lettering only, the yellow was just molded paper and they are junk by now.  By the time the 60's were here there were multiple types of film caps and they just kept improving since then. Klipsch switched to Mylar of course and that's what most people including the OP has in their heritage networks. They obviously could have kept replacing capacitors as they improved but they didn't. Is it possible they tried and didn't like the sound so they went back to what they were using? I wish I knew, but obviously they stuck with the same type of capacitors for a very long time. In regard to DF characteristics mylar and paper are not very different so the sound probably didn't change much but the Mylar holds up much better over time as it doesn't absorb moisture like paper does.

 

So yes by 1969 there were many choices of film capacitors at their disposal, yet they didn't change. To this day they don't push polypropylene or Teflon etc... although technically they are the "superior" capacitor but being "superior" isn't always best in all applications. What's easier; redesigning the speakers voice to use the technically  better capacitors or just continue to use what has worked well for you in the past? The answer is pretty clear to me.