Black Gate caps

Jj2468,

A friend has an Audionote kit DAC, with all the upgrades Audionote makes available, that sounds terrific. I have several other friends with Audionote DACs (DAC4 & 5) that are really good too.

Have you looked into upgrades using some of the premium Audionote capacitors? I know some of these components are many multiples of the cost of Black Gate capacitors, but, I've heard good things about them.

The choice of parts is often a matter of trial and error and "tuning" the sound, so the right choice is not necessarily the most expensive part or one that is favored by 99% of other designs. I know of several designers who have tried and do not like Black Gates in several of their linestages and amps. That just means it doesn't work for them. Once, I was asked by one of these people to listen to a particular amp of his. I told him, frankly, that it sounded considerably worse than his usual amps. He surprised me by laughing at this comment -- it turned out his customer "upgraded" the unit by substituting Black Gates for the caps he put in the unit.

That same designer used Black Gates in a linestage. For one customer, he actually had to remove the Black Gates and use something else. It turned out that the designer leaves the linestage on all the time (even if it is tube-based) while the listener turned it on for short sessions. It turned out that the Black Gates did not sound very good in this design unless the unit was on for a fairly long time.

Will Black Gates work for you? It depends.