Bypass capacitor questions


I have built new crossovers for my Thiels using mostly Clarity CSA caps. On the coax board, the two feeds and subfeed are bypassed with Multicap RTX (~1%). I am super happy with the SQ improvement. Well-recorded music sounds fantastic, just sublime. Really hard to fault, especially at this price point. Excellent transients with resolution and transparency for days; adding the RTX added a bit to the transients and resolution. But poorly recorded music is now more evident than ever and can sound relatively "cool", even thin, most notably on vocals. I’m wondering if a double bypass or different bypass cap might add a bit more flesh or hint of warmth. The Jupiter copper foil at 0.01 uF caught my interest but I’ve read reports that this small of capacitance can be inaudible, as well as reports that it can make a big difference (eg, humblehomemadehifi review of Dueland bypass).

Two questions:

a) do you think a different bypass or double bypass would result in the sound I seek?
b) if yes, more likely to get a good result with Jupiter double bypass at 0.01 uF or, say, Audyn True Copper Max at ~1%.

Budget: something more affordable than Duelands!


beetlemania

Showing 5 responses by johnsonwu

Btw I wonder how your Thiels have a “coax “board. Are you referring to the PCB that houses the crossover for the mid highs vs the woofer?  
I have repaired botched crossover jobs by people who just swapped in boutique caps into crossovers and blindly followed the 1/100 bypass rule.  The Zobel and the LCR filters do NOT need boutique caps.  The bypass rule normally applies to high voltage regulation and not speaker crossovers. Also size and vibration and cold solder joints are key concerns for diy speaker mods.  Be careful and think twice.  
Without knowing the crossover topology it’s very hard to give you advice.   In general bypassing a dull cap adds sparkle at the expense of phase issues (sibilant sounds move forward) and squeakiness (if bypass caps are too high a value).  Your post is IMO better answered on diyaudio rather than here. 
" increase in smear for the impression of greater clarity "
teo_audio is a wise sage.
Sharper transients is your phasiness rightbthere. I think several of us are willing to bet $ you will pull it out eventually esp if you listen to classical music.  
If it’s a mid-range coupler and you are bypassing say 47uF with a 0.47 to 1uF it makes sense. Further bypassing with 0.01 ventures into the realm of astrological psychics (not astrophysics). Bear in mind there is something called a RC time constant which I think is second only to Ohm’s law when it comes to audio. The 0.01uF bypass will assume your midrange plays radio frequencies if it’s a 4-8ohm driver.