One other thing. As you probably know, the PathAudio resistor has 3 leads. The extra wire is for a grounding shield. So far I haven't had much luck with the ground connection. My comments are based on using it without the ground shield. After I am sure it is fully broken in , I will try the ground wire again.
Of course, Charles could hook up his ground shields to his Troy Tripoint ground box. Maybe a separate Troy for each speaker...... That was a joke but it wouldn't surprise me if someone tries this. |
By "tame" the tweeter, do you mean to sweeten or smooth the highs? If so I suspect the PathAudio would be the better choice, although I haven't actually tried it in a series role like that. A CAST would probably sound rather bright and not as cleanly focused as the PathAudio. A Mills (black body) would make the highs sharper, crisper and slightly edgy. You would also notice a significant drop in detail compared to either the CAST or PathAudio. |
Good move Granny! I think you will like the PathAudios a lot but be sure to give them a long run in before drawing any conclusions. Mine were initially rather dark in the highs with subdued dynamics and a small, recessed soundstage. But after a few weeks I think they're great. In my case, I was replacing a Duelund CAST, not a Mills, and the PathAudio is a distinct improvement, at least in this one spot. |
A line-level crossover means biamping or triamping which definitely makes your system more complicated. For those of us with tube monoblocks, it means an additional 2 or even 4 amplifiers, each with its own power cord and mounting stand. If you obsess over coupling capacitors and other components, biamping also means doubling the number of parts to worry about.
My experience with biamping is limited to xover frequencies of 250Hz and below, but even with a relatively low xover frequency I found it was important for the amplifiers to be identical; otherwise there were obvious discontinuities in the sound. In particular, using a solid state amp on the bass and tubes for the mids and highs didn't work well at all. I am pretty sure the matching issue will be even more important with a higher xover like 1K.
There is also the issue of possible damage to delicate midrange and HF drivers. Ordinarily a small cone or compression driver will be protected from low frequency noise or amplifier turnon thumps by the xover capacitors. In a biamp setup the ampifier outputs are wired directly to the speaker and any LF signals like this go right to the driver without any filtering. With compression drivers costing so much, that's not a risk I want to take.
I have heard of people who have biamplified or triamplified systems who are very happy with the results. For my tastes, however, that's a move in the wrong direction. I prefer to simplify wherever possible. |
I know this thread is mostly about capacitors in speaker crossovers but there have also been a number of comments about caps in electronics. For the past year I have been using a 1uf Duelund CAST as the output coupler for my phono preamp. Prior to this I had a .47uf CAST for a few months and then before that a 2.0uf V-Cap TFTF. Recently I replaced the 1uf CAST with the 2uf V-Cap, the same one that had been there before, and I was a little surprised to find that overall I prefer the V-Cap.
The V-Cap may not be quite as neutral in tonal balance as the CAST but it more than makes up for this by having a more lively sound with excellent micro-dynamics. They are both very good sounding caps and I can see how other people might reach the opposite conclusion, but to my ears and for my system the V-Cap is better.
For what it's worth, my preamps now use V-Cap TFTF exclusively and my power amps use V-Cap CuTF couplers. |
To my ears, the CAST caps are all a bit lacking in air and high-frequency extension. I posted that several months ago in this thread and I still feel that way. That is true of the 100v pancake CAST caps as well as the high-voltage cylindrical CAST caps.
I have a theory that the CAST caps may be better suited for solid-state based systems than tubes. I can see how the HF characteristic might do a good job taming the HF emphasis of most solid-state amps.
For my money, however, I choose V-Caps, both TFTF and CuTF, over the CAST. They provide the treble qualities that I need and as a bonus have more subtle inner detail than the CAST.
Of course, it's possible that the all-silver CAST or the new hybrid copper-silver CAST caps may provide the air, delicacy and sparkle missing from the copper CAST. But somebody else will have to investigate those options. I have decided to stop shipping money to Denmark. |
Interesting Jet! It does appear that my reactions to V-Caps vs. Duelunds are a minority view, but I can live with that. It won't be the first time! My system may need some extra zing in the HFs or maybe it's my 62-year old ears. In any case, I agree with you and Grannyring and the others that the copper CAST caps are very good sounding and certainly belong in the top tier of caps.
Let us know what you think of the GE 97F caps. I have one as the first cap off the rectifier in both my phono preamp and SE 46 amps. In both cases, I use Black Gates for the remaining caps and the GE seems to complement the Black Gates very well. |
Jet, I believe we are talking about the same thing when you say the CAST caps sound "dark" and I say they are "a bit lacking in air and high-frequency extension." I could hear this when I put the first one in but it became more of a problem when I added a second and then a third CAST cap. Of course, the treble colorations may not be a problem in the context of a particular system.
Since my post a few days ago about V-Caps, I did some reading on the internet about V-Caps and a number of folks described the TFTF caps as clinical, cool or bright, especially when a system has 4 or more. I find this quite odd because it doesn't match my experience at all. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I bought all of my TFTF caps during the first 6 months or so of their introduction. Maybe something changed later on in the design or construction. Or maybe other people posted their feelings prior to the caps being fully broken in. The TFTF caps took a long, long time to break in. Somewhere around the 450 hour mark they went from lean, bright and glassy and began a transition over the next few hundred hours to warm and rich in the lower midrange and slightly soft in the treble. The final sound is pretty much the opposite of what I read from a number of internet posters. In contrast, the CuTF V-Caps never sounded bad during the breakin process; they started out sounding good and just got better and better.
I am not trying to start an argument with people who tried V-Caps and didn't like them. I am simply describing my experience. |
Reminder: Duelund CAST caps are quite sensitive to how they are mounted. In my experience, if the cap is lying flat on a wood surface, there are annoying colorations: a thick, excessively warm bass, and dark high frequencies. I have tried several types of plywood and hardwood as well as aluminum, and none of them was satisfactory if the cap was lying flat on the surface. The best sounding mounting for me is to have 3 small plywood cubes under the cap to elevate it off the wood surface by 3/4" or so. Each cube is made from 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood. I have tried various cones and other spacers, but the BB cubes are still my favorite (so far).
I am only talking about the CAST pancake caps (100v speaker crossover types). I didn't experiment with different mounting of the 630v caps, and I no longer use them.
I mentioned all this in a post on this thread a year ago, but it is worth repeating. Besides I can't imagine any newcomers actually reading this entire thread. |
"I think we are all exploring different ways to get the sound we want." Well said Jet. Which cap sounds best will vary depending on the particular application and the particular listener.
In my case, I have settled on a mix of Copper V-Caps (CuTF) and old style V-Caps (TFTF) for my electronics, and a wider variety of caps for my speakers including CAST, Mundorf Supreme and Sonicap Gen 1.
I agree with the reservations about the CAST sound expressed by Justubes2 and Jetrexpro. Nothing is perfect.
I take exception, however, to the comments about a bypass cap. I have tried all sorts of bypass caps and combinations of bypass caps, and I have yet to find a single instance where there was an overall improvement. Yes, the bypass cap may sound impressive at first and some aspects of the sound may be real improvements such as HF speed and extension, but there is always, to my ears, a less natural, less coherent sound overall than just the base cap on its own. Other folks will reach other conclusions but that is what I have found to be true, and I have been trying bypass caps off and on for over 30 years. I don't say this to discourage anyone from trying bypass caps but only as a warning not to make a hasty judgment that a bypass cap is an overall improvement. Let the caps break in and then try removing the bypass; if you still think the bypass cap is an improvement then by all means leave it in. Just don't be too quick to conclude that it really is an improvement. |
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JT2, maybe you will have more success than I did, but just so you know I have tried sll sorts of caps as bypass caps including Mundorf S/O, S/G/O, Sonicap Platinum, Dynamicap, Infinicap, CAST, V-Cap TFTF, silver micas, Russian Teflon, polystyrenes, etc., etc. |
I have to take exception to the comment about Solens sounding good in a power supply. Solens always have a plastic, artificial sound no matter where they are used, at least to my ears.
For what it's worth, I sold my big Duelund CAST copper caps that I used in my speaker crossovers. Over time and once I got over the initial enthusiasm of trying something new and different, I realized their colorations bothered me to the point of interfering with my enjoyment of the music. Others may reach different conclusions, but the Duelunds are not the sound I am looking for. I had previously reached the same conclusion about Duelund CAST caps in electronics. I never did find a spot where the Duelunds were my preferred choice. In electronics I always come back to V-Caps especially the CuTF series. |
I went back to what I was using before I bought the Duelunds---Sonicap Gen 1 for the high-pass and Mundorf Supreme (regular Supreme, not silver or S/O or S/G/O) for the low-pass. Nothing is perfect but in the context of my system those caps are more natural sounding than the CAST caps. To be honest I haven't used the high-efficiency speakers for several months. I have used my Spendor SP-100 speakers exclusively. Over the winter I re-evaluated a lot of things in my system and I made a number of changes in addition to the speakers. I may change my mind again next month, who knows, but for now I am happy with the present setup. |
Grannyring, I did a lot of resistor comparisons including the Duelunds when I was trying to get the very best sound out of the crossover for my high-efficiency speakers, and I am pretty sure I reported my conclusions somewhere in this long thread. Good luck on finding them though! The bottom line was that the standard Duelund and the CAST resistor sound very different. The standard has a tonal balance skewed to the warm and dark side of things, and the CAST is pretty much the opposite since it is very lean in the bass with fairly bright treble. The CAST also sounds "wispy" in the highs; HF sounds sort of float around in a pretty fog. After a lot of listening to each one and to combinations of the two Duelund types, I finally concluded that the most true to life sounding resistor is actually a Mills 12w wirewound. The 12w Mills resistors changed a couple years ago. I prefer the older black body Mills; the newer brown body version is a bit smoother in tonal balance but it doesn't sound quite as detailed or lively as the black body version. However, I would gladly choose either of the Mills 12w resistors over either of the Duelunds. By the way, if you want to try the Duelunds, and one of my values will work for you (5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 ohms) send me a pm. |
I have several pairs of Path Audio resistors and they were all the correct value. I didn't like their sound quality though.
I am surprised this thread is still continuing. Haven't all possible issues about component part quality been covered by now? |
