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Capacitor log Mundorf Silver in Oil

I wished I could find a log with information on caps. I have found many saying tremendous improvement etc. but not a detailed account of what the changes have been. I have had the same speakers for many years so am very familiar with them. (25+ years) The speakers are a set of Klipsch Lascala's. They have Alnico magnets in the mids and ceramic woofers and tweeters. The front end is Linn LP12 and Linn pre amp and amp. The speaker wire is 12 gauge and new wire.

I LOVE these speakers around 1 year ago they started to sound like garbage. As many have said they are VERY sensitive to the components before them. They are also showing what I think is the effect of worn out caps.

There are many out here on these boards I know of that are using the Klipsch (heritage) with cheaper Japanese electronics because the speakers are cheap! (for what they can do) One thing I would recommend is give these speakers the best quality musical sources you can afford. There is a LOT to get out of these speakers. My other speakers are Linn speakers at around 4k new with Linn tri-wire (I think about 1k for that) and the Klipsch DESTROY them in my mind. If you like "live feel" there is nothing like them. In fact it shocks me how little speakers have improved in 30 years (or 60 years in the Khorns instance)

In fact I question Linn's theory (that they have proved many times) that the source is the most important in the Hi-Fi chain. Linn's theory is top notch source with lessor rest of gear including speakers trumps expensive speakers with lessor source. I think is right if all things are equal but Klipsch heritage are NOT equal! They make a sound and feel that most either LOVE or hate. (I am in the LOVE camp and other speakers are boring to me)

So here goes and I hope this helps guys looking at caps in the future. Keep in mind Klipsch (heritage Khorns Belle's and Lascala's especially) are likely to show the effects of crossover changes more then most.

1 The caps are 30 years old and
2 the speakers being horn driven make changes 10x times more apparent.

Someone once told me find speakers and components you like THEN start to tweak if needed. Don't tweak something you not in love with. Makes sense to me.

So sound
Record is Let it Be (Beatles)
The voices are hard almost sounds like a worn out stylus.
Treble is very hard. I Me Mine has hard sounding guitars. Symbals sound awful. Everything has a digital vs. analog comparison x50! Paul's voice not as bad as John's and George's. Voices will crack.

different lp
Trumpets sound awful. Tambourine terrible. Bass is not great seems shy (compared to normal) but the bad caps draw soooooo much attention to the broken up mid range and hard highs that are not bright if anything it seems the highs are not working up to snuff. I have went many times to speaker to make sure tweeters are even working.

All in all they sound like crap except these Klipsch have such fantastic dynamics that even when not right they are exciting!

Makes me wonder about the people who do not like them if they are hearing worn out caps and cheap electronics? Then I can see why they do not like them! If I did not know better from 25+ years of ownership that would make sense.

For the new crossover I have chosen Mundorf Silver in Oil from what I have read and can afford. I want a warm not overly detailed sound as Klipsch already has lots of detail and does not need to be "livened up" they need lush smooth sounding caps. Hope I have made the right choice?

When the crossover is in I will do a initial impression on same lp's. Right now it goes from really bad (on what may be worn vinyl) to not as bad but NOT great on great vinyl. (I know the quality of the vinyl because tested on other speakers Linn)

The new caps are Mundorf Silver in Oil and new copper foil inductors are coming. I will at the same time be rewiring the speakers to 12 guage from the lamp cord that PWK put in. PWK was a master at getting very good sound often with crap by today's standards components.

The choice of speakers would be a toss up now depending on what I am listening to. Klipsch vastly more dynamic but if the breaking up of the sound becomes to much to effect enjoyment the Linn would be a better choice on that Lp. If I could I would switch a button back and forth between speakers depending on song and how bad the break-up sound was bothering me.

volleyguy
reynolds853
385 posts
 
Tom, thanks for your response, that certainly makes the crossover more straightforward.
k2_nl
13 posts
 
I'm new here, but would like to share the results of an experiment described below that showed to me that a cap constructed out of several, smaller (different value) capacitors put in parallel offered a superior result over the single value cap. With all the smaller caps being of the same brand and type that is!! So my estimate is that 2 x 7,5 uF will have a better result than the single 15 uF. Even better will be something like 1x 8,0 and 1x 4,7 and 1 x 2,2 and...

About one year ago a friend and I, who share the same speaker (the infamous magnetostatic Apogee Scintilla, 1 ohm version), made an extensive comparison between multiple caps in parallel versus a single cap. Capacitors used in this experiment: copper cased Obbligato’s and Sonicaps. First we tested the caps in the treble section.

The Scintilla’s treble section (6 dB slope, >3000 Hz) contains two 10 uF caps. We made an external set up in which we could switch quickly between the two 10 uF caps constructed with:
1) single 10 uF Sonicaps
2) single 10 uF Obbligato’s
3) 10 uF caps built up out of Obbligato’s: 4 x 2,2 uF, 2 x 0,47 uF and 2 x 0,047 uF

We played some cd’s with a lot of HF information. Especially a cd with metal bells hit by a metal stick reveiled some interesting differences.

The difference between the single Sonicaps and single Obbligato’s turned out to be relatively small with the Obbligato being the better cap. I feel our result was in about the same league as the judging of Tony Gee (8,5 versus 10) (google for captest and humblehomemadehifi). The biggest difference however was between the single cap and the multiple cap. The multiple cap turned out to reveil micro-detail like the “singing” of the metal after it was hit, much better than the single cap. Also the spatial information was better with the multiple cap, the soundstage expanded in all directions compared to the single cap. The most prominent feature however I experienced was that the music as a whole became more enjoyable/natural sounding. Of course it is very hard to tell, but I would not be surprised that the performance of a multiple Obbligato in Tony’s test would have been rewarded somewhere around a 12-13.

In front of the midribbon of the Scintilla (300 – 3000Hz) is one big capacitor: 240 uF (yep, I’m saving my money to have this cap one day replaced by a multiple parallel Duelund CAST Ag PIO...). In the stock Apogee xover this cap already is a multiple cap (24 x 10 uF metalized polypropylene Sprague’s in parallel). My friend replaced these Sprague’s a few years ago by Sonicaps (24x 10 uF) and he was very pleased with the result of this. Recently he took out 30 uF of Sonicaps and replaced these by multiple Obbligato’s. This experiment turned out to be very dissapointing. Disappointing as especially some strange things happened to the imaging. It shifted. After a few weeks the Sonicaps were put back in place and the problem was solved.

This experiment made me conclude that 1) multiple parallel caps perform significantly better than single caps, and 2) it is essential to use one brand/type of capacitor.

BTW: I think it was on the Duelund website that I once noticed a picture of a xover made by some super-high-end loudspeaker company that built their caps with different value VSF-caps...

Kees
cady586
4 posts
 
After reading most of this thread and many others I recently decided to change the capacitors in my Meadowlark Blue Heron's from the stock Auricaps to Ampohm paper in oil aluminum foil. I was expecting a moderate improvement as the Ampohm's scored only a few points better than than the Auricaps in Tony G's assessment. I was surprised at the drastic changes the Ampohms offered. Much improved texture and not at the expense of detail but just the opposite. Everything sounds much more refined, detailed, and just plain real. I settled on the Ampohms over Mundorf and Clarity MR as they are about a third of the price and equivalently rated. Unfortunately, Ampohm is out of business but the tube store has stock remaining. Really, the single best investment for the money I've made in my system. Which has me thinking of changing the coupling caps in an Audio Research VT 50 to possibly Clarity Caps I'm a little worried about PIO in a warm and high voltage environment. Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.
k2_nl
13 posts
 
The difference in score that Tony describes between the Ampohm and Auricap (respectively 12- and 9) makes me expect to hear a significant improvement with the Ampohm...

Of course the differences you hear between the caps are very much related to the quality of the entire system as well. The better that system, the more it will be able to reveal the differences between the different caps.
reynolds853
385 posts
 
K2,

Thanks for your response and your experience is certainly something that I will keep in mind if I don't like the results of my first iteration.

John
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