Mundorf Silver Caps

I use a B&K 885 inductance and capacitance meter to measure components as I go. Personally I just use Dayton 1% precision or Audyn's (not the expensive ones) and sometimes Sonicaps because they have values I need. If they measure the same I figure they sound the same and save my money. The few times I did try expensive caps I regretted doing so and felt that money would have been better spent elsewhere.

When I upgraded/modified/updated  the interfaces on my Acoustat 2+2's, I used the Mundorf EVO Alum+Oil caps.  WOW!

Um, happy to see all the Mundorf fandom, but I'm going to take a contrarian view.

I've always found the Mundorf Supreme's over saturated with color. Not sibilant, but cool, and colorful.

I prefer Clarity CMR for these reasons. I find them less euphonic and more natural, in the sense of sounding more like what I hear in person.

With all things, buy what you like. I only make my personal observatiopns here.

B&W, Magico and YG however don't agree with me. :)

" I've always found the Mundorf Supreme's over saturated with color. Not sibilant, but cool, and colorful.

I prefer Clarity CMR for these reasons. I find them less euphonic and more natural, in the sense of sounding more like what I hear in person. "
  I agree completely. I find the fancy caps really are flavoring music to someones preference and they are not neutral. Kind of like tube amps sound warm compared to ss amps used in performance by various artists in real life.
 Using something like a Xilica DSP and bi-amping will allow you to duplicate any tone you want and then change it later if you wish in any way you can imagine. I recap old crossovers on speakers I am refurbing for sale but my personal system is 100% active now. I see some of these people spend thousands on caps which work for one set of speakers only. The same money would buy amps and the Xilica and work with any system.

I’ve looked over various cap labs, seems Mundorf offers at least 6+ lines of caps. Seems this lab has done its homework, and i am very impressed at their web site offerings.
I see a YT tech guy who offers mods, uses ~~Mundorf’s~~ as per clients request ,,of course,,,but i am confident he has no issues fufilling that order.
He posts YT vids on his mods,,and I can actually hear the huge sonic gains in his mods via my $10 comp speakers.
I just had some M SGO (6 white cap/not supremes + 2 Silver Supremes) and I can hear more dynamics which the cayin stock caps, Real caps , blocked via cheaply made 2 cent chinese caps.
I’ve had tech guys, Richard Grey in that group ~~Wasting your money on caps,,,a cap is a cap,,is a cap,,,so goes their mantra.
Well to my ears ~~~at least~~ I do believe i am hearing things not heard with cheap stock caps.
I still have 8 more small caps to employ,,just waiting on M to make that size, the Ebay seller says, will arrive any day,,,it is the .022 cap.
.
Now the mod charge was $250, as it was a pre fab board, and not a easy solder.
Richard Grey said he wouldn’t touch that type of mod..I am very glad I got it done.
Now opens the doors for further upgrades.
I would not be happy addinga new Class A preamp, the Cayin SC^ with cheap caps in the cayin cd17.mark1.
As mentioned I am going all M SGO caps in the
1) cayin SC6 Mark2
2) Jadis Defy(Not sure how many there, as it is quite a few caps,,have to talk with Richard and see where the critical caps are in that schematic).
3) all new M SGO + 2 Spremes Black casing SGO 10UF (they are huge and i picked up a pair at a good price on Ebay,,now i need to add another 8 UF to that point in the xover, so going witha 8uf SGO white casing.

All these mods will takea year,to complete,,as my tube flipping has beena financial disaster = taking a huge loss. That ~~Fiasco ~~ has set me back 6 months on the purchse of the Cayin preamp.
anyway,,back to M caps, I use them, as they seem to know what they are doing, and I am a believer a nice cap will cost ya.
I do not want to go with low priced caps, then years later change them out.
As I say, if we cut open one of the other caps mentioned,,then a M cap, the construction quality might be evident.
We are talking about nuances here, and i am aware a superior cap might sound ~~~similiar~~ toa lower budget cap,,,But think about it,,,folks were sucked into all sorts of ~~snakeoil~~~ past 10 yrs or so,,with ~~~high quality cables~~~ Pinched waist tubes,,,,,getter tubes, Holy Grail tubes,,and all such nonsense,,paying exhorbitant sums for these ~~gimicks~~
Caps are ~~the real deal~~~, Its my opinion, cap mods will become the next biggest thing in audiophile universe.
The old cliche which Richard Grey and other tech gurus *if it ain’t broke,,,don’t fix it*** is old school and that philosopy needs to be proven ~~~wrong~~~
I’ve had personal exp so far with the Cayin cd17,,and look for more huge gains with the other 3 components.
If Jadis installed M SGO caps, the Defy sale price would run in the $$$$$$$$.
Should mention,,,if you are considering going M Supreme’s, these caps are HUGE, and space constraint may be a issue. The lower priced white case caps, are ~~nearly as good~~ and far less expensive>
I think the Spremes are a ~~overkill~~ inspite ofa EU tech guy suggesting the Spremes are the better choise.
I just don’t see the justification spending that extra cash on a bigger cap,,,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGWcXN_zsR4

3rd Install in different amps.  Ignored nay-sayers, worth every penny.   

>>Mundorf EVO Supreme SilverGold SESG (non-oil) coupling capacitors<<

Installed in my last two tube amplifiers and now installed in my Monoblocks KT150 tube amplifiers this past weekend. The change in tone, texture, micro dynamics, depth, musicality, and soundstage is sublime.  

OP if you could duplicate any nuance or tone or airy ethereal sound you wanted without breaking the bank or limiting yourself to one single system would you consider it? Sounds like you are throwing a ton of money at something hoping what you read will turn true for you too but somehow has not yet. Read up on active crossovers and DSP and see what people are doing there. Buy one system one time and have endless ability to duplicate anything you want with any speaker you may ever own.

Hi
Yeah I want to have my tech guy install the M SG OIL caps, 
@ Decooney
Why not the OIL caps?
Here is the cap i am considering.
https://youtu.be/HGWcXN_zsR4?t=3

but my tech guy says the Defy 7's board is a  pain to disconnect, and so very6 hard to work on,,I just told him, snip the leads/leave the board alone, just snip and solder leads, but i think he wants a  *clean job* = solder from under side.
anyway,, could bea  expenisve job, as the amp is now 20 yrs old and says chnage also the electrolytics also, = $$$$$$$ (maybe $800+.... for all caps / labor.
thats alot of cash,,but consider i will have a  super Defy 7. 

so have the M SGO cap in the cayin,,,8 caps,, 2 are SILVER SUPREME OIL,,,not bad,,nice pop in nuances.
Not much , but as i all things audio, we are only  after that tiny nuance,,now i just ordered 8 M SGO for my Lite LS9 preamp,,which i put down as a cheap chinese junk,,actually there may bea  inkling of truth that it is based on the Jadis design..Employs 6 AT7's in the driver stage, 3 stages,,another AT7 and 2 other retifier tubes,.,,all total 9 tubes,,,actually i perferd this Lite over another pre tube i just bought and returned,,won't mention any names.
So this mod will be done next week and will reporrt  back,,Then, once Uncle sam sends me his 1200 lil gift,,,i'll order 12 .47uf M SGO caps for the Jadis Defy7. 
I am going with M silver  gold oil EVO, as they are reasonably priced,,Their black casing model's are too expensive for my budget,,and besides are you really going to noticea  dif is the  OIL vs the Non oil?
.47 oil are like 25 each, non oil 50. each.
I just could not see paying 2X's for most likely the very same sound sonics. 
I think M is selling snakeoil on their higher priced caps,,There are quitea  few tech guys who believe a  cap is a cap is a cap. ,,I would not go taht far,,but i will say, Their budget priced SGO EVO is reasonably priced. 
Jensen, Jupiter and Ayuden caps are over priced AS far as i am concerned. 

https://www.mundorf.com/en/?category=hifi&menu=caps_audio&content=mcap_evo_silvergold.oil

I used Mundorf SGO Classic. I really liked the sound.
Took a while to break in though.

ozzy

ahhh you see i am not a believe in this break in thesis/idea.
To me its snakeoil.
I wrote the ebay dealer if the oil vs non oil had much dif, he could not give mea  staright asnwer = same sound,,why pay 2X's for non oil??? = Mundorf is pushing snakeoil.
The white EVO SGO IMHO are same as Non Oil SG EVO.
The only dif is the price.
again, modding old caps to new M SGO  brings in nuanaces of superior sonics,,its not like niight and  day upgrade,,,but well worth the mod expense.
My Lite LS9 caps arrive tomorrow, so next week will have installed and will make a  YT video which i will post here.

i have the AT7 version, without remote,,,i did not wanta  remote, if breaks, how will you use the pre????
also i just took out the stock russian AT's and installed 6 + 1 E80 tubes,,yeahhhh now we are talking sound.
man i love adore am facinated with the E80 tube. 
I have about 60 of that tube,,and my tube guy in washington sate is selling 20 for me, the rest i will list very high and sell a  few  each year. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=lite+ls9+images&sxsrf=ALeKk01iAi8sFzynw7AqNtji3JTsNqRlCA:1587729485733&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=z-Dt1jb5OPMtPM%253A%252CJrxgc2roU0B-ZM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kQ9KvdP8GaDHMst8Q4GRw28dIFAfQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK-PufgYHpAhVRmK0KHU1GBx8Q9QEwAHoECAoQFw#imgrc=z-Dt1jb5OPMtPM:

mozartfan,

It is with my experience the SGO Classic takes time to break in to sound their best.

ozzy

This is a good read. Comparison test of many audio capacitors. 
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html

Hi,
i would prefer Clarity cap MR, CMR or Audyn caps for projects like this.
Better matched and less coloured. MR's CMR's especially can stand the heat in tubed units.
Better caps are a worthwile improvement as resistors in certain spots.
Besides @noromance suggestion you can find more technical info of caps in HiFi Collective.

Audyn caps

I designer I know found that Audyn caps can sound a little less detailed and slower than expected -and had to bypass them with Russian PIO caps to help them out.

Thanks Noro for  your experienced imput, 
I just installed the M SESG (=Silver  Gold Supreme EVO) .47 x 12  caps in my Defy last week, WOW, really nice details, Go to minute 23 and listen to faith Hill clearly detailed voice, every word can be distinctly heard. 
just a  really nice mod @ $45 per cap x 12. 
well worth the  cost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-viI0SYQHko
if the Supremes will not fit ina  space, use the smaller brothers the White caps, EVO olil, half the price, much smaller

Call V-Cap and get one of there caps to replace them.

It’s pretty simple, some people can’t hear the difference, because
THEY’RE ears can’t hear the difference.

I just read "I use dayton 1%", I can’t tell the difference".. That is one dry little cap..

If you can’t tell the difference between a Dayton 1% and a TRT Teflon 1%. I understand..
I can. They are night and day. Some folks can’t tell the difference, because they actually don’t have the chops.

Not great ears, just normal hearing. Not damaged. There is a lot of folks with damaged hearing, A LOT..

Just like your vision, a lot of folks have vision issues.

A LOT of folks have hearing issues..

(.....................) if you can hear what’s in the space just before this, you have golden ears.. ok, your extra EXTRA special.. LOL

Regards

@ oldhvy
yeah, so i installed the M EVO oil silvergold caps for budget and space issues, as the supremes are nearly 2x's the size of their little brothers,,these were installed in the preamp,,i did note a  nice sonic resolution,, Then i modded the Defy7 with the Supreme's as highly recommended bya  fellow audiogoner.
And now i can really note a  sonic gain. 
caps make a  dif, = not snakeoil
There is a  yuotube tech guy who feels if he can not measure a  sonic gain in his lab scope/testing equip,,,then its snakeoil,,I commented,,but what about a  nuance,,,can his testing prove the cheap cap is equal to the expensive cap? 
He does not believe this theory, nor do most DIYer's on that forum. 
They feel a  old russian cap is not inferior to M's Jupiter, Auyden copper caps.
To me, thats snakeoil thinking.
Here is one, 
If I were only listening to bass rifts,, then sure a cap is a cap is a cap, 2 cent cap is all you need
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKvNr0PSJnI


Young Ahn is of the camp, a  cap is a cap, Expensive test no better than a  cheap cap,, I wrote to him, he can not acccept this idea of **nuances that can not be measued ona  scope**, He believes that idea is pure snakeoil.. 
Trust me the caps Jadis installed back in the early 2000's, in the Defy are inferior to the Mundorf designs of  2015, the SESG Supremes. 
Had Jadis installed Supremes in the coupling caps, 12 /.47uf, the amp cost would run up significantly higher. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88JjvvMESGk

" If you can’t tell the difference between a Dayton 1% and a TRT Teflon 1%. I understand..
I can. They are night and day. Some folks can’t tell the difference, because they actually don’t have the chops. "
  Well it is more than that. I believe that a lot of fancy capacitors and tube amps with that warm sound really are adding distortion that many people find appealing. Some like blue others like brown. The "signature" sound of various audio companies or components is merely their flavor of distortion. For instance if you went to  concert I can imagine they used professional amps and speakers. To duplicate exactly what you heard there you either have to use the same equipment or have a method of altering your playback in such a way as to be able to do so with what you own. Anything else is flavoring to suit personal preferences which to many is what it really is all about anyway. I happen to like faithful true to real life audio replication.

  My answer is to use neutral everything I can which in the case of capacitors would be those that measure well and perform their electrical duty without flavoring. It gets me closer to real life on old speakers I rebuild for people. Those fancy caps are not used in all those venues people pay big bucks to go hear live music at.

  For my personal systems I use a Xilica XP3060 to DSP and bi-amp and from there I can change  anything I need to match your flavor of cap. Or your special "warm" tube amp. As a matter of fact I can sit there with my Laptop plugged into the Xilica and change parameters on the fly live if I wish to achieve a certain effect. The advantage of this is that for what some of you spend on one set of caps that will work in one place and way only I bought a method of doing anything I want to any speaker I happen to own to the very upper limits of what that speaker is capable of producing. If I am wanting to have more than one set of speakers to listen to I can store presets for each pair of speakers I own up to 30. Or I can have various presets according to what I want to hear that night with that music genre for the same set of speakers.

It requires time and some learning far beyond what sticking a set of caps on a crossover amounts to but once you jump the hurdle a whole new world opens up and you never go back. Passive crossovers are the way things used to be but no longer have to be.

I happen to like faithful true to real life audio replication.

  My answer is to use neutral everything I can which in the case of capacitors would be those that measure well and perform their electrical duty without flavoring

WEll this should be everyones obvious goal in hifi( that old term from the late 1950's.  rings true here, High Fidelity).
grainy tube amps are not much better than a  razor edge clinical ss amp. 
IMHO speakers are the 1st component to consider, Everything rises or falls due to neutrality or lack of, comming from the speakers voice.
Makes little dif to add expensive caps to a  system if  one or more of the components havea   signature *favoring/coloring*, 
which we can sum up as ~~THe Fatigue Syndrone~~ aka <distortion>

 Well it is more than that. I believe that a lot of fancy capacitors and tube amps with that warm sound really are adding distortion that many people find appealing. Some like blue others like brown.

Interesting view points, for sure.  When were talking amps, that's one thing, XOs or OXO is a different ball game. I split what goes where with
great concern in regards to what's in the signal path. A DSP is a great example. I use an OXO for 100-300 hz with DSP and all the goodies, but 300 hz and above I only use caps, coils, inductors, and resistors. It's the way all my systems are set up. Below 100 is GRs servo system, or a good low bass system. Usually columns..

The distortion you speak of is normally not introduced, but NOT controlled to a greater or lesser degree.  Pass labs is a great example.
There are amps with adjustable feedback.  Distortion is controlled by better caps (DC leakage), they doesn't add, unless they are BAD. At least the 4-6000 I've installed in 45 years of tinkering,  Why would you change them if not to improve the SOUND QUALITY.  I don't know..
To say you did.. Expensive habit for sure..

DSP is a wonderful, thing.. I don't care for it between me and GREAT sound though. I can get good, but not GREAT, or breathtaking, or memorable, just good.  A DSP in my system would kill the dynamics plane and simple. Planars will reveal everything that's NOT there, and every flaw that is. They are not forgiving AT ALL..

I hope you get to enjoy that.  Again EARS..take care of them, everyone..

Regards