VH Audio Vcaps

Sns, While some complain that V-Cap TFT sounds awful without long break-in, I agree with you that this point is overstated. IME TFT surpasses most everything else almost immediately, and then progresses though a long break-in cycle to relax, open up, and gain warmth.

Magfan, I'm currently breaking in Claritycap MR in a higher capacitance value for xover. This has been a nice step up from stock Hovland, and according to Tony Gee's evaluation, MR ranks closely with other top xover caps such as Mundorf & Duelund. However they are physically very large.

Reb,
I agree with your rating of REL TFT several steps down from V-Cap TFT. I was surprised to hear freshly installed V-Caps immediately surpass well broken-in REL TFT in my preamp. I've not yet tried Russian FT-series teflon caps in coupling positions, but have had good luck with them in bypass positions. FT-3s are physically large. For a more compact .11uf bypass cap, I've had good results with .1uf/400uf K40Y9 PIO bypassed by .01uf/200V FT-1 teflon. The steel leads of K40 should be cut off and replaced with better wire.

Yes, the Audio Circle thread touches almost everything, including sometimes overlooked Russian teflon/PIO/silver mica, Aura, Penta Labs, a close comparison between Mundorf SIO & Silver/Gold, and interesting experiments with bypass caps. The only caveat is that Jon L seems never to have met a cap he didn't like. But I like his analogy comparing coupling caps to speakers. He seems to prefer the clarity & control of stats over the warmth of cones, and by this measure teflon caps are generally the winners.

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/index.php?topic=54218.0

Perhaps somebody will lend him Claritycap MR or Duelund to evaluate. As the above video explains, the marketing buzz with these new caps is special construction to minimize internal resonance.

I'm about 50 hrs. into 6.1uf Clarity MR in tweeters of my Merlins, which is an advance over stock Hovland Musicap. More detail & air, better layering, wider & deeper soundstage, quieter background, & less strident.

If you have the space inside your LS for MR, they should easily surpass Hovland. I subsequently added a .01uf teflon bypass cap to MR.

Sherod, while MR sounds good cold, over 100 hrs soundstage opens & cap becomes supple, relaxed, airy, and natural. I have it in tweeter above 2200 hz. After 100 hours I made other changes to the system and lost track of MR development. I have another pair of MRs coming in for woofer and will track long break-in more closely on this go-round.