The Capacitor Abyss-yes, can it get any better?

I admit to having experienced on several occasions, what is referred to here as 'capacitor break in'. In one instance the difference (to my ears - no measurements taken), was so profound that I thought the unit in question was faulty. I was very puzzled by this phenomenon, and the unit in question returned to what I believed was full health (and better) in about a week of on-off listening. (the change to this unit was the replacement of all 4 main PSU electrolytics - nothing else). The unit was one I really know the sound of, so much so that I could tell it apart from other units that I own, so it seemed very clear to me when it sounded 'different' - maybe 'apparently different', or not?

So, I experienced it, and was very puzzled about what I was hearing, and I assumed at the time it was actually 'capacitor break in'. But having heard the arguments one way or the other, I am perfectly prepared to admit that it could have been entirely psychological and that I was 'taken in' by this phenomenon just like so many others appear to have been. It is a sobering thought to admit that one can have been so beguiled and 'taken in' by such a thing.

I now have an open mind, a 'blank slate' on this subject, I am prepared to be convinced one way or the other - but at the moment I am afraid the 'capacitor break in believers' are losing the fight, due mainly to the lack of presentable evidence.
 
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I'm going to accept that we can't measure everything. Conrad mentioned 14 nanometer stuff in a recent post. Well an electron is 5 femtometers in diameter, which is 6 orders of magnitude SMALLER, plenty of room for those valuable electrons to move around in different ways due to many different reasons.

That is a non-sequitur.

If you are claiming new laws of physics or new properties of matter you need to provide a testable theory for these new laws and new properties. Certainly at a minimum some scientific evidence of an effect which can later be explained. That's how science works.

Again, how can this phenomenon be real if it is only audiophiles claiming it without any supporting data from instruments?
 
When the Elna simicII line came out there was data sheets that distributors used. This is proven by my link of 100hrs per their (elna) technology per users of same to as few as 20-30 hours on TOL amps! I can assure that elna posted break in but perhaps that has been improved.

It should be understood that if you test 'one' cap.. who knows. but replacing an audio path as is I'm referring to and you cannot ignore the many many techs who repaired audio path with elna simicii and took hours of restore break in etal repairs noted.

Okay... you get an amp that needs preamp section repaired? I'll buy the caps for the entire audio path caps. you provide the service caps. And lets see.
bink :D
 
Errr, are you disputing my statements as to the mythological effects of break-in? Because that's what my comments above were about. Or are you responding to something else. Prior to that we were discussing the effects of frequency, voltage, and temperature on capacitance, a subject of papers from manufacturers and researchers.

You're an engineer so you know that if a sonic difference is audible (and detectable better than random) than it can most definitely be measured on a distortion analyzer. If one can't measure that difference then it doesn't exist. A statement with which I trust the engineers here will agree. Hence my statement about break-in.
Retro - So what are your qualifications here? I've been reading your posts for months now and you always go off in a long diatribe about....whatever.
 
Okay... you get an amp that needs preamp section repaired? I'll buy the caps for the entire audio path caps. you provide the service caps. And lets see.
bink :D

I never said capacitors didn't have sonic effects. Never, ever, ever. In fact, I've said the contrary: I don't use PIOs or electrolytics in the signal path because they cause distortion.

What I said is there is no break-in period, period.
 
Retro - So what are your qualifications here? I've been reading your posts for months now and you always go off in a long diatribe about....whatever.

Not relevant.

The issue is data proving capacitor break-in. That doesn't exist. Stop distracting from the issue and engaging in ad hominem attacks.

Where are the plots from a distortion analyzer (or comparable piece of analytical equipment) demonstrating that the capacitor's properties change over tens of hours of this purported "break-in"? They do not exist.
 
When the Elna simicII line came out there was data sheets that distributors used. This is proven by my link of 100hrs per their (elna) technology per users of same to as few as 20-30 hours on TOL amps! I can assure that elna posted break in but perhaps that has been improved.

That data was for two different categories of failure and proves nothing about burn-in phenomenon that audiophiles claim exist.

You have not produced anything from Elna showing that the capacitor's properties change over time and stabilize after tens of hours. You haven't even explained which properties are the ones changing with time. Why is it only audiophiles making these claims?
 
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Your position, if I correctly understand it, is that your ears are so magical they can hear the difference in distortion between (a) a newly installed capacitor and (b) one that was "broken-in" with 40 hours of use, that one of them thar new-fangled distortion analyzers can't detect because those sonic properties are detectable with the human ear but are somehow not measurable with an instrument thousands of times more sensitive, accurate, and repeatable than the human ear?
Blue - Let me try again here. Retro, I am talking about the dynamic action of a capacitor. A "new-fangled distortion analyzer" or any distortion analyzer has to use a static reading. You pick a freq, tune it out with a sharp band-stop filter then read the remains. But it's only a STATIC reading. For example, I have found that the "warm" tube sound that occurs somewhere in the upper Bass, lower Mid region. So I did an experiment. I played a song through my mixing console and blindly tuned the parametric EQ until I heard the "warmth". It occurred at approx. 300Hz. Now using a freq. response sweep of the amp. in question, (again, static measurements) it shows a very smooth response at and around 300Hz, yet there is a dynamic change while playing music through it.
I find coupling caps to work the same way. The sound at first is just OK, but after X amount of time (approx.10 hrs.), the sound opens up and changes for the better. I don't think it's in my head at all and I am a skeptic. I'm not looking for it, it just happens, usually when I'm not listening seriously. Not everything can be proven using science. Can you prove you love someone?
 
You're being fooled. Don't feel bad, so am I. The whole purpose of an audio system is to fool you into believing some musical performance is in your immediate presence. The fact that the system is fairly successful at the task should be a red flag that we're easily fooled.

I have other tests without the limitations described. If somebody wanted to pick a part and see if it suffered from break-in phenomena, those tests would be likely to reveal it. The problem is a null result would just keep the door open, as a negative is near impossible to prove. Physical changes can almost always be proven by science. Why would they not?
 
I just got off the phone with Elna America. Yes, I called the manufacturer to settle this issue. You can too.

The technical support employee informed me that there is no such thing as break-in for any of its capacitors, including the SIMLIC, and that this is utter nonsense. Elna has no literature, white papers, or technical papers showing any such thing, and it never did. The tech confirmed that 1,000 hour number is for reliability, stability, and failure rates, both in service and on the shelf, it has nothing to do with any change in capacitor properties over time. Those do not change.

This is all as I stated. You may call and verify this for yourself. Please report your findings if you claim they are different. Because if that paper exists, then Elna can supply it. It told me the purported paper on the subject does not exist and never existed because the phenomenon is not real.

Elna has an approved distributor list which is not authorized to produce any materials of its own, only to redistribute those created by Elna. No other literature could have been distributed because Elna does not permit it.

The tech also informed me that a large gray market exists of counterfeiters in Russia and China manufacture capacitors and brand them with Elna logos. These create fake literature as well, which may contain break-in claims. None of this is approved.

Having said that, that fake literature has not been produced. NO literature has been produced, other than what I posted. This is because the other literature does not exist.

The phenomenon is not real. It is wishful thinking. It is pathological and delusional.

Elna America's contact information is available here: http://www.elna-america.com/contact.php

If you have any doubts, please call Elna America and verify that what I've written is 100% true and accurate.

I have done everything I can to prove the negative here. It is incumbent upon believers to supply this mythical paper and provide some data.
 
Retro, I am talking about the dynamic action of a capacitor. A "new-fangled distortion analyzer" or any distortion analyzer has to use a static reading. You pick a freq, tune it out with a sharp band-stop filter then read the remains. But it's only a STATIC reading. For example, I have found that the "warm" tube sound that occurs somewhere in the upper Bass, lower Mid region. So I did an experiment. I played a song through my mixing console and blindly tuned the parametric EQ until I heard the "warmth". It occurred at approx. 300Hz. Now using a freq. response sweep of the amp. in question, (again, static measurements) it shows a very smooth response at and around 300Hz, yet there is a dynamic change while playing music through it.

You may try a Carver-style test. Take a new capacitor, play a sample through it, capture the spectrum for that sample. Whatever sample you like. Run the capacitor for n hours. Repeat the test and capture the spectrum. Subtract the new from the old. Whatever remains is the difference. This has the entire frequency domain over the time range. If the delta exists, this will identify it.

I find coupling caps to work the same way. The sound at first is just OK, but after X amount of time (approx.10 hrs.), the sound opens up and changes for the better. I don't think it's in my head at all and I am a skeptic. I'm not looking for it, it just happens, usually when I'm not listening seriously. Not everything can be proven using science. Can you prove you love someone?

This is your brain changing.

If you are saying something is happening with the capacitor you need to have some data other than your perception that it magically changed when you least expected it. Watched pots boil at exactly the same rate as unwatched ones.
 
Sigh. That is so very, very true, and it is unfortunate.

ConradH and I were last discussing (few pages back) about alterations in capacitance from voltage, temperature, and temperature from a physics and materials basis. He and I have deeply studied these issues and have some sort of appreciation for the physics and materials involved. But that science keeps being drowned out by these "my ears are more accurate than a distortion analyzer" arguments which always devolve into ad hominen attacks on science and engineering.

It should be a law: The magikal claims by the purported audiophile that "golden ears" can detect tiny signal variations which the finest instruments cannot, where such variations notably defy the laws of physics, and the associated unmeasurable and unverifiable access to a secret world, is the source of the audiophile's power over others.

We have access to instruments. Really, really, really good ones! Labs full of them, in fact. With installations all over the world. Yet nobody, not even the adherants of these magikal abilities, has ever produced a break-in plot showing how the capacitor's response somehow so substantially changes over tens of hours that the sound is audible. Which means it has to be at least 0.25 dB. That is because this proof cannot be produced. It does not exist.

It is not incumbent upon the engineers to prove a negative, it is incumbent upon the party asserting a new property of materials to prove it, and do so in an objective, repeatable, and verifiable manner. This is how science, and peer-reviewed publications, work.

If capacitor break-in were real, it would be a new kind of physics. Everyone would be rushing to study this, because it would be Nobel Prize level research. Certainly would get the researcher tenure, and that's the big goal in academia. Nobody studies this purported "break-in" because it isn't real.


I am not as gungho that science and instrument is more reliable than human ears, I am more questioning about the limitation of how the instruments are set up and interpretative the data. I spent a lot of time explaining in my post #433 about IM that creates new frequencies. The most common is to use two tone test using only 2 frequencies f1 and f2( say f1=1KHz, f2=1.1KHz). If an amp produce distortion, you will get on top of f1 and f2 at the output, you also get f1+f2(2.1KHz), f2-f1(100Hz) , 2f1-f2(900Hz), 2f2-f1( 1.2KHz) and so on and on and on.

To me, this is very important for people to realize. That you actually creates new frequencies like this. Music is not just 2 frequencies, it consists of thousands of frequencies at the same time. If you think about IM and new frequencies created by an imperfect amp, you literally creates a "floor" of sound from the original frequencies of the music. That "floor" of cause, is in sync with the music, this create a background that add to the music. Maybe the golden cap in the right position creates certain distortion that adds to the music in a good way!!!! Who knows.

I think this is where the "golden ears" comes into play. People might like how the "floor" make the music sounds to them, it's like adding something to enhance the original music. Of cause with bad harmonics, a bad amp can destroy the music!!! I think the usefullness of instrument end on this......to determine the "floor" that enhance the music or ruin the music.

That said, I think there are a lot of psychosomatic, false believes, and adapting that make human ears just as if not more unreliable than instruments. I really don't know what to think.

That's why I decided to design my first amp to be ultra low THD to prevent the "floor" as much as possible. But of cause, low THD has to be view in the whole system. I put in a lot of effort also in experimenting in speaker cables. My finding is speaker cable create a lot of THD when driving a non linear load like speakers. People that say low THD does not mean anything need to examine their cables. All the low distortion of the amp will be null by an inferior cable that add back all the distortion. I did and report this topics extensively here and I won't bore people to repeat again. When doing comparison test of my amp with the Nakamichi Stasis, I found my amp ( low THD) has more clarity, separation and "quieter". BUT with one singer that has very simple background music, the Nakamichi actually sounded better, sweeter. But for jazz and big band and music with a lot of different instruments, my amp shines because you can hear each instrument better. So which amp is better also depends on what music you like.

I think sound is a very complex subject with so many variables. Instead of arguing about which one is more accurate, I concentrate on how to get away from exotic component by trying to understand the condition and try to design to bypass them. That's why I spent a lot of time writing post #437 in pick out the problem identify the problem and find a cheap solution......Again, I born cheap.
 
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@Retrovert

I read one of your initial posts on this topic a few pages back, and I sensed anger.

Your attitude is condescending. Your words are provocative and insulting to anyone who happens to disagree with you on this issue. You repeatedly complain about "ad hominem attacks", when in reality you are the one causing rancor in this discussion.

What gentlemen do in a situation like this is agree to disagree. ConradH has no trouble stating his case without insulting or provoking others. Perhaps you could learn something from his poise and calm demeanor. Unless it is your intention to insult and provoke, in which case you are doing a fantastic job.

You have stated your case, and said the same things over...and over...and over. You have made clear your disdain for those who do not agree with you. You have subverted one of AK's most enjoyable and educational threads, and turned it into a battle ground. Please let it rest. There will be those who disagree with you, so be it. There is nothing you can do to change that.
 
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@Retrovert

I read one of your initial posts on this topic a few pages back, and I sensed anger.

Your attitude is condescending. Your words are provocative and insulting to anyone who happens to disagree with you on this issue. You repeatedly complain about "ad hominem attacks", when in reality you are the one causing rancor in this discussion.

What gentlemen do in a situation like this is agree to disagree. ConradH has no trouble stating his case without insulting or provoking others. Perhaps you could learn something from his poise and calm demeanor. Unless it is your intention to insult and provoke, in which case you are doing a fantastic job.

You have stated your case, and said the same things over...and over...and over. You have made clear your disdain for those who do not agree with you. You have subverted one of AK's most enjoyable and educational threads, and turned it into a battle ground. Please let it rest. There will be those who disagree with you, so be it. There is nothing you can do to change that.
Roger - Thank you so much for your comments. He had me thinking it was me. (Is this guy Donald trump? He sure acts like him.) Let's end this Retro.
 
Retro, you have dissolved a 24 page thread with attacks and anger. This thread is closed and under review.
Really?
Jim
 
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Thread reopened. Offensive member has a vacation from this thread. Maintain Speed and Heading Folks!
Regards,
Jim
 
Make it a short time out... NYC is prob. hotter'n hell and who knows.. :D
No skin off my nose and welcome to post anytime.

This is why the thread from the beginning was coined/ called the 'abyss'.
 
I think everyone is guessing here. I am sure guessing with my limited experience. I am just trying to make sense from the golden ears into scientific theory, make assumption, put it out here and let people comment on it. Then we all learn. I think BOTH have their place here, you cannot explain by only one or the other.

Ha ha, more importantly, I am trying my best to find ways to use cheap parts instead of exotic parts by understanding what is the reason and circumventing it. As I said, I am born cheap and I am not willing to pay a penny more than I have to!!!:rflmao::rflmao::rflmao:

Hey, I made my El Cheapo speaker cable from talking and talking here. $30 for my cable and I am still super happy after two months.

Sometime, no matter how much you disagree with someone's opinion, you always have to sit back and give it a possibility that the person can be right. I remember in my Cable thread, I was hot on the trod already, Shelly_d suggested something and I was kind of defensive. But I sad back and said to myself, what's wrong of giving it a try......Shelly_d WAS RIGHT!!!! I was wrong!!! You never know, it was not comfortable, but that's life, I rather get the result than to be dead right!!!

As much as I am a strong advocate of ultra low THD amp, I am planning to buy the kit to build a Nelson Pass Aleph. It is known that Pass does not worry about THD, I got the simulation program on DIYaudio of the Aleph and simulated and showed it is very high THD. I want to hear what am I missing. Maybe I am missing the moon if I insist on my opinion.
 
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The missing member mentioned that the sonic differences I heard, (horrible sounding preamp getting better after about 10 hours to the point of an ability to listen to the unit, yes it was that bad, I didn't want to listen to it) was not break-in but a cap possible self repairing. Conrad has mentioned capacitor forming as something that could affect the sound. The caps in question were Clarity MR which are not electrolytic so I don't know how much reforming they would do or need. As coupling caps in a tube unit they were under higher voltage than most (all) the caps in a solid state unit.

In both these cases, I will call this break-in no matter what it is. I'm not instrumenting these start ups to determine exactly what is going on, I just know it sounds different between first turn on with new components and later on. No way for me to know since I can't measure the event.

Is there any reason to consider these sonic differences something other than break-in when done for a new install (of the caps and such)?


Thank you, Jim for getting the cars back on the track.
 
I never heard you amp in question, I cannot validate or invalidate what you said. But it is not my experience with caps. Maybe you should buy another cap and see whether you can repeat this or not. Provide the part number if you buy from a distributor, maybe someone here can repeat the experiment.

Is this just a DC blocking cap or for tone control? It would be more believable if it is in the tone control circuit. What value is it?

As for coupling cap like in my example in post #437, it is ONLY the lowest frequency that gets affected, not the mid and the highs. There is no reason to affect the mid and the highs. Even assume the cap was half the value as the marking at the beginning, you might hear the difference below 100Hz or 200Hz max. Anything over that should not be affected at all.

Is it possible your ears had a bad day. I did have days that nothing sounded right and went back to normal later. Don't rule that out. I have days that I thought my system sounded like crap too. We are only human.


Honestly, I posted in this forum a few times already, I could not tell any difference before and after I recap my Nakamichi Stasis PA-7. I looked at the old cap with the scope and at least two of them needed changing. To be honest, if I know the outcome, I would not have wasted $130 changing the caps. AND the stupid of me, it was a discontinue sale in Mouser, I bought 8 more!!! Now they are just sitting there doing nothing!!!!
 
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