B&W 803D crossover caps

B&W itself did "downgrade" from Supreme Silver Gold to an "inedited" Supreme Oil, without silver, and the general consensus is the 803 D2 sounds much better in the treble range than the D, much smoother (and still not enough...maybe the problem is Mundorf?).

I don’t know if replacing a silver cap with another silver cap, but with oil, is worth the money an the work; @dhl93449 please, I ask you to tell me the changes you had in hf so I can have some elements to make my decision easier (better to say less hard).

@stoni chaged the B&W custom 51uF Supreme Oil in his 803D2 with SGO, then he had to make another work to change tw cap again (with a Jensen Duelund if I remember well), it is clear he was not satisfied from the upgrade (iscit a real upgrade, with these diamond tweeters?) from an (aluminium?) oil cap to a silver gold oil cap, since the latter highlights high frequencies and may mask the other parts of the spectrum.

In a well tuned and high quality system (in mine, electricity and source are near to state-of-the-art, with a power regenerator followed by isolation trasformers for each machine and a divine Accuphase DP700 SACD player, cables are near to the best Cardas ever made, Luxman 509u integrated is not the best amp in the world but if you read Uday Reddy’s Soundstage! 2009 review maybe you may hurry to find an used one, or to buy the new 509x) a SGO capacitor could sound without harshness afterall.

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t listen now with harshness in the highs (only some selected albums make me struggle, for example Genesis’ "Selling England by the pound" or Joe Satriani’s "The Extremist", and I know even these albums could sound better, and all the music with them), I have simply reached speakers limits and I want to go on in my audiophile journey of (personal and equipment’s) improvement.

Another idea could be to use the Supreme EVO Oil in all positions: 4.7uF tw coupling, 47uF mr coupling and 10uF mr bypassing, and EVO Oil on the woofers.

Or 4.7uF Supreme Evo Oil in tw coupling and 10uF in mr bypassing, Evo Oil both in mr coupling (47uF) and in woofer caps (2x100), to make something similar to the original project of both D and D2.

The only truth is one should have to try, not reasoning "on the paper" ... !

I had a change in my system I did not tell you until now...
A (deplorable in my opinion) technician repaired my Purepower putting inside it Claritycap SA caps instead of the original taiwanese Fu-Jack caps (they seem Panasonic or Vishay clones) without telling me before, maybe because he had that caps in stock, without need for ordering a 10uF 500V (for the power stage, right after power inlet) Panasonic and a 2uF 600V (for battery recharge system) Vishay caps.
Now I have the impression of a tonal shift towards mid-highs.

The Humble Honemade Hifi comparison tells the Claritycap make sound shift towards clarity, since Panasonic is the most neutral cap in its range, it does not highlight anything.

Do you think I have to make another technician replace the Claritycap SA in my regenerator with Panasonic and Vishay (since there is no Panasonic cap under 10uF), and only after that to think at speakers recapping?

Many thanks

" This kind of amp cap coupled output is very rare to have. I take it it’s tube with no output transformer, but with capacitor coupling instead, I would just get an OTL myself but??"

Not as rare as you think. Did you know the Bryston BDA-1/2/3 all have Al electrolytic (surface mount) coupling caps in their outputs? Along with I think their preamps, even current production. Their engineers are concerned with the small amount of DC offset their class A discrete amps produce (10 - 20 mV), ergo the caps. Using a 10-30 uFd film coupling cap is out of the question for them, as it's size and cost would be prohibitive.

Bryston does not parallel a film cap with these Al Elct caps in the output stages, due to the lack of compact surface mount film versions (poly pro are very rare in surface mount), and NPO ceramics are outrageously expensive. 

In my new BDA-3, I removed the Elect caps and put in a surface mount shorting bar. The small DC offset is easily handled by my Parasound JC2 preamp and its DC offset servo controllers. Made a significant difference in sound quality. I have been in contact with Bryston Eningineering and urged them to put in DIP switches so that users have the option of shorting out those caps if they have downstream circuitry that can handle the offsets. 

Not as rare as you think. Did you know the Bryston BDA-1/2/3 all have Al electrolytic (surface mount) coupling caps in their outputs?

I said amps, they are preamps, and yes many preamps and sources are cap coupled, but they don't need anywhere near the size cap an amp does so one only good quality film cap will do them, again never by-pass them.

Cheers George

George:

You miss the point. I just explained that film caps are often not an option when the manufacturer is using surface mount technology for the components. Plus, the proper size poly pro film cap will physically not fit in a 1U chassis and is extremely expensive to boot. Polyester (mylar) caps are smaller, but are not as good as polypropylene.

biggy:

I am currently using all Silver Gold Oil Mundorfs; either Supreme versions (TW coupling, MR bypassing) or EVO (not Supreme) versions (MR coupling), except for the bass LF crossovers, which are bone stock. As mentioned, the harshness I believe is from the FST MIDRANGE, not the tweeter. If you want to de-emphasize the tweeter, you can increase the resistor in series with it. Replacing that MKP 47 uFd with EVO oil or EVO SGO will make a major difference, so I would start there and then listen to the results. I would not go in and wholesale replace multiple caps and resistors. Adding the anti vibration weight from the 800/802 can make another significant difference. You can see this in the midrange driver replacement video on the B&W parts website.

I put little importance into those cap reviews that rate plain "oil" with Al metallization with silver or silver/gold. Too many variables that may or may not apply to my personal system. When I have compared oil vs SGO in preamp outputs and DAC outputs, I have always like the SGO. 


As I said, try the "oil" versions first and see if you like them. They are the cheapest version and if they are better for you than SGO, then you are ahead of the game. But be aware that swapping these caps is not easy, and pulling and re-installing the crossovers is time consuming.