Grannyring I think you will be correct. :)
I must admit though after getting back the 3rd Fisher from repair shop (today) I hooked it up and it took out an output transformer. It gets tiring.
It is now back in shop, might be coincidence. These old amps are from 51-60 years old. (I did stock extra output transformers)
For me these vintage amps are a love/hate relationship.
Years ago one caught fire! (Melted an output transformer) (amp I am still listening too)
Plus I was/am not a vintage guy look wise. These things were bought solely on sound as I was stunned when I first heard them. (Weaknesses but tone I had never heard in my life)
Keeping up 3 antiques amps to have 2 systems going.
Then on Saturday I went with my daughter and to a high end stereo store in Toronto. I try and get out and hear as many systems as I can. Her first comment (was a puzzled look) these sound like toys?... Things quickly come back to why I put up with antiques.
Just waiting on some vintage connectors and the Duelund tinned copper wire goes in second system and new tweeter RS caps.
I just can can not get over the tone Jack White gets out of his guitar...
I would know what I want in speakers.
Duelund internal wiring. Duelund RS (or CAST) AlNiCo drivers.
Duelund or wax paper inductors. NO Electrolytics.
Amp either a mix of VCap cuft, Jupiter Copper and Duelund RS and CAST or all Duelund.
Output transformers paper bobbin. I have one of my burned out output transformers. All paper. It is hard for me to imagine this is not a big deal better than plastic.
My vintage wax paper inductor in the speaker was quieter than the Duelund VSF inductor!
How can a paper output tranny not be quieter?
Anyone know where to buy this kind of stuff new save Audio Note?
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I can not comment on Duelund resistors my crossover has no resistors.
i would love this conversation to branch out into paper bobbin paper insulated output trannies vs. Plastic bobbins.
i am sure the plastic/nylon is a MUCH better product from a reliability point of view.
The discussion would be on sound.
I know paper in oil caps sound better tone wise I suspect paper wound transformers do. |
This thread started with me just baffled how a vintage amp got tone so right! Now coming up to 9 years.
Been a a lot of fun and some frustration with wasted money and unreliable vintage gear.
it is I suspect a series of sometimes just standard production of the day. Plastic was just not used so much years ago. |
Hi Eric and Grannyring
Yes like mom's cooking but I am not so sure they were so smart back then just the way they wound transformers.
Anyone else have paper bobbin and insulated transformers?
I am going to take one apart to see how many feet of paper? |
I hope this thread gets going again on who has paper bobbin output trannies?
My guess is 15 or more feet of paper in the transformer. That could be 15 ft of plastic. I can not imagine how that can be good! |
I uploaded as my profile pic a bunch of the vintage caps I have replaced.
They range from garbage to ok. The Vishay ERO West German made ones are ok great tone lack dynamics. The bubble gum ones that look hand made in a bad way are junk! |
I also uploaded or tried to pics of the amps. Getting in these caps I feel like a surgeon sometimes! All of the caps I have bought for the most part are being used. I have only a handful not used at all. |
Only the Jupiter Copper Foil. In my pic it has around 30 caps replaced. I did not put in the pic power supply and electrolytic caps. I know it would seem with old Fisher I am going for vintage sound but I was not. I just used old Fishers as they were pretty cheap then... Was not going to cut up old McIntosh's or Marantz amps. That being said Steve Hoffman has mentioned how good these old Fishers sound stock. With all new Duelund caps they are not even in the same league. MILES better! Steve Hoffman has McIntosh and Marantz as well and worth $16k. http://www.partsconnexion.com/capacitor_film_jupiter_copper600.html |
Eric I started with natural tone and then by changing caps increased the dynamics by a HUGE amount. Like going from antique to modern.
They do NOT sound old. Sometimes the new caps are 30x as big in volume. MUCH more dynamic.
I do not think many will spend close to $1k in caps in an old amp but it is the best $1k I have spent! |
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I have all the parts for a complete internal speaker rewire with Duelund.
After reading Jeff Day's site I am going to have to get some Duelund IC's which will be virtually my last plastic!
My second system was bought for back up parts really in case anything went in main system and in the beginning I did not listen to it much. That has changed A LOT!
In original part of thread I had one vintage amp redone. (Duleund where room Jupiter in tight fit) In second amp I threw the hodgepodge of caps in Duelund, Jupiter and VCap Cuft and Jensen and it sounds AWESOME even though my tech guy does not like it. He would like to see all the same caps in a circuit. Of course he would never redo an amp and put in a hodgepodge of caps, what would the customer think?
Almost nervous to put in the Duelund last two caps in amp and tweeter caps (sitting here) plus Duelund internal wiring as it will send the speakers off or better the main system!
Not sure which I am more nervous of setting things backward or having the second system best the first? Then trying to figure out why?!
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Removed 5' of internal cheap lamp cord internal wire and replaced with Duelund 16ga with better connectors. (including one terrible connector feeds signal through aluminum screw. Speaker cable still WE 16ga.
I did not replace tweeter caps yet with Duelund as that would be a huge change.
I just wanted to eval the wire.
Early impression with only doing one speaker so far is almost not stereo. Speakers sound very different from each other. |
Disorientating.
I was not expecting to even notice, maybe. The high freq is much clearer and much more. Feels hotter sounding.
This wire does sound like the WE 16ga has tipped the tonal balance of the speakers.
Better give some break in time. |
For anyone who stumbles on this.
Changing caps in an amp is low stress as it affects the whole signal compared to changing speaker caps, inductors or wires.
The crossover works in unison and any change throws things off. Maybe in a good way, maybe not?
In my case crappy internal wire paired with noisy vintage paper in oil tweeter caps was working good. Maybe neither part was good but each defect was ok together.
Now hopefully really open to maybe midrangy sounding Duelund 16ga wire paired with much quieter Duelund RS tweeter caps puts things back in balance and in a better way. |
I will be putting in the RS tweeter caps.
One thing about the Duelund 16ga it is not crazy expensive. My main system is Duelund Silver 2.0. I never felt the Silver needed to be tamed.
The Duelund is a little wild at this point hopefully it is vintage tweeter caps. |
In a blind test I ask my daughter who plays guitar which speaker sounded better? In her opinion the non Duelund 16ga speaker. She could hear the difference.
Yet there is much to like about the Duelund 16ga. Very dynamic super real mid-range yet almost too much...
Will the RS caps send things back and make for improvement in all ways? |
Thanks Grannyring
on 1) Duelund wire is getting better.
2) I can imagine this wire being fantastic or over the top.
I easily hear you on on the wire going from pull it out, to magnificent.
A interesting product for sure! I must say it does not even sound like other Duelund family wire. Of course this was a copy of WE16ga not solid copper or flat solid silver.
Duelund tweeter caps go in on Monday. |
A question to tube lovers. How long does a 12ax7 last? In particular a new 12ax7 Gold Lion or Psvane?
Mine are exactly 4 years old and could have 10,000 hours on them.
The tone is going off. |
I have been running 1 year on EL84 tubes Russian Military ones.
Gold Lion EL 84's did not last at all. They were frying in a few months.
i know many vintage 12ax7 lasted for decades but do the new ones?
Something is off. |
Schubert of the old Fisher amps I bought many were just because of those old tubes in case that was the reason the Fisher's sounded so good. |
Just curious Schubert have you listen to the new Gold Lions? 12ax7's?
I have RCA Mullard's Fisher branded Telefunken's and sound tested them against new Gold Lion's and found the Gold Lion's excellent.
Now that was new Gold Lions and I am not saying new tubes last as long as vintage tubes they might not? Part of the reason to try a new tube was to not wear out those priceless old tubes. I still have lots of them and they might go back in for a retest! |
C_avila1
I agree with grannyring. I can not say on Jupiter but I think Duelund uses different materials in electronic caps that are 600v.
All you need is 100v in speakers and they might even sound better as they are designed for speakers. Duelund is not all natural at 600v I think? |
Schubert you will be happy to hear I changed out all 6 new tubes and put back in the vintage and it does seem to be the problem.
My amp sounded like worn out power tubes but they are fairly new. Had to turn the treble way down a splashy worn out sound.
Maybe the new tubes do not last as long? |
Grannyring
"They use the same materials inside, but more material can have a slight impact on the sound"
I will look for the info on Duelund caps but I am pretty sure the 600v electronic caps use somewhat different materials to handle the higher volts. I can not say about other caps. I thought I read even the electronic caps are not all natural materials because they can't. |
Eric
can you clarify your comment on price of products devoid of reason? |
Two $5k amps the one on the tweeter was running through a <$2 tweeter capacitor. This leads me to believe we (some of us) are ok with more gear you can see than better parts you can not?
That must be visual value rather than sound value.
i have no doubt even 2 $20 tweeter caps would blow away a second $5k amp and save one $4960.00.
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Eric
Some of the oldest Fisher caps of the late '50's were really not much more than your hand made caps. They look like foil and paper hand rolled and dipped in some kind of epoxy. Loose tolerances of 10%.
The later Fisher's used machine made Vishay caps from West Germany and they are MUCH better.
Even the better Fishers of the same time frame like 400cx preamp (x202) used bigger beefier caps.
So bigger beefier albeit more expensive caps has been known for a long time.
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Schubert
I do not want to sound for or against old tubes. The Russian old military spec 7189 tubes were much better than the new Gold Lions 6bq5's I have/had.
They sound better and last last way longer.
I just wanted to know have you tried the Gold Lion 12ax7's?
They sounded great and maybe 10,000 hours is reasonable? Maybe not as long as vintage but my mindset might be to have the vintage for when you really care?
My Duelund gutted speakers and amp are not just used for HiFi but movies, TV and my daughter even plays video games on it. (And loves it)
Rare vintage tubes for TV and video games seems criminal!
That being said I have old 12ax7's that I am sure have more than 10,000 hours on them! |
Eric
Are you talking about boutique caps?
In the the beginning of this thread when purchasing Mundorf Supreme caps and Duelund VSF I went in with the mindset I had just thrown my money away. I could not believe the difference!
Then bought what was new at the time CAST caps for the tweeters. I was sure I would not hear the difference from already pricey VSF caps (people even said so at that level one can not tell difference) and when I hooked them up I thought I wired up something incorrect! Sooooo much less noise.
i just got back a Fisher 500c from my repair guy who is a great guy and does great work. Spent many hundreds on it and it sounds bad!
All run of the mill caps, electrolytics and resistors. Everything is "working" perfect.
He has a pair of Duelund VSF caps in the shop that are shot... He put them on the machine to show me. Obviously not impressed.
So he has a bias against boutique caps and their "value". I did say those were speaker caps that he pulled out of an amp and were NOT for electronics. (100v caps)
He likely pulled $400 worth of caps that were not working and replaced with <$20 that work fine.
So we all get where he is coming from.
He has also saw 1 or 2 of my Duelund caps leak oil. A Jensen Copper paper tube arc inside and a few leads fall off my Jupiter Copper Foil caps and both Ampohm caps leak.
So is he wrong to have a dim view of boutique caps?
He can of course not deal with this for repairs.
So what is value to him? Or any repair technician?
value to me?
Since The same guy has fixed up all three Fishers I have which is a run of the mill parts Fisher 500c vs. Hotrod Fisher's I will be testing and retesting the "value" of around $1k per amp in caps.
So far for tone and dynamics it's lights out great value to me!
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Eric
i agree! When you mentioned value you struck a cord on the very reason this thread was started!
I was looking for caps and this or that person was saying things like all capacitors sound the same for the same capacitance?
So in theory then every HiFi company should just use the same cheapest cap?
You mentioned a key point about cost of manufacturing vs. selling price.
How is the manufacturer compensated for the tedious process of actually listening and evaluating?
The repair guy would find us all frustrating your comment about $200 worth of caps destroying $200 worth of the same brand of caps. To him you were nuts in the first place then really nuts again.
I think his feeling on us is it is all personal taste and not real qualative difference.
I think the importance of threads like this is establishing common generally accepted consensus on what is good and what is not then volume of manufacturing can respond.
To me the Duelund RS series (and according to Tony Gee) is a go to cap of good "value" (by no means cheap) now that it is produced in somewhat volume and prices were lowered.
The note you struck IS what this thread was all about what is the relative "value" of your higher quality parts you have used?
How ow do you place the "value" on your clarity caps vs. other money you have spent?
At at one point in time I was bi-amp'ing with two $5k SS amps and I am not even sure it was better?! VERY poor "value" to me!
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Eric
Would really like to hear your best "value" improvements?
I think Grannyring and mine were both removing crappy connectors. My speakers had the signal going through an Aluminum screw could not believe how much a difference that made for no money really! |
Now on the Fisher 500c it started awful with soooo many new parts but is getting much better.
Only fair to give substantial break in.
Test and retest. |
I agree with Grannyring on many new exciting parts.
The internet and threads like this have really changed audio. The world wide market has opened competition to supply to enthusiasts with these parts.
to Eric
Value can be something like Duelund 16ga tinned copper wrapped in cotton. Not expensive at all and I think cheaper than any Duelund wire ever. Is it not the internet, threads like this or blogs like Jeff's place that give consensus (somewhat) to value?
Eric like your recommendation for the lower cost Mundorf caps being good value.
it is very hard now for a company to have high prices to low value with a bunch of people like everyone who has posted here. You get found out pretty quick!
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At the beginning of this thread I felt in the dark.
sometimes I wasted money reading ads on caps etc. As time went on through recommendations my cap choices narrowed to the likes of Duelund, Jupiter, Jensen and VCapCuft and I am using every single one of them now, some I like more than others but none of those are anything but very good! |
Schubert
The Gold Lions were two matched sets with date codes 2011 and 2012.
The ones in use for 4 years are worn out sound not as good as the old tubes I have. One set maybe 10,000 hours the other 7500.
The Psvane's 12ax7's are clearly not worn out at this time with in between the other two pairs.
I liked the sound of Gold Lion's better but they might not last as long. The Psvane's in first test sound as good as vintage, easily. |
Just installed my second set of speakers Duelund RS tweeter caps. They have sat here for a month or so.
Not sure why I waited? Busy and maybe some fear these might not be the huge improvement they were on my first set of speakers, years ago... |
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The old vintage aluminum foil in oil cans are out. They sloshed when you shook them, so no resonance control at all. Replacing the caps with Duelund RS again sounds like completely different speakers. The vintage caps are extremely alive. The problem again this is too much resonance. So far it has been just like many years ago. It was not easy (years ago) to replace the original caps and maintain the foil in oil sound until Duelund VSF caps went in. The other caps then poly caps changed the sound extremely. (plasticized the sound) My wife (years ago) did a double blind test of Sonic Caps vs. vintage and was utterly shocked at the difference and chose the vintage caps... She thought I did a great thing! Problem was she was picking the vintage oil caps... Duelund RS, juicy detail, listener fatique way down, natural sounds. MASSIVE cut in noise. More relaxing grown up sound. Vintage oil caps, things sound like a lively noisy rock concert even when you know it was recorded in a studio, noisy high freq with loss of control of high freq. Listener fatique. In short bursts maybe the most alive sound ever? Could any vintage cap (Western Electric etc) of any era sound like Duelund RS? I can not imagine it? Was anyone using resonance control? Vintage caps certainly no bargain. Better I would like to know how? Other than vintage. Certainly a large group like WE wire but general consensus is Duelund better. I have both but have not compared. The Duelund now sounds very good with Duelund RS tweeter caps. http://www.hifitown.com/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=179 |
I am glad to see on Jeff's Yazaki-san mention his old Marantz 7 pre-amp and the power supply cap. (Mallory)
In one of my old Fisher amps (I was going to part out) has (what looks like a late 70's early 80's) Mallory power supply caps which I am going to take out to keep. I have taken out all the old tubes.
I have mentioned on here before about struggling to replace old power supply caps with new electrolytic caps. I had replaced a vintage one with Jensen and did not go well put the old one back in. (thank goodness I did not replace due to being finished)
I am glad Audio Note is working on a replacement for the famed Black gates WKZ.
Even Jimmy on Jimmy's junkyard was working on new cap.
I have mentioned before I am worried when mine go bad. I can not find a good replacement.
I am glad others are working on suitable electrolytic cap replacements! |
I uploaded some pics of the man cave.
We have a set of Pearl Drums in the basement. I use them now for sound comparisons with the speakers. I have to admit the sound is close but real drums have more energy than speaker reproduced sound.
I wish I would have got a Duelund CAST woofer inductor over VSF. I think it would have close the gap from already very good to more energy. |
Hi Rob
He sure does sound like a top notch person!
Did he mention why he thought the Mallory sounded better?
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Sorry about incorrect spelling of Yazaki-san... My apologies did not look at what I typed. :( |
I have posted pics in my virtual system of some of the experiments and meltdowns of the last few years.
As I bet the vintage power supply caps are a reason for the sound as Yazaki-san has mentioned, I too believe so is the paper bobbin output transformers.
I have posted a pic of the downside of paper... (fire!) That is the output transformer that caught fire in my basement! Another one just shorted out.
The junky x202 with the ASC power supply is posted as well. Sounded different than vintage power supply. Can not comment as I did not hear that "same" amp with vintage power supply. I know you are looking at the rough x202 but I am not going to test a poly power supply in a nice vintage amp! (hacking it up like that)
A mint Fisher 500c all restored. I have the missing cap cover and correct volume knob. Amp builder called it a 9 to 9.5.
I am going to do a nice looking mounting board for the Lascala's and will post pics. |
Grannyring I do not think you can buy the Mallory caps anymore?
I will post pics of mine, which I have not heard. I do not think Mallory was so special just still making vintage power supply caps in the can like 50's and 60's and would have worked in the Marantz 7 kit.
The ones I have are replacement for original in an old Fisher EL84 Receiver. I believe same era as Yazalde-san's.
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Grannyring I have uploaded a pic of the Mallory cap I have in an unused amp I am going to take parts out of.
I have uploaded a pic of my one amp. It was like surgery getting those caps in there! Duelund VSF where the room was thin. Duelund RS and CAST where room. Jupiter on the phono stage again room was a big factor.
Original power supply cap was replaced with Jensen Electrolytic and then vintage was put back in after a month... Yikes... Dry sounding. I have not found one good new electrolytic cap. (sound wise)
I think that is a Jensen small electrolytic or Black Gate in main amp... The only electrolytic in amp! Which always seems to be a good thing...
I am going to upload some of the experiments pics of over the last few years.
Kind of embarrassed in some ways the time that was spent on this. A vintage Fisher x202 with ASC can caps in the power supply. Major surgery and a deck made to hold the huge caps!
Ugly amp in rough shape so never intended to be main amp. Just came with a vintage wood case to use for my x101-st.
My second amp is loaded with 2nd choice caps which are still very good! |
Pic should be in my system. |
My first major screw up could be days away! :)
I am recapping my now non functional Linn Karik transport.
Rubycon caps. |
Full set of Gold Lion 12ax7's wanted to retest them against the vintage.
Notice more bass vs. RCA. Initial tone was not as good though in first few minutes.
I have sung the praises of the Gold Lions like many others but they were worn out in 3 years 10k Hours. |
Replaced electrolytic's in CD transport. Did not wreck it but did not fix it either so no comment on sound difference. |
In my opinion Audioman there is absolute better as you mentioned, foil vs. plastic then in fine tuning it can be synergy of every part in the system which can be what works best in synergy.
Jupiter does not make 2.2uf Copper Foil 100v cap that I used in my speakers. The smallest is 3.3uf and it is $200
At my size Duelund RS 2.2 uf is $182.
I keep hearing that Jupiter is much cheaper and it is in the .01uf size and I have some of those but over the range there is not much difference? (except in low uf)
I find in small values the Duelund RS to be more dynamic than Jupiter and are physically bigger. (albeit more expensive)
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