Question About Capacitor Upgrade in Tube Amp
Hi,
I am preparing to do a coupling capacitor upgrade on a recently purchased tube integrated amp. The two 0.22uF on the preamp tubes are fairly straight forward. But I noticed another similar model 0.33uF cap on the large filter capacitor for the B+ supply that is installed across the hot lead to ground.
Does this cap on the B+ just block high frequency noise from the power supply or does it have any effect on the amp tone? Is there any reason to "upgrade" this cap?
I know it may be hard to tell exactly what is going on without a schematic.
Also any recommendations on a good cap to use in the upgrade of the coupling caps? I was looking at Mundorf SilverGoldOil for the quality at not too crazy a price. The amp already sounds good but lacks a little clarity that I think a coupling cap swap will help with. It is SET 300B amp.
Thank you!
It's more complicated than just hanging a film cap across B+. If you assume the designer knew what he was doing, had good ears and related equipment, you could make things a whole lot worse by making willy-nilly changes. Too often audiophools make changes that make ZERO difference but think they have due to everyday occurrences like fatigue, humidity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, line voltage / noise, etc. etc. etc. |
I don't have any real experience modifying hifi gear so this will be my first attempt. I do not plan to change any cap values for the Willsenton R300 as the amp sounds good as is. Nice bass response etc. But I do believe the clarity can be improved with high quality coupling caps. The Muzishare X7 uses the same silver film coupling caps as the Willsenton versus the Muzishare X9 and X10 models which come factory equipped with Mundorf. I can definitely hear a difference in the clarity of vocals and the separation of instruments between the X7 vs the X9 and X10. So let's see how this upgrade works out once I get the parts. I do have experience building tube guitar amps....initially from kits and then some scratch builds for Fender and Marshall schematics. So I can say from those builds I could even hear a difference in cheaper caps such as Orange Drops vs Mallory 150s in those builds. And a lot of musicians will pay top dollar for some vintage BumbleBee PIO caps for their Les Paul guitars claiming an improvement in guitar tone. So there has to be something there. It cannot be all imaginary. But I take your point that often the expectation of an improvement colors our impression of whether or not an upgrade has really made a difference. |
I am glad that you see his point. I do not. He makes smug and arrogant assumptions about people he doesn’t even know. He has no awareness of the background and experience of contributing posters here (Who’ve provided insight and information). Audiophools? Who are they? Again an ignorant and dismissive assumption. Charles |
They are just words on a computer screen. Don't get mad at some LCD pixels. Unless you are on Twitter and someone tweets a nasty message at you! That would be different. Thems fighting words! I'm a gonna start a Twitter war! 😀 |
Another quick thought, from personal experience. If you are doing the work yourself, one part out, one part in. Take pictures of every section you are working on before you start and after you finish. Speaking from experience here. Didn’t do that on my first recap project. Nothing worse than being called away from the work, coming back and having a “oh crap, where does that go again…”
Please forgive the note if it’s already common practice, or if you are already comfortable with pulling every and then replacing everything. |
