Capacitors for BAT VK-60

Flemke - You installed the V-caps on 4/30. On 5/3 you report back saying that there is "no downside whatsoever once they are broken in" and that they need 400 hours to break in. Is that comment based on your experience? How did you get 400 hours on them so fast?

Rgurney,

As Flemke mentioned, those are my comments, reflecting V-Caps at 160 hrs in a VK75SE.

Who's amp is in my basement? It looks like my VK-75, but sounds about 3 levels up in performance. I have about 50 hours run time on the V-Caps. If you own a VK amp like the 75, I would strongly suggest doing this 30 minute swap-out. Go read all the comments on the V-Cap web page. They are all true. Sorry I don't go into details, it's all been said on the TFTF site.

Tim

Ed Sawyer,

I have tube rolled some very nice old stock 6sn7's.
None of the changes were even in the same ballpark of the V-Caps.

Tim

If you feel that V-caps TFTF are too high an investment, check out the Solen FEP TFTFs.

http://www.solen.ca/caps/fet.htm
Do note that these are the green ones, using same TFTF Tin Foil Teflon Film construction. They are also about 30% smaller than the V-caps with same values.

The blue ones are not the same in construction, not TFTF.
http://www.solen.ca/caps/fep.htm
Do note that they are rated at 450Vdc. The 1000Vdc ones are very expensive.

In another amp, we have done up quite a couple of tube amps with the V-caps, used as coupling caps. My own amp is done up with Solens, and 2 others as of now. My comment is that there is very little difference between them, maybe the V-cap is just that wee little bit more detailed and transparent. Both caps transform the stock amp dramatically, it is quite an improvement from the Mundorf Supremes that I changed out (already modded state). We also scoped the tube amp outputs at 1kHz and 10kHz, it looks very good and very much better than other the usual audiophile caps. I don't think you will notice any difference between V-cap/Solen TFTF unless your system is absolutely top-notch.

The Solens will be a very viable choice if your amp has quite a number of high uF caps to change out.

Yes I know Solen has a bad rep for its much lower cost Fastcaps, but this TFTF type from Solen simply bears no resemblance to its lower-range siblings.