Anybody familiar with Mundorf silver&oil caps
Ralph....if it's useful for you you: http://www.duelundaudio.com/DIY/VSF/index.htm They're promoted specifically for Loudspeakers so I'm not sure how useful that is for you. Cheers! Robert RSAD |
I have experience with the Duelund, V-cap, Mundorf and Sonicap in cross-over applications. I have tried using Mundorf and and V-cap in by-pass configuration for output caps on my preamp. V-cap and Duelund are massive caps, and generally will not match the space constraints of an existing circuit. If you have a lot of extra space, or can otherwise accommodate them the V-cap is excellent (after about 600 hours!) The Duelund are further limited by their 100 volt design. The Mundorf Silver in oil and Sonicap will generally be a much easier swap, and both are excellent caps. You will have no need to by-pass these cap, but I have found they make for an excellent by-pass caps .22uF or smaller for a large existing cap. This might be an option to explore. Robert, I found the Duelund to be the most musical of the four. The V-cap is a great cap, and if you prefer an "audiophile" analytical sound, the V-cap may be more to your liking. I am not saying the V-cap is not natural or sounds electrical or non-musical, no not at all. They are a great cap, but I found over a few thousand hours of listening, and then swapping the Duelund/ V-Cap the Duelund was much more real and richly musical. I personally feel the Duelund is the best capacitor made, and I was very impressed with the people and dedication to the hobby; "very much like you and your passion for music." The Mundorf Silver in oil is the best value, and if it lags behind the top two, it is not by much. The Mundorf gold in oil was a great disappointment. It tends to lack the bass definition and low end extension. This cap should only be considered as a .01uF by-pass cap in a system needing toning down on the top end, and in a system that will not suffer by losing a bit of bass. The Sonicap might be considered the best high voltage cap of the group, but in a low voltage cross over the Duelund was my choice. I did not try the Sonicap in a high voltage location, but a friend has and it is very musical. Unfortunately I have not compared it with the Mundorf in a high voltage application so I can not add anything but my best guess. If I were looking into a high voltage application, I would look at the Sonicap and the Mundorf Silver in oil as the top brands. My guess is the Sonicap will be a bit more refined and a bit smoother, and a lot more expensive:-) Please understand these comments are all relative, and the differences are very small. All four (or five with the gold) are amazing capacitors. The differences are in level of fine detail and/or musicality. In other words, musicality. jd Jade Audio, LLC |
jd, For what it's worth, Mundorf and several users I've spoken to regard the Silver/Gold as more neutral than the Silver/Oil cap(or put another way, it is less exaggerated in the bass region.) Also, the Silver/Gold is not an oil cap, and is rated to a higher temperature that the Silver/Oil. This may be important in a hot chassis. |
Hi Jade. Thank You for the detailed overview. Kind of you! Interesting your experiences mirror my suspicions between the V-Cap and Dueland VSF. I'm anxious to form my own impressions. Being that both caps are foil types (which I generally prefer over metalized types), I'll definitely condition them on our 'dharma for about 168 hours before I make any serious comparisons. I did this with the Mundorf caps and that settled them very nicely - certainly beyond what the music system could do by itself. Nice tip for anyone investigating the different sonic character of different caps. As you mentioned Jade, some caps take a (long) while to settle and that can get kind of discouraging and if they're being settled in using a music system, I wonder if they ever fully settle in. Cheers! Robert RSAD |
Hi Robert, it looks like we could not use the Duelands as the voltages are far too low. I stand by my earlier comment about bypassing: bypassing any coupling cap with another will result in smearing and there is no way to get around this. The rather in depth comments about the V-Cap, Dueland and Mundorfs earlier refers to bypassing and does cause me to wonder how to take the comments in the face of the known/repeatable effects of bypass smearing. BTW, we liked the top line Mundorf a little better than the V-Cap in some areas, but leakage issues kept us away from it. The question did arise whether it was slightly more romantic or not, as everything seemed a little more 'beautiful' with the Mundorfs (even things that were not supposed to be so beautiful). The V-Caps did not do this, but they did reveal other subtle differences we didn't hear with the Mundorfs. My personal opinion is based entirely on the use of circuits that we regard as the world's most transparent, lacking transformers altogether and using a fair amount of direct-coupling at both the output of the preamp and the output of the amps, both of which are all-tube. So you will have to regard my comments in that light- that I regard a transformer in the way as presenting a synergistic effect with a coupling cap that may skew the findings! My comments here are not intended to offend, but to give you a better idea of how we came to where we did. We also believe audio should be fun and entertaining... and DIY is clearly one of those areas. |
