Black Gate caps

The choice of parts is often a matter of trial and error and "tuning" the sound, so the right choice is not necessarily the most expensive part or one that is favored by 99% of other designs. I know of several designers who have tried and do not like Black Gates in several of their linestages and amps. That just means it doesn't work for them. Once, I was asked by one of these people to listen to a particular amp of his. I told him, frankly, that it sounded considerably worse than his usual amps. He surprised me by laughing at this comment -- it turned out his customer "upgraded" the unit by substituting Black Gates for the caps he put in the unit.

That same designer used Black Gates in a linestage. For one customer, he actually had to remove the Black Gates and use something else. It turned out that the designer leaves the linestage on all the time (even if it is tube-based) while the listener turned it on for short sessions. It turned out that the Black Gates did not sound very good in this design unless the unit was on for a fairly long time.

Will Black Gates work for you? It depends.

Jon Soderberg modded my Forte Model 5 with black gates and I think the soundstage widened and deepened over the stock caps. I also own a Rotel RCD 971 as a second player and it has black gates stock. Sounds pretty good. I like the smooth sound of Black Gates.

My H/K Citation 18 tuner was upgraded with Blackgates in the power supply, audio, and multiplex and each location with added Blackgates made the tuner sound better in every respect. I do leave my tuner on all the time so that probably helps. Maybe if you mentioned your preamp make and model, someone with the same preamp can give you their impressions.

Thank you for your response. Larryi, I've heard stories similar to yours... sometimes you just have to roll the dice. Jon Soderburg suggested the idea of the upgrade/mod for my Threshold T3i preamp with BG's.. The stock caps were Elna, they were red in color. He said he was getting positive results and responses from his customers whose Threshold's and Forte linestages and amps he modified, but I still felt it was a gamble when I went for the mod thinking why shouldn't I leave well enough alone. To me the results were better, but not much. The T3i was just as quiet with the Elna caps, but with the BG's there seems to be a little darker background created for the music -but again not much from before. I can hear a little more detail around each instrument -a sense of air separating them from one another which then can creates a sense of more depth in to the recording, as if I could see into the recording a little better then before... Would that be called a deeper sound stage? Anyway, the improvement was there, but by no means huge for me... I'm just glad it didn't leave my T3i sounding cold and sterile