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Black Gate caps

I'm curious to know if those of you who have ever modified or upgraded the stock capacitors in their SS preamps to Black Gate caps, could hear a difference or an improvement after the mod. Seems like maybe 2 or 3 years ago when these caps were going out of production, quite a few people were jumping on the band wagon of modifying/upgrading the capacitors in their audio gear to Black Gate's. I'm sure enough time has passed for these caps to break in, so, I'm just curious to know how it turned out for those of you who made the mod, or even for those who have an opinion this subject.. Thanks.
gslone
gslone OP
274 posts
 
Thanks Sherod. I had my preamp modified in '06. I never turn it off, and I play music a lot all the time. I'm basically happy with the results.
jj2468
280 posts
 
Where I could find a value match, I replaced all the caps in my Audio Note Dac kit with Black Gate caps, and the improvement in sonics was substantial.
larryi
3,783 posts
 
Jj2468,

A friend has an Audionote kit DAC, with all the upgrades Audionote makes available, that sounds terrific. I have several other friends with Audionote DACs (DAC4 & 5) that are really good too.

Have you looked into upgrades using some of the premium Audionote capacitors? I know some of these components are many multiples of the cost of Black Gate capacitors, but, I've heard good things about them.
barrysandy
192 posts
 
I've got modified tuners, preamps, phono stages, and power amps and, as a generalization, Black Gates almost always sound better, when used correctly, than the equivalent electrolytic capacitor. Of course I'm a little nuts -- look at my system. It has a power amp with 160,000 uF Black Gate cap supply (one of the signature Krells supposedly has them too but I've never seen one).

They are good as power supply caps and can be excellent in coupling and by-pass applications. They will fit where larger teflon film caps will not. Note that there are several variants of BGs --Standard,FKs, Ns etc. and these sound quite a bit different depending on how and where used.

Some people do not like their sound. Others don't care for a particular type. It is possible to use too many, but this is true if you use too much of anything. It's also possible that a circuit might end up sounding worse but that's usually a problem somewhere else.

It's not an accident that they're popular with many modifiers and diy's. They will be missed!
jj2468
280 posts
 
Larryi,
I did upgrade my power supply caps from audio note tin to audio note copper (my output coupling caps also are audio note copper). The power supply is not supposed to make a difference, but I liked it and it could be the placebo effect.

The next upgrade for me would be transformer output coupling, but I'm very happy with the cd how it is now. And the kit saves a lot of dough over retail.

Mostly I listen to vinyl. The audio note kit dac is so much better than my former wadia 301 (modded).
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