What about the sprage-orange drop caps

[fatboy135]

ok, I think that filter caps are for the DC voltage power supply...
Well I want to mean that there are a lot of people that spends their money for example in mullard tubes, and then they buy the worst guitar cable. I think that it is better to buy a mogami cable and sovtek or EH tubes...
Then my triaxis becomes with the OD caps, and I´m very happy with them. I just order a few OD caps to mouser. But my idea when I write the topic was that people in my country are crazy recaping theirs mesa boogie amps thinking that they will achive the perfect sound, then you can see that they uses the worst guitar cables, they uses samick or other guitars...
If you are a purist of audio take the best amp, the best tubes, the best guitar, the best guitar cable. And not spend your money on mullard tubes and then buy a noisy cable because you spend all your money on the mullards.
P.D: You can correct my English please, I really want to improve my english :wink:

 

[908ssp]

Hey Fatboy135 I agree with you to a certain extent. Peoples priorities are wacky. I disagree with your priorities. A number of amp designers commented on this subject and they listed speakers, tubes, transformer,caps in that order as the most to least importance to your sound. I don't agree that cables are as important as you state and in some cases a cheap cable can sound better then an expensive cable. I do agree that the search of some elusive super tone is a myth when you take the tone in context of the song.

By the way your English is better then some native English speakers. :wink:

 

[fatboy135]

Thanks a lot 908, I´m very happy with the philosophy of Randall Smith and mesa boogie, doing the amps with better components that other brands. They are expensive but they sounds so nice...
Well totally agree if you are in a rock concert context maybe you couln´t hear your amp between all the instruments... So why the mullards??? If you are recording a project in a good studio perfect spend 400$ in mullards, but if you are playing covering green day did you really need a mullard???
The cables are a double sided knife one face people thinks that cables are cables only... on the other hand there are people who studies the fx about cables.
Coaxial cables has two potencials the live wire, where the signal travels and the ground or cold wire which is at 0 volts, well, the coaxial cable is split by a dielectric, then two potencials split by a dielectric.... oh yeahhh that is a fucking cap :wink:
Now you have the classical impedance of a cable, this impedance is a real impendace ( pure resistive ) and you can modeled it like a resistance.
Well we will put all together, our capacitance and our impedance, and we results a marvelous low pass filter, yeahh dude belive it, trust in me, you have a fucking low pass filter on your cable... If the cable doesn´t have a quality enough it could rolls out the high frecuency of your guitar. Did you still thinks that cables aren´t important???
I recomend you seriously to use good cables, they are a little expensive that ordinary cables and it has less hum and noisy and less low pass filter effect.
I will give you a trick. Think that the capacitance effect is reduced by increasing the distance of the 2 wires, so you must to increase the dielectric material to get a lower capacitance effect, that is the reason why good cables are usully fatter than bad cables, because they have more dielectric material.

P.D: Thanks for my english, I like to post in foreign forums to exchange knowlegdes and learn a new language :wink:

 

[Boogiebabies]

Being a purist is not a bad thing. If a person wants to use Mullards and a cheap cable, maybe that is the tone they are looking for. Look at Ritchie Blackmore. He used a tape deck in his signal path to get his tone. To each his own. The industry fluff on cable capacitance is being exploited now. A Klotz cable for instance is heavily priced for have the lowest capacitance. Some crappy cables add a certain effect as well that may be desireable for a certain situation. Certain Hi-Fi hook up cable is pure copper and cryogenically frozen to tighten the molecular bond. Two feet for $ 900.00.

To each his own and there really is nothing new under the sun.

 

[fatboy135]

I´m agree, people spends their money on they want, but.... don´t forget that your tone is a set of things, and don´t think that if you recap your amp you will achieve the holy grail. Maybe it will sounds better, but there are another areas that you can improve to sound better, for example your pick attack, and for the moment a good pick attack is not sell in any shop.
Ok I has just do my 50 caps order to mouser. I´m not a purist of the tone but I replace caps with sprague, not for its sound, I like their quality.

 

[screengrid]

Hi all,

great thread although I'm asking me, what in the hell fatboy really want's to tell us. For example, on one hand it's a great fun for me to play guitar on the other hand I like very much to deal with all aspects around tube amps and their technology. And so of course it is also very interesting to talk about the used electronic components of vintage tube amps and modern tube amps also.
At time I'm working on a little old Dynacord DA 16/V tube amp from the 60's . The amp works with 2 x EL 84 cathode biased, not sure yet if class A or class A/B!Nevertheless, this little sucker has a amazing clean and crunch sound. When I locked into the chassis, the first I noticed, where the yellow coupling caps named Neokon, not sure if it is the name of the manufacturer. The amp offers different channels, for microphon, guitar, accordeon and a effect loop for delay. Also a vibrato is in board.

I'll try to add some pics in future, at time I have only a crappy handy cam.

cheers

 

[fatboy135]

I has just to do an order to mouser for 60 caps manufactured by sprague. I´m using this caps for their high tech quality and not for urban legends about the mighty tone caps. Your sound are a great list of things more important than a couple of caps.
If you buy sprague caps do it for the quality and not trying to find the holy grail of the tone...
P.d: The mouser list me 25$ for bank fees in concept of a bank transfer. Knows anybody anything about this banks fees???

 

[RussB]

"Sprague" no longer makes those caps, they are made by SBE in Indonesia...or is it Thailand?

Where are you putting all those OD's. Quality and tone aren't nessessarily the same thing by the way!

 

[fatboy135]

Ok then a couple of links about the sprague caps orange drop and actually manufacturers:
http://www.vishay.com/
http://www.sbelectronics.com/main.htm

And one link about really NOS caps
http://www.vacuumtube.com/capacito.htm
Does anybody pay 60$ for a cap????

 

[Boogiebabies]

NOS is simply supply and demand. Do people pay that kind of money?
Of course they do. Look for some Sprague Bumblebee caps as use in the 58-60 Les Paul and see what they go for on E-Bay. Insane. LCR 50/50/500's are now extinct and they go for $ 25-30 a pop. There are some modern caps like Auricap, Solen and Musicaps by Hovland that get a pretty penny. $ 9.25 and up for a .1uf 600V cap. There is a market for everything, but assured quality is tough to find.

 

[fatboy135]

I don´t like NOS products so expensive for a cap...
The caps that I used are the 400v, the 600 are so bigger and 600v aren´t on a plate on amps that I repair

 

[Boogiebabies]

Chello, my name iz Indigo Montoya. You killed my Father, prepare to die.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Incontheevable!!!!!!!

 

[fatboy135]

" Hola mi nombre es Diego Montoya. Tu matastes a mi padre, preparate a morir " :lol:
yeahhh this is the correct translate.
Improve your Spanish with fatboy

 

[Harry the Horder]

Hi all :roll: I thought it was sprague.
can we have round 2 carbon film v/s carbon comp v/s metal film :?:
I read an article about carbon comp resistors having a definate effect on sound as they do go into a sort of distortion witch attributes to that vintage sound ( if you can hear it) what are your thoughts on using different resistors or even resisters :?:
Harry the Horder.

 

[fatboy135]

Well my opinion that caps are caps, resistors are resistors and tubes are tubes.
I´m not an audio purist, and I am not looking for the perfect sound. I use the sprague caps because they have a good quality and not for its sounds.
I usually use carbon resistors in several ways for example when I think that the application will run under special conditions.
I have some carbon resistors that have different properties that metal film.
In my point of view caps are caps, resistors are resistors, and don´t go looking for a special tone. The most important think to achieve a great tone is the circuit design, and boogie knows how to do it. I think that boogie designs are so great and its tones begins and ends on theirs design and not on special components or misterious ingredients like coca cola.
On the other hand I must to say you that there are special applications which some caps or resistors works better than other.
The first thing is to design your application then you choose the best components that will be suitable for your application if you think that carbon resistor will works so fine ok put a carbon resistor, but if you doesn´t find any carbon resistor don´t be a silly man and put another kind of resistance that is equivalent.
Actually I´m rebirthing a triaxis that I purchase so cheap because it was dead. I replace the digital components by motorola, texas instruments, Philips and Zilog, not to looking for special tone, I like to use these components because they are very good and accurately.
I change the broken caps by sprague, not for theirs sound, and I replace some resistors with carbon resistors only because I think that carbon resistors will work better than metalic films on this aplication.
My conclusion on this crazy topic is that everybody must to think before purchase the components which is the application for that components and not purchase them because they read that they are the holy grail, just purchase it because they have a good quality...
P.D: Vishay-Sprague has tantalum caps that are amazing they have a good performance and a good quality. I usually uses the 173d serial.
Sorry for my bad english I´m trying to explain me as well as my english let me

 

[fatboy135]

ohhh I forget one thing:
Maybe some people thinks that the vintage sound becomes from the components. There is not a true idea. About 50 years ago there weren´t any other resistances than carbon resistors. But they don´t use the carbon resistors because they were the best. They use these resistors because it wasn´t more equivalent resistors.
Another idea that I want to desmitified is that to performance your sound you must to recap the amp every 10 years. I recap my amps only when it has a trouble with the caps. The electrolitic caps dry up with the years...

 

[jukesgtr]

Put a good Sovtek or EH and save your money to invite your girlfriend a good lunch.
In my point of view if you play on a trash metal band and your are on gigs maybe nobody will notice the differences between a nos tube or a sprague cap...

I have been following one guitar forum in my country and it is really funny to see beginner guitarist kids spending thousands of euros in getting "the right sound" and the coolest equipment available. My advice to them was to buy a cheap processor pedal and practise in front of a mirror...I think such overspending must be an European thing....LOL

 

[fatboy135]

Totally agree, don´t waste your time and money with "magic" components, buy a mark II and experiment with its controls, I´m totally sure that without recaping the amp you will get a marvelous tone

 

[screengrid]

ohhh I forget one thing:
Maybe some people thinks that the vintage sound becomes from the components. There is not a true idea. About 50 years ago there weren´t any other resistances than carbon resistors. But they don´t use the carbon resistors because they were the best. They use these resistors because it wasn´t more equivalent resistors.

Hi, from a strong technically view also a transistor amp does the same job as a tube amplifier. If the manufacturers had have the opportunity 50 or more years ago, to use transistors instead of tubes, they surely would have done this. Remember, beside the tone of a tube amp we love, there are some disadvantages in comparision to a transistor amp. For example a tube amp needs more expensive powertransformers ( add. filament voltage ) and mostly also a output transformer. Further, a tube amp likes to work with higher operating voltages as a transistor amp. So one needs more expensive components / caps ) proved for those higher voltages. But power transistors were also really expensive, may be more than power tubes 50 year ago and so the amp builder stayed by using tubes.
But would you say now, that this fact was bad for us, surely not.
Beside the amp/circuit disign, every component used in a tube amp has a more or less influence on the all over tone and you said it already, also the guitar cable included.
I agree with you, that to modify a mesa boogie amp is actually not nessessary, because these amps are nearly perfect and have their typical sound, simply Mesa Boogie! But if someone want's to do it, why not?
Nothing wrong with it, IMO!