Orange drop .047 cap

[nofi]

i know the story on this one. it's either great, maybe it does a little something or does nothing at all. anyone have an opinion on this. i'm thinking that at 1.50 it might be worth a try. if it bleeds off some highs as some claim that would be a good thing imho.

[Dave W]

All caps bleed off highs in a typical passive tone circuit. If you have a smaller value now, say .022uF, then any .047uf cap will bleed off some more highs.

As to whether or not it will sound different than any other cap of the same value, I doubt it but I haven't done any listening tests.

[exiledarchangel]

A friend of mine with a knowledge in electronics made an experiment with a lot of capacitor types and brands, he soldered a wire in his strat geetard that had an alligator clip on the other side, so he could change capacitors on the fly and check the sound.

He made a pdf file with his results, if anyone is interested on this, I could translate it and post it here!

[Freuds_Cat]

Sounds interesting, post away.

[Dave W]

I'd like to see it too.

[exiledarchangel]

I sent the guy a message to ask the permission to post it, it depends on him now.

Based on his work, and by some talking I made with him, I chose to buy some Mallory 150 0.1uF caps for my basses.

[Iome]

I remember reading about a comparison made exactly that way years ago on the net, the Orange drop ended up to be one of the worst, don't know if it makes different using it in a guitar or in a bass.

[exiledarchangel]

Here it is people, enjoy!

[Dave W]

Here it is people, enjoy!

Thanks but not what I expected. This looks like his subjective opinions of sound differences. That doesn't demonstrate that there actually are differences.

I'd like to see a double blind ABX test to see what differences a group of listeners can tell, if any.

[exiledarchangel]

Well, good sound is something subjective, isn't it? 

The kind of test you are suggesting would be kinda difficult to made, but not impossible. And it would be very useful, especially for the people that actually use the tone on their instrument, and not just put it on 10 (or 0) all the time, like me for an instance.

[Highlander]

Gotta agree with the subjectiveness...

Suggest a project for someone with D/I and time to spare...

Hmm... and then you have the issue of which instrument, and wood, and pups, and strings, and amp simulation, and... 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Let me solve this one for you. Caps in series with a signal act as a low pass filter whose corner frequency is determined by the capacitance. The higher the capacitance value, the higher the frequency of the filter. (I have the equation for capacitance/ frequency somewhere.) The difference between mica and electrolytic caps (like the Orange Drops) is negligible with the low voltage output of a pickup. Even the hottest passive pickups put out less than 10 volts at absolute maximum on transients. Those caps are rated at 400 volts.

[lowend1]

Even the hottest passive pickups put out less than 10 volts at absolute maximum on transients.

Except the mudbucker, which can be used to power small refrigerators.

[Dave W]

Let me solve this one for you. Caps in series with a signal act as a low pass filter whose corner frequency is determined by the capacitance. The higher the capacitance value, the higher the frequency of the filter. (I have the equation for capacitance/ frequency somewhere.) The difference between mica and electrolytic caps (like the Orange Drops) is negligible with the low voltage output of a pickup. Even the hottest passive pickups put out less than 10 volts at absolute maximum on transients. Those caps are rated at 400 volts.

That's what I thought. That's why I'm doubtful when people claim they can hear differences, and suspicious when they write up detailed descriptions of the differences. I just don't see how it could affect a guitar tone circuit as long as you're comparing two caps of the same value.

[exiledarchangel]

I think its how the different types of capacitors affect the tone when you put the tone control at, lets say, 3 or 7, and not much at fully open (10) or fully closed (0). Different types sound (ok just a little) different at those situations. That's what I believe.

But the main reason I prefer to use a well known brand cap instead of a generic one is the quality of the part. It's like you buy a new bass that has those dreadful microscopic pots, and you change them with CTS for maximum reliability.