Experience going from "boutique" caps to average caps

[Aldo]

Hello,
I wanted to change the non-stock tone stack of my bassman 59 ltd to see if I could get some more headroom, from .022uf bass and mid caps to .033 mid and 0.1uf bass. I didn't feel like ordering special caps and having to wait so I got average/normal caps from an electronics shop. They were cheap and I assume polyester, they were orange in colour (NOT Orange Drops)

What a dissapointment... the amp now sounded shrill, harsh, ugly. The caps I took out were both TAD "Vintage oil caps", and they went quickly back in! After all the amp was sounding very nice and I was just experimenting.

I don't know what to think, is this difference due to changing cap values, or is it due to the caps themselves? After all the values I changed to are blackface values and they sound right in many amps, don't they? And they are roughly the stock values in the Bassman LTD (.022 and .01)

I'm still considering ordering some "branded" caps, say Mallory 150, TAD Mustards or Vintage Oil (although these are expensive) to see if I get the same results, if it doesn´t work I would lose a few coins, but the poor amp's PCB worries me!

[Enzo]

If i raised one tone cap 50% and another by five times, my first thought about tonal change would not be the brand of cap.

If you want to be scientific about it, go back to that shop and buy two of their generic cheap 0.022uf caps, and install them in place of the originals. Well, you might measure the originals to see how close they were to value, and as well, measure the new ones. But assuming they were all close to what they should be, by changing the caps for same value but different brand, you will hear whatever difference there might be due to brand.

[Dave H]

Before ordering "boutique" caps why not try some caps from the electronics shop with the same values as the original caps? Then you would know if there really was a tone difference, even better if you could measure the values to be sure they are the same. I wouldn't expect much if any tone difference myself from different brand caps with the same value.

How will changing a couple of caps in the tone stack increase 'headroom'?

Edit:
Enzo posted as I was typing.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Something to remember, in this type of tone stack, you're filtering away frequencies thru those capacitors, sending that energy to ground. It would take an incredibly bad cap to not work, and have awful sound you could blame on the caps.

FWIW it's my practice to use Mallory 150 usually, also find that metallized polypropylene caps work just fine too. I used to stock Xicon but I think they're gone now. Panasonic work just fine, look like brown chiclets.

[gui_tarzan]

I wouldn't put Mallory caps in a "boutique" category, they've been making caps for amps for nearly a century.

[J M Fahey]

I think the best caps are those being made today in Japan, Taiwan and China , maybe Korea.

They have the best modern machinery, the technology, the materials, the capital, the big market which forces them to go forward and at the same time guarantees that investment in good machinery and modern process can be recovered fast.

Any factory left in USA, if somebody is really making them and not rebranding Asian product, will have old machinery (think 60's , at most 70's) and maybe that could force them to use old materials instead of modern ones.

[Aldo]

Thanks for the input. Yes i should try the same values with the cheap caps to dispel any doubts.
I thought that by reducing the amount of mids with a higher value cap i'd get a bit less mid saturation... but actually I'm already enjoying great headroom, still clean at 7 on the knob, and plenty loud!