Jensen Audio caps, worth the money?

[Randall]

I see that Clark put in Jensen Copper foil paper in oil coupling caps in a friend's 5E3. Over $100 for 5 caps, is it worth it?

[soundguruman]

Better caps sound better.
But only pro musician, engineer and critical hi fi listener appreciate the improvement.
Typical consumer hears no difference.
Would I put oil filled caps in my amp? Absolutely.
And these days, manufacturers are using proprietary vegetable oil, instead of toxic crud.

[olddawg]

Golden Eared People. I was always taught that farads were farads.

[soundguruman]

Typical consumer hears no difference, living proof.

[wyatt]

I see that Clark put in Jensen Copper foil paper in oil coupling caps in a friend's 5E3. Over $100 for 5 caps, is it worth it?

I would say the returns:investment ratio might be a bit diminished. Will a 5E3 with Jensen PIO sound 3300% better than a 5E3 with Mallory 150's...probably not. But, better is relative, and often better is brain-washing. That's not a knock on Clark, Mike Clark builds great amps and uses the parts he likes and he benefits from a certain expectation of premium parts so he can use whatever he likes and the cost gets passed on to the customer (at a markup to pay for food and lodging).

You need to study the basics of mental perception. There is NOTHING absolute about what we hear, it is a moving target. Your senses (in this case ears) collect the raw data, but your mind processes it, and simplifies it according to previous experience and current environment. So, often ion an A/B test, our mind isolates and enhances minute differences in an effort to catalog the data, but in an A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H/I/J test, the differences are too diverse to catalog and our mind will instead highlight and enhance the similarities and catalog those. So, that two 5E3's side by side and test them and you'll notice how they are different...take a dozen 5E3's and try them out back and forth and they'll all start sounding pretty much the same to you. This is true no matter how golden your ears are.

And remember, this is mental, if we want to hear a difference or similarity, our mind will create a difference or similarity even if one does no exist. We brain-wash ourselves everyday into hearing what we want to hear. Audiophiles can and do flush thousands of money down the toilet for expensive parts that provide nothing but the placebo effect, but that brain-washing makes them happy.

There are lots of caps that just don't work or sound good for audio coupling and these will sound bad (to just about anyone) in these applications. The Jensen's are great caps. I don't knock their cost, I don't know anything about their manufacturing and distribution costs. They sound great -- and more importantly, they work great -- in a 5E3. I can say the same about Mallory 150's, Mullard Mustard Caps, Jupiter Red's, Sozo, Orange Drop 225P/6PS and a few others. And I won't argue that there may not be an audible difference between these caps when A-B'd with each other. But without a reference tone, the difference it's pretty hard to find in real world applications. No one ever went to a Mannfred Mann concert and blurted out, "wow! he's gotta be using 6PS's in that amp...he's just gotta be?!?"

Most people believe they can pick out which is Coke and which is Pepsi in the famous Coke/Pepsi Test Taste. Market researchers know that's not true. They know if they hand you enough samples, it'll confuse your perception and you'll randomly pick one for the other...they can even rig the test to manipulate which one select. You can say the same about caps...if we where to pick the best sound engineer in L.A. or Nashville and make him try and pick out Sozo or Orange Drops or Mallory 150's or Jensens when playing them dozens of samples, they won't be able to do it exact for the random correct guess, chances are they would miss as soon as we played the same cap twice.

My advice, the tone is in the circuit, if you want to change the way the amp sounds...more low-end, more high-end, more overdrive, more headroom...change the circuit...change the component value, not the component type. Tweak your amp to sound the way you expect it to. Don't sweat the little things, minute changes can't overcome the tolerance of perception. Mark Baier (sp??) of Victoria uses $2 Orange Drops, his amps are equally as popular (if not more so) and sell for roughly the same price as a Clark. They sound very different, but that's not caps, that's big differences, like the fact that the Victoria runs at higher voltages, which makes a BIG difference in aggressiveness and headroom.

Take the $100 and buy a better speaker, speaker make a BIG difference...or better yet, take your wife out for a good meal and an affordable bottle of wine.

[J M Fahey]

A cap is a cap is a cap.
You may pay more, but the amp won't sound different.
In fact, the amp won't even *measure* different, go figure.

More to the point: would Leo Fender have used them?
No way !!!!

Now to:

Most people believe they can pick out which is Coke and which is Pepsi in the famous Coke/Pepsi Test Taste. Market researchers know that's not true.

You must be joking .

[soundguruman]

A cap is a cap is a cap.
You may pay more, but the amp won't sound different.
In fact, the amp won't even *measure* different, go figure.

More to the point: would Leo Fender have used them?
No way !!!!

Now to:

You must be joking .

More advice from tone deaf, non guitar playing technician.
That's the main problem with "techs" who know how to make equipment "work."
But don't have a clue if it's sounding right, or not.

[Steve Conner]

Which one, JM or you? Forget 20 dollar audiophile grade caps, spend the money on new strings or guitar lessons.

[soundguruman]

Which one, JM or you? Forget 20 dollar audiophile grade caps, spend the money on new strings or guitar lessons.

Unfortunately, there are many perimeters of sound quality, that we have no method of measuring.
There is no meter, that equals the quality of the human ear.
We have many speakers and amplifiers, that are highly regarded as sounding "the best."
YET we have no real conclusive measurement that explains "WHY" we think it sounds the best.

You can measure all day long, with your large and expensive meter, that goes: "boing."
But none of your meters equals the quality of the human ear.
And for those tone-deaf, non musical techs who can't hear the differences, you are utterly clueless that the REST of us CAN hear a difference.
Can I tune a piano by ear? Yes
Can YOU tune a piano by ear? (not you Steve, I'm writting to the tone deaf) No, of course not, because you can't hear the differences between one note and the next!

So stop your pummeling, of those who can hear the difference. I can see that you are tone deaf. But that does not grant you the license.

[Jazz P Bass]

Uhmm... Parameters.

[olddawg]

I always get amused by these "superior" people who can hear better than "almost" everyone else. I am a performing musician, I can tune a piano, I can intonate instruments by ear. I was also a tech and have a degree in electronics. I have run pro sound, had my own sound company, and even did some studio engineering back in the day. At one time was the service manager for a major Southern Ca. Electronics store. I was involved with the pilot marketing for Monster Cable, lol. Their marketing engineers could spout specs and drivel all day. In practice you could not tell the difference between a Monster speaker cable, claymore mine cable, or romex at audio frequencies. I know cable is not capacitors but the idea is the same. Yeah, I have heard amps that sound better than others. It isn't the damn caps unless a cap is bad (or you like the sound of some failing caps which also may be true). Anyone who tells you the special, gifted, professional, connoisseurs can hear the difference is a fool. I'm sure they are great caps. But there are a lot of parts in an amp. Not quite sure what there is about a cap that can't be measured and even if some parameter can be proved to be different, does it matter at audio frequencies? Save your money. Use fresh strings and learn your instrument. The legendary amps used the cheapest off the shelf stuff available in the quantities they need.

[Weez]

I always get amused by these "superior" people who can hear better than "almost" everyone else. I am a performing musician, I can tune a piano, I can intonate instruments by ear. I was also a tech and have a degree in electronics. I have run pro sound, had my own sound company, and even did some studio engineering back in the day. At one time was the service manager for a major Southern Ca. Electronics store. I was involved with the pilot marketing for Monster Cable, lol. Their marketing engineers could spout specs and drivel all day. In practice you could not tell the difference between a Monster speaker cable, claymore mine cable, or romex at audio frequencies. I know cable is not capacitors but the idea is the same. Yeah, I have heard amps that sound better than others. It isn't the damn caps unless a cap is bad (or you like the sound of some failing caps which also may be true). Anyone who tells you the special, gifted, professional, connoisseurs can hear the difference is a fool. I'm sure they are great caps. But there are a lot of parts in an amp. Not quite sure what there is about a cap that can't be measured and even if some parameter can be proved to be different, does it matter at audio frequencies? Save your money. Use fresh strings and learn your instrument. The legendary amps used the cheapest off the shelf stuff available in the quantities they need.

I concur with this...it's mostly smoke and mirrors. Here are a couple of links regarding the "historic reissue" Gibson bumblebee caps. The first leads to zzounds.com, where you can buy two for around 90 bucks. The second is to a discussion from a couple of years ago on mylespaul.com, where a member shows one of these caps opened up to reveal what it really is.

Gibson Historic Spec Bumble Bee Capacitors Package at zZounds

Historic Gibson Faux Bumblebee Caps - Les Paul Forums

Now...how many "audiophiles" would try both of these (without knowing the truth) and conclude the bumblebees were superior?

[R.G.]

@Randall:
I always get suspicious when I'm presented with component choices where "good enough" costs X and "the best" costs 100X or more.

I suggest that if you want to experiment, build it with "good enough", then buy ONE of those "the best" and see if you personally can hear the difference. If you can, great, buy another one. If you can't, you can save a pot full of money.

And SGM says:

Unfortunately, there are many perimeters of sound quality, that we have no method of measuring.
There is no meter, that equals the quality of the human ear.

Hmm. Yes. It has been proven that a huge amount of what we "hear" happens in the brain, not the ear. Meters don't imagine sounds, they don't have auditory illusions, they don't insert data that they think they will hear, and they don't write articles in hifi tweako magazines about which hot new amplifier is EVEN BETTER in subtler, less measurable ways than the article from last month's review. I'm glad we don't have meters like that.

We have many speakers and amplifiers, that are highly regarded as sounding "the best."
YET we have no real conclusive measurement that explains "WHY" we think it sounds the best.

Right. For why that is true, ask a psychologist.

You can measure all day long, with your large and expensive meter, that goes: "boing."
But none of your meters equals the quality of the human ear.

None equals the "quality", that's true. "Quality" cuts both ways, and is not always one dimensional. Think about it.

And for those tone-deaf, non musical techs who can't hear the differences, you are utterly clueless that the REST of us CAN hear a difference.
Can I tune a piano by ear? Yes
Can YOU tune a piano by ear? (not you Steve, I'm writting to the tone deaf) No, of course not, because you can't hear the differences between one note and the next!

So stop your pummeling, of those who can hear the difference. I can see that you are tone deaf. But that does not grant you the license.

Wow. That post says more about the poster than the target.

@SGM: I suggest you look up "DARVO". I've had an unwanted introduction to these terms in my extended family, but they explain a lot. DARVO is an acronym for Deny, Attack, and then Reverse Victim and Offender. It's a great way to move a discussion from any technical content into a discussion of personalities and personal abilities.

I translate that post as "I'm right. If you disagree with me, YOU'RE wrong; moreover, your wrongness leads you to attack your betters, and your wrongness is a kind that cannot be helped, because it comes from an innate lack of ability in you."

The hifi tweako school of audio criticism has long held that micro-differences in sound quality exist that can only be heard by special individuals with superhuman abilities of hearing discrimination. Even more, that if instruments can't find a difference heard by these special "Golden Ears", then it follows that the *instruments* are wrong.

That explanation has a lot of snob appeal. I'd suggest re-reading "The Emperor's New Clothes", but you've doubtless already thought of that, right?

The problem with the hifi tweako Golden Ears manifesto is that it fails simple testing where a Golden Ear is pitted against itself by double blind testing of whether a Golden Ear can reliably pick out whether there is a better, worse, or no difference in repeated samples of audio. Golden Ears usually wind up doing worse than random chance in such tests. Golden Ears got so burned in things like this that they refuse to take the test for a variety of reasons that sound suspiciously like rationalization.

Can you hear what you're saying? Probably not. The personality quirk that uses DARVO is marked by an inability to see what they are doing objectively, no matter what, or how it's pointed out to them. The ultimate problem with this world view is that it is self reinforcing and eventually diverges from the real, objective external world. The tragedy is that when this happens, the internal inability to see it leaves the person unable to correct back to the real world.

I suppose another way of saying this is that just like "tone deafness", there is a real disorder that we might call "selective real world deafness", an inability to perceive facts that don't line up with a person's internal ideas. It's as real a personal lack as any tone deafness.

IMHO, 'guru' is a title that properly should be bestowed by others, not self-adopted.

[Danelectron]

I remember shopping for my first pair of speakers back in the day. I was listening to some cerwin-vegas' and JBLs among others. I noticed the bass varied between them and asked what was the "correct" sound for the recording. It was explained to me that all speakers color the sound. Recording studio monitors are designed to be a flat response to allow the engineer to hear the instruments as they sound naturally. He recommended that I buy the ones that sounded best to me. I liked the JBLs.

When I built my first amp, I came across a site with recommendations for different caps and resistors. I wanted to make a really good amp so was convinced to buy some really expensive components. I bought some of the Jensens for $25 each. The jensens sound fine, but I can't justify spending for two caps what would have financed all the coupling caps I have used since. I have since used white ones, yellow ones, blue ones, black ones, some other black ones and some orange ones. Oh, and some red ones. They all sound good in the projects I used them in. I have found the big difference is in the numbers printed on them. I can get that Cerwin-vega sound OR the JBL sound by paying attention to the numbers.

[Randall]

Wow, GREAT answers. So what I'm taking away from this discussion is that in a band situation my Mallory 150s are good enough in my non HIFI Tweed Deluxe.