Tonefullness of one cap over another

[nwguy]

Ok...first off, not sure if tonefullness is a real word. Here's the situation. I am modding an old Bassman. Went to one of my favortie electonics shops today to pick up some caps and was told by someone that I regard as having lots of experiance...No need to replace the cap unless it has failed. I wanted to replace the disk caps with orange drops, replace signal caps with orange drops too. He told me that I was waisting my money.OK so whats the story?

[hasserl]

I'd agre with the guy. And in fact besides wasting your money, IMO you could potentially ruin the collectibility of the amp. I personally HATE opening up an amp and seeing all the coupling and tone caps changed out. There is no reason to do so unless there is a proiblem with the caps, and I have yet to see an amp where all the caps in it failed at the same time. And contrary to internet lore, and a few self promoted amp gurus and cap vendors, orange drops (BTW, there's more than one kind of orange drop) do not make the amp sound better. There is nothing wrong with the caps used in vintage Fender amps, if they are not leaking, do not replace them.

[Enzo]

And I would add that you will have a harder time finding "orange drops" in some of the smaller values like 250pf as used in the tone stack. And the caps in the tremolo oscillator are not in the signal path and can't possibly contribute to tone.