Upgrading signal path capacitors to Sprague

[clintonb]

Does upgrading to more expensive capacitors really affect the tone that much?

I saw a posting for a Fender Blues Junior whose caps were upgraded to sprague orange drops and the seller said:

Replace the whimpy caps in the signal path with Sprague orange drops with corrected values to open up the tone and get rid of that boxy sound. The leads on the caps are pre-formed to insure a perfect fit. The Treble cap is a high quality Silver Mica Cap. After the tone changes the amp will have greater clarity and sparkle, the honkiness will gone, bass response will be tight and smooth.

I have two EL84 amps that I think tend to sound boxy compared to my non-EL84 amps. But I always figured that EL84s just naturally have an upper midrange emphasis that can make them sound boxy and honky compared to other amps. If I play my Crate Vintage Club 50 through a 6L6 poweramp instead of its own EL84 power section (through the same speakers), I notice a lot of that upper midrange honkiness disappears.

Both my Crate Vintage Club 50 and Gibson GA15RV use capacitors that look like little rectangular plastic boxes with leads.

I'm curious what changing the capacitors to orange drops would do to the tone of my EL84 amps.

I'm also wondering whether orange drop caps would fit on the existing circuit boards. Compared to the stock caps, the sprague capacitors look huge.

[tubeswell]

Many bits affect the tone of your setup. Caps are only one aspect of tone. Do some caps sound better than others? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Having asked those questions many times, I still say silver mica caps sound better than disc ceramic caps (to me anyway - and I reckon I can only hear the difference because it is in the treble response range, and I can hear that more). To me film caps are film caps. But orange drops aren't much more expensive than others, and they look pretty. When all things are said and done sure put them in if you want. You are only doing it to please yourself right?

[cbarrow7625]

I don't know if it will be the panacea for all bad amp tone that your quote makes it out to be but I find that replacing all of the cheap box caps with orange drops (or nice mallorys) always is a positive benefit to the tone of any amp I've made the change on. I've done it a number of times, and yes you do have to pull out your shoe horn and get creative with fiting them in sometimes. You might even have to pull out a little hot melt or silicone adhesive to give them some support sometimes. The most drastic change in tone came on a Hot Rod DeVille where I also replaced the ceramic HF caps with Mica (like Tubeswell, I prefer the mica anyway).

[DonP]

I started going with orange drops in the early 90s because I took apart a Mesa .22+ and saw that they were using them. I figured if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

[Chuck H]

"orange drop" is a very general term. All you can know by that moniker is that they are made by Vishay/Sprague, are orange in color and are film capacitors. I mention it because the difference in tone from one cap to the next, IMHO, is about materials more so than brand. Polyester caps sound and behave different than polypropylene. Orange drop caps come in both materials so it's important to know "which" orange drop you want if you have a specific goal.

Mesa Boogie and Dan Torres are two amp builders that use orange drops that are made just for them. I'm sure there are others. From what I've found both Torres and Mesa caps are the polyester type. I think most people use the polyester type. Mallory 150's are another very popular cap that is also of the polyester type.

I use the polypropylene type.

Why? Because polyester sounds like polyester so the difference in sound between Mallory 150's and polyester orange drops is really small. So why bother. Very few amps have been made with polypropylene. Probably because it's more expensive. But there are notable amps that use them. Randall Aiken uses them. The late Ken Fischer also used them. In fact if you look at old Trainwreck chassis pics you'll notice that the now out of production Mallory caps are very similar to the current polypropylene orange drops.

Polypropylene sounds more open and clear than polyester (not always a good thing and I do use Mallory 150's for some builds). Not that you'd ever notice a difference if you only changed out one or two caps in an amp. But if you build an entire amp with polyester and the same amp with polypropylene you will hear a difference. The main reason I use polypropylene is that it has much better thermal characteristics. Ever notice how some amps sound different for better or worse when they get really hot. Or seem to sound different on cold days than they do on warm days. I'm not kidding, some of you know it's true. Polypropylene film and foil caps won't change tone as much as polyester. Thats the main reason I use them. When I build an amp I want it to sound the way I voiced it from the beginning of a gig to the end.

But again, when most people talk about orange drop caps they are talking about the polyester variety. So that is the famous one that gets all the good press.

Chuck

[billyz]

Actually, I believe most people use the Polyester orange drops in a Trainwreck amp build. Check out the Amp Garage forum for parts info on a Real Trainwreck.

[cminor9]

Before digging in and replacing caps, have you tried different tubes?

I know you said you played a different amp through the speakers that you normally use the el84 amp with, but maybe diff speakers might help the el84 amps?

I haven't done a lot of testing with different caps, but I have always read that speakers and then tubes will always give you the most dramatic results. I have played with speakers and tubes, and I can tell you that is true. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think caps would totally change the character of the amp, unless you changed the values or your existing caps were bad.

Just my 2 cents.

[Chuck H]

Actually, I believe most people use the Polyester orange drops in a Trainwreck amp build. Check out the Amp Garage forum for parts info on a Real Trainwreck.

Your right. The Mallory caps used in the trainwreck amps were polyester.

The merits of polypropylene still stand. And I use them more than polyester. But as I said before, polyester does have it's own mojo and I use Mallory 150's for some builds.

Thanks for being vigilant.

Chuck