Voltage rating effecting tone?

[Siboney]

Hi all,
I'm playing around with different sounding capacitors, and was wondering if anyone could tell me if using a .0047 pio cap rated at 1000V would sound any different to the ears than the exact same cap rated at 400v or 600v? I'm just hoping someone has some experience with this so I dont have to pull my board AGAIN to find out for myself! Thanks much, JD

[Enzo]

It shouldn't, but the problem with discussing that sort of thing will be someone who tried it and got different results. His 600v cap sounded different from his 400v cap. But what he probably didn;t do was characterize the parts. To use your example, one .0047 cap might measure out at .0041 and the other at .0053. I'd say the value variation had a lot more to do with the sound difference than the voltage. Also, it is rare that someone changes ONE cap from 400 to 600v in an amp and then decides on the tonal result. Chances are a whole amp was recapped with different parts, or two supposedly identical amps were built with different caps. Again it would be hard to pin the difference on the voltage. Making two amps or doing two recap jobs with the SAME voltage caps probably won;t end up sounding the same either.

[Siboney]

Ahh. I understand. Many variables. In this case it's the same amp, and I was just replacing all the caps with some great testing NOS ones that all test capacitance very close to one another. They all show little or no leakage up to their ratings. I used the 1000v and realized I had 600's and 400's. I didnt want to go back in there and switch them out, just to match the voltage more closely. But in the name of tone.... maybe! Thank you very much.