Listening tests of high end capacitors...

[salvarsan]

Darker

Clarification:

A black capacitor is visibly darker than a blue, orange, or white capacitor,
therefore it will *sound* darker.

HTH.

[David Schwab]

If the electrolytic caps couple lots of watts into a speaker system,
they will certainly swell microscopically and manifest microphonics.
Those people like their capacitor microphonics undamped by a plastic sleeve.

But that's not what they are claiming, and they are talking about caps in the preamps or CD players, not the power amp.

They claim the problem is the sound of the plastic! Forget the fact that the caps have plastic in them.

Removing Plastic covers from Capacitors - diyAudio

On the whole, we picked the completely peeled capacitors as offering the greatest, least ambiguous subjective sonic improvement for the least effort.

The same people paint plastic cased ICs with some goop that's supposed to make them sound like tubes.

[edit] Yay! I found it!

The Altmann "Tube-o-lator" lacquer

Features

"tubesound coating"
filters unwanted (bad sounding) overtones from semiconductors like DA-converters, AD-converters, OP-Amps and Discrete Transistors
improves the sound quality of CD-players, DVD or SACD-players, Preamplifiers, Phono-Stages, Main- or Power-Amplifiers
transforms transistor sound into tube sound
transforms cold and harsh sound into warm emotional sound
attenuates odd, especially third overtones
easily applicated
performance can be monitored with FFT measurement equipment (AP)
all other specifications of treated components remain unchanged
no soldering or removing of components necessary
makes semiconductors sound natural
improves the sound quality of AD- and DA-conversions
comes in recloseable 0,5ml process tube with applicator and instructions

How does the "Tube-o-lator" Lacquer work ?

We are not able to provide an accurate description why the "Tube-o-lator" stuff actually works. Maybe some of you guys out there will solve this mystery and tell us.

However, Dipl.- Phys. Holger Klein from Audio Technik, Hannover, came up with a novel explanation. He uses the dispersion theory (you may know from your own physics lessons). Read about it right here.

Then there is this stuff. Paint this lacquer ($28/100ml) on all your hi-fi gear and everything will sound better...

C 37 lacquer by Ennemoser

C37 Acoustics Dieter Ennemoser - Violin Maker & Acoustic Researcher

Electrical Components and Circuit Boards
When current flows through a resistor, electrons are pushed through the resistive material, crash together within its molecular structure and loose their velocity, thus generating heat. Heat is nothing more than a result of movement. This internal movement causes the resistor to vibrate, in turn causing displacement of the molecular structure within the resistor. The resulting distortion in the current flowing through the resistor mirrors its spectrum of mechanical resonance. The same is true for all electrical components such as capacitors, inductors, semiconductors, or cable. Ask Allen Wright about cables.

Tubes may not be lacquered, due to excessive heat.

A rebuttal to his claims:

I Am As Mad As Hell - Find Out Why

I tried to find the web site that used to sell a similar varnish for plastic ICs, and the site that sold a $600 wooden knob to make your power amp sound better... but they seem to be gone.

OK.. here's the place that used to sell the knob. They seemed to have toned down their rhetoric now. They were also the one saying to peel the caps.

Digital Mods: Reference Audio Mods

They do say funny stuff like this though:

Unfortunately, we have a much bigger problem with our AC mains worldwide causing more bad sound then you can possibly fathom.

You would think that audiophiles would be smarter than this.

[edit] Here's the wooden knob already on the power amp. This was the same company selling the knob for $600.

Silver Rock Phono

They still have the $320 wooden "lenses" for resting your audio gear on though.

Woodlenses

Funny stuff though.

[edit]

OK it was a $485 knob...

Silver Rock Signature Knob: Reference Audio Mods

How about "Rainbow Foil" for CDs, records and even tapes?

P.W.B. Rainbow Electret Foil

"FryBaby" Compact Burn-In Generator?

Hagerman Audio Labs: FryBaby Personal Audio Burn-In and Cable Break-In Device

Lots of funny stuff here:

"Audio voodoo"- $400 ultra tweeters and a $485 wooden volume knob


And $50 tone control caps fit right in with this circus of nonsense...

Alessandro High-End Products

A vast tonal improvement over the tone caps being used for the last 40 years. Restore your vintage guitar or improve the sound of your current guitar.

[salvarsan]

Noise of the duck

But that's not what they are claiming, and they are talking about caps in the preamps or CD players, not the power amp.

They claim the problem is the sound of the plastic! Forget the fact that the caps have plastic in them.

Agreed. I attempted to point out the small kernel of fact upon which the blindly expansive delusion was based.

(audioPhlake snake oil references deleted)

If you google any one of those with the word "bullshit" postpended, you still get thousands of hits.

No, really.

UTFSE: "tube-o-lator lacquer bullshit"
5000+ hits, easy.

It is not so much that those fellows are selling audio duck sauce (quack!)
to audiophlakes, but that there are audiophlakes so deluded as to spend
money on what is self-evidently fraudulent.

[Albert Kreuzer]

I think the Altmann site is a (very intelligent) parody. Read about The ALTMANN SPLIF Amplifier Topology - hilarious.
The tube-o-lator laquer is clearly aimed at the C37 snake oil...
Many other funny articles there

[David Schwab]

I think the Altmann site is a (very intelligent) parody. Read about The ALTMANN SPLIF Amplifier Topology - hilarious.
The tube-o-lator laquer is clearly aimed at the C37 snake oil...
Many other funny articles there

No, I exchanged emails with him once and he swore it really worked. He said I didn't have to believe him, and I should just try it and see for myself. The stuff has carbon in it, so I wondered if that would do something.

[Albert Kreuzer]

No, I exchanged emails with him once and he swore it really worked. He said I didn't have to believe him, and I should just try it and see for myself.

Oh. You sure he wasn't kidding you? He can't be all serious about things like these:
The Altmann DIY Tonearm
or these:
The Altmann BYOB amplifier
Quote: "The performance standard of the Altmann BYOB amplifier IS A PERFORMANCE STANDARD."
Or maybe he IS serious, and I am crazy

The stuff has carbon in it, so I wondered if that would do something.

Some carbon in the right place is a good thing. I have a bass bow with a carbon core, and I really like it...

[Chuck H]

Well you can already buy conductive paint. One of the main ingredients is carbon. Conductive plastics also contain a lot of carbon. Many resistor varieties use carbon as the conductor. So I suppose there could be some shielding effect. I can't imagine it would be any greater than the effect of tube shields though. Some people insist that they can hear an increase in inter electrode capacitance with tube shields in place. If this is so then I think a conductive paint right on the tube might cause an audible increase in inter electrode capacitances... For better or worse. Whether this is an audio improvement is debatable. It's certainly not a fidelity improvement.

Chuck

[David Schwab]

or these:
The Altmann BYOB amplifier
Quote: "The performance standard of the Altmann BYOB amplifier IS A PERFORMANCE STANDARD."
Or maybe he IS serious, and I am crazy

Oh, he is serious alright:

One Altmann BYOB amplifier comes EUR 950

He used to have an article about some varnish he made, and he stripped down a Squire guitar and painted it with this varnish, and made a wooden pickguard, and went on about removing all plastic from the guitar, and of course how it sounded better. We all know how I feel about finish affecting the tone of a solid body. But he went into all this stuff about plastic and resonance and other nonsense.

Some carbon in the right place is a good thing. I have a bass bow with a carbon core, and I really like it...

It wasn't carbon as in graphite. It was the conductive kind.

I use carbon rods in my bass necks. Very even from note to note and nice sustain. That's a plastic fingerboard too (black paper phenolic).

[Albert Kreuzer]

Oh, he is serious alright:
"One Altmann BYOB amplifier comes EUR 950"

Do you think he sold many of these?
Maybe I'm in the wrong business after all...

He used to have an article about some varnish he made, and he stripped down a Squire guitar and painted it with this varnish, and made a wooden pickguard, and went on about removing all plastic from the guitar, and of course how it sounded better. We all know how I feel about finish affecting the tone of a solid body. But he went into all this stuff about plastic and resonance and other nonsense.

Well, I do think a thick polyester finish can kill the tone even of a solid body. But I do not believe you can turn a Squier into a '63 by using a special (magic) varnish...
On the other hand we all know that a wooden pickguard sounds more natural than plastic, tubes sound warmer than transistors (because they are), and electrons move faster in cables that are marked with directional arrows

I use carbon rods in my bass necks. Very even from note to note and nice sustain. That's a plastic fingerboard too (black paper phenolic).

Very nice sound, I like it (although the bass is not perfectly in tune ).

[David Schwab]

Very nice sound, I like it (although the bass is not perfectly in tune ).

No, it wasn't. You can hear me pull a string in tune when I hit a double stop! I had half-rounds on that bass. I had to leave for a gig in an hour or so, so was rewiring my other bass because the pots had gotten scratchy and I wanted to change a few things. And then one of the wires coming from one of the pickups starting getting intermittent (probably from rewiring the bass so many times ). I didn't have time to fix it, so I pulled the strings off the one bass and stuck them on this one.

They were a prototype set of pickups, and then the bridge pickup went dead... so I had to replace that with another one... time was running out and I was getting frantic... no time for fine tuning! But I wanted to get a quick recording of those pickups with the round wounds.

I need a new set of strings on it. I'm waiting until I fix the bridge pickup.

[LtKojak]

No, it wasn't. You can hear me pull a string in tune when I hit a double stop! I had half-rounds on that bass. I had to leave for a gig in an hour or so, so was rewiring my other bass because the pots had gotten scratchy and I wanted to change a few things. And then one of the wires coming from one of the pickups starting getting intermittent (probably from rewiring the bass so many times ). I didn't have time to fix it, so I pulled the strings off the one bass and stuck them on this one.

They were a prototype set of pickups, and then the bridge pickup went dead... so I had to replace that with another one... time was running out and I was getting frantic... no time for fine tuning! But I wanted to get a quick recording of those pickups with the round wounds.

I need a new set of strings on it. I'm waiting until I fix the bridge pickup.

You were defying Murphy's Law, even though you KNOW you can't win...? (shaking head in disbelief)

[David Schwab]

You were defying Murphy's Law, even though you KNOW you can't win...? (shaking head in disbelief)

I once had my band mates standing and watching me as I routed my Rickenbacker to install a DiMarzio Model P between the other two pickups. They were waiting because they were there to pickup me up for a gig!

I'm not that bad doing things last minute now, but I should have rewired my other bass the day before, just in case the unexpected happened. As it invariably does.

I'm glad I did it anyway, because everyone liked the new pickups, and because I had to substitute one for a pickup I had on hand, I made a discovery. Sometimes things happen for a reason, or so it seems.

[big_teee]

I made a discovery. Sometimes things happen for a reason, or so it seems.

Is that the same as saying $h!t Happens???
Terry

[Chuck H]

$h!t is the stuff that happens in spite of reason. I think David is eluding to fate, not misfortune.

Edit: Right, David was alluding to fate. Thank you Rick

[Rick Turner]

None of us can elude fate. We may allude to it in our attempts to elude it, but all for naught.