Listening tests of high end capacitors...

[salvarsan]

You mean he didn't use one of these?



How about one of these?

Ah, Rick Gram's woman tone. Nice pair of LED's on that one.

Got one years ago, noticed the active buffer transistors and chip with the markings sanded off. I realized it was a quad inverter logic chip biased to run in vaguely linear mode.

It had a grubby sound that never quite cleaned up, probably would have sounded tolerable with a Marshall on bright settings.

[David Schwab]

Got one years ago, noticed the active buffer transistors and chip with the markings sanded off. I realized it was a quad inverter logic chip biased to run in vaguely linear mode.

Ah, another Craig Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz spin off.

It had a grubby sound that never quite cleaned up, probably would have sounded tolerable with a Marshall on bright settings.

I never heard of it before... I just found it when trying to find a funny "woman tone" picture.

I didn't know you need a pedal to get that tone... its not that hard.

[Rick Turner]

A few comments...

There continues to be a lot posted here about capacitors in amplifiers or preamp circuits that has nothing whatsoever to do with how caps are used in passive treble cut circuits in guitars. Caps are used as DC blocking coupling devices and also in active EQ circuits where you are literally hearing the signal as passed through a capacitor. That "passed through" bit is very different from how we use caps in guitars.

There is NOTHING as complex as the signal going through a woman. Dark one day, light the next, distorted with rage one day, as clear as an angel the next. I wish they were as easy to fathom as capacitors... Their resistance changes daily as well...and they induce in me great eddy currents of desire. Light, dark, it doesn't matter as long as they run a bit on the hot side. Got to give them plenty of bias voltage. Crank the heater voltage, too.

[soundmasterg]

I found that if you have a black capacitor it sounds very dark but if you paint brightly coloured stripes on it, you get a whole rainbow spectrum of tones. However, the most popular colour is brown, hence the brown sound. The other trick is to get one of those pens with the woman and the disappearing bikini , shove a cap inside and hey presto, you get the woman tone.

And I guess if a fat woman is used, you get a fat tone? Don't know if I can do that! Haha.

Greg

[12Bass]

... there are no capacitor "flavors" just good or faulty capacitors IMHO

While I share skepticism about many so-called "audiophile" claims, it is also problematic when complex phenomena are expressed as a binary. Empirical testing shows that various capacitor types exhibit differing non-linear characteristics.

Here's a test which compares frequency response in a tone control circuit: Tone Capacitor Test

And another which has some oscilloscope images: The "Sound" of Capacitors

[salvarsan]

While I share skepticism about many so-called audiophile claims, it is also problematic when complex phenomena are expressed as a binary. Empirical testing shows that various capacitor types exhibit differing non-linear characteristics.

Here's a test which compares frequency response in a tone control circuit: Tone Capacitor Test

And another which has some oscilloscope images: The "Sound" of Capacitors

How dare you presume to inject, using reproducible facts and rational thought, an on-topic discussion into a thread that had degenerated from hijack, sarcasm, and hand-waving arguments?!

[jonson]

How dare you presume to inject, using reproducible facts and rational thought, an on-topic discussion into a thread that had degenerated from hijack, sarcasm, and hand-waving arguments?!

This always happens just as a thread moves in the right direction. I would have thought that we ought to be discussing what tone that young lady David posted was producing whist she is attached to that big pile of oversized neos.

[salvarsan]

This always happens just as a thread moves in the right direction. I would have thought that we ought to be discussing what tone that young lady David posted was producing whist she is attached to that big pile of oversized neos.

Sorry, with all the thread hijack, sarcasm, and handwaving arguments, I forgot to include personal invective.

You smell bad and your Mother dresses you funny.

[Chuck H]

You smell bad and your Mother dresses you funny.

I think I speak for everyone when I say... Pardon me Sir, but that is not so much an insult as an observation.

[salvarsan]

I think I speak for everyone when I say... Pardon me Sir, but that not so much an insult as an observation.

Whether insult or observation, that is a disappointment.
I was trying (admittedly, not hard) to deliver personal invective.

Such are the obligations of this forum, you know.

[Sweetfinger]

You mean he didn't use one of these?

Hmmm.... I have one of those, but my pedal isn't all dressed up for a night on the town As mentioned, it has a murky kind of sound to it that would only work on a very, very bright amp. I don't think I've ever used it for anything other than a conversation piece. I am also still desperately holding on for actual listening results on caps... because I'm too busy to do it myself.

[Joe Gwinn]

An explanatory note on "The 'Sound' of Capacitors"

And another which has some oscilloscope images: The "Sound" of Capacitors

What is being plotted is stored charge in Coulombs (vertical scale) as a function of voltage across the capacitor in Volts (horizontal scale).

If the capacitance of the capacitor is constant (not varying with voltage), the curve will be a straight line. If the line bends towards horizontal at the left and right ends, the capacitance is reduced as the voltage increases.

If some of the stored charge is slow to come back out, the curved line will open up into a closed curve. If the curved line was in fact straight, the open curve will be an ellipse.

[David Schwab]

As mentioned, it has a murky kind of sound to it...

Well that is the "woman tone." Turn your tone controls all the way down, and go for the Big Muff-with-tone-control-on-bassy-end Robert Fripp tone.

It's not your regular overdrive tone with bite.

Why it's the "woman" tone, I don't know.

[Albert Kreuzer]

Why it's the "woman" tone, I don't know.

YouTube - Cream - Outside Woman Blues

Eric Clapton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The "woman tone" is the informal term used by Clapton to refer to his distinctive mid- to late-1960s electric guitar sound, created using his Gibson SG solidbody guitar (with humbucking pickups) and a Marshall tube amplifier.[64] It is an overdriven sound that is articulate yet thick. It is characterised by being quite distorted (or even achieved with a fuzz) but muted, in contrast to the bright and twangy distortion that most guitarists were using at the time. Many players have tried to duplicate it, usually without success, in part because Clapton's playing technique had a lot to do with the tone.

[salvarsan]

Woman Tone variation

Rick Gram's original pedal looked slightly more salacious.