Has anyone used ARS 500v electrolytic caps?

[bluzmn]

I'm wondering if anyone on this forum has ever used ARS 500v electrolytic caps, and if you have, what's your opinion of them? ARS is right here in the Los Angeles area, and it would be so convenient to just ride out there when I only needed a few caps, rather than ordering them from someplace where the shipping would cost more than the caps. Many thanks for any feedback you can give me.

[kg]

do they actually MAKE the caps, or are they rebrands?

[bluzmn]

RE: ARS

I'm pretty sure they're rebrands.

[kg]

i was going to say that looks suspiciously like "LCR blue"

[jmaf]

Why does a company rebrand capacitors? Do they do selection based on low ESR, etc?

[Ronsonic]

I haven't used the ARS myself, they have a good reputation from people who do. Mostly local, LA guys.

[Steve Conner]

Mainly just so they can have their own branded product to distribute, I guess. The cap manufacturers in China and Taiwan don't sell direct to the public, so a middleman is needed to provide service in exchange for his cut of the profits.

It probably isn't a rebrand as such, the Chinese cap maker will print any logo you want on them if you order enough. (Do Sozo really make their own in-house?)

500V is a rare voltage though: the usual Far Eastern stuff only goes up to 450.

An honest reseller would tell you who the original manufacturer was if you asked.

[jmaf]

Sure, makes sense, yes...

The JJ's I've been using lately are rated 500 VDC by the way, perhaps they're adapting to modern demand...

[bluzmn]

I Googled "ARS capacitors"; I guess I should've done that first, but there are people on this forum whose opinions I really respect, and I was hoping they would chime in. Anyway, there are guys on these forums who speak very highly of ARS caps:

LCR Capacitors - Marshall Amp Forum
Vintage Amps Bulletin Board • View topic - ARS electrolytyc capacitors

Apparently, Marshall is now using ARS caps instead of LCRs, because LCR is no longer making caps suitable for use in guitar amps.

[Steve Conner]

Well looking at the site, and seeing that they carry JJ stuff, it wouldn't surprise me if the ARS caps were custom branded JJs, or F&Ts or whatever. Or old stock of LCRs that they're still using up, seeing as they carry LCR too.

I see they have their own "ARS" branded tubes, so that's another piece of evidence.

I don't think the rebranding is a bad thing, except in so far as it might imply that they ordered a huge lot of them, so the caps you get could be 10 years old.

[jrfrond]

Mainly just so they can have their own branded product to distribute, I guess. The cap manufacturers in China and Taiwan don't sell direct to the public, so a middleman is needed to provide service in exchange for his cut of the profits.

It probably isn't a rebrand as such, the Chinese cap maker will print any logo you want on them if you order enough. (Do Sozo really make their own in-house?)

500V is a rare voltage though: the usual Far Eastern stuff only goes up to 450.

An honest reseller would tell you who the original manufacturer was if you asked.

The Peavey Valveking 112 uses 100uF/550V Jamicon radial snap-in can caps, which was a first seeing that voltage rating for me in a single Asian cap.

Country of origin is no guarantee of quality. I've seen an equal amount of Sprague and CDE caps drop dead as I have Illinois Cap, Jamicon and other no-name brands.

[Ronsonic]

An honest reseller would tell you who the original manufacturer was if you asked.

I really do not think that giving up proprietary information is a requirement to be considered honest.

[J M Fahey]

ARS sounds wonderful in my opinion,just like the old LCR,JJ sounds warm but lack detail and definition;FT sounds well with definition but to my ears are a bit "cold",not very musical.

Really?
The test consisted of replacing one with another in a JCM800, at least one hour between experiments, might even have been on different days, with all the consequences it carries.
Absolutely subjective.
Well, at least he didn't claim "it opens the soundstage" or "female jazz singer voices take an expressivity I have not heard since the old days of Marantz".
Oh well.
It's not casual that he was immediatly answered, by another board member:

Man, you guys got good ears!
By the time I changed filter caps in an amp, I wouldn't remember what the previous set sounded like.

NOTE: I'm sure the ARS labelled ones are very good to excellent, the Company looks serious, that's not the point here.

[dai h.]

These look similar to the ARSE(oops sry, I mean ARS) :

50uF+50uF/500VDC Electrolytic Capacitor With Clamp | eBay

I wonder who makes them.

[jmaf]

I really do not think that giving up proprietary information is a requirement to be considered honest.

I think it depends on what you consider to be proprietary info. Groove Tubes will tell you "this is selected from chinese tubes, these are selected from sovtek tubes", etc, even when relabeling.... I can't quite grasp the logic behind relabeling caps besides it being what was mentioned earlier, pure branding....which to me seems a bit unethical, if not dishonest. Unless I'm missing something...