RadioShack is just fine. They get electronic components from the same manufacturers everyone else does.
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Ceramic Capacitors?
- Thread starter 25oclock
- Start date
RadioShack is just fine. They get electronic components from the same manufacturers everyone else does.
This.
Also check out Invalid Link Removed web page. Joe Gore runs a comparison of various capacitor types on a guitar (where tonal differences would be even easier to hear than they would on an electric bass) and concludes there's nothing - or at least nothing consequential enough - to be worth worrying about.
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I had a similar issue. I replaced the stock .047 uf capacitor with an Auricap XO .047 and it made a huge tonal difference.
Any test where a person is playing the instrument is flawed from the start. No human can play identically every time. A high quality recording or sample MUST be used.
Polarized caps should not be used in this application.
I have been involved in the engineering and manufacturing of top end recording studio gear for 40 years - mixers and rack mount devices. We used film caps most of the time for the tight value tolerance and stability over temperature, not for sound quality. If there was one cap that sounded better than another, we would have used it. There is NO difference in sound between caps of exactly the same value. And when you consider that we are talking bass guitar here, rather than full-spectrum sound (we measured our studio gear out to 60 kHz) , the entire idea of sound difference becomes totally ridiculous.
Polarized caps should not be used in this application.
I have been involved in the engineering and manufacturing of top end recording studio gear for 40 years - mixers and rack mount devices. We used film caps most of the time for the tight value tolerance and stability over temperature, not for sound quality. If there was one cap that sounded better than another, we would have used it. There is NO difference in sound between caps of exactly the same value. And when you consider that we are talking bass guitar here, rather than full-spectrum sound (we measured our studio gear out to 60 kHz) , the entire idea of sound difference becomes totally ridiculous.
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Since they can be +- 20% in actual value, and they're under $2, get 3 or 4 and try them all.
You may not be able to hear a difference, or one might sound better/worse to you.
You may not be able to hear a difference, or one might sound better/worse to you.
I have used the loose tolerances to my advantage. I bought a pocketful of the cheapest kind of ceramics and tested them all with my bass. Then I picked the one that sounded the best to me. Differences were small but I had a lot of fun testing them out.
A capacitance meter would be nice.
A capacitance meter would be nice.
tolerance ... i just wanna know the cap i picked is actually working very close to the frequency i wanted ... !! +/- 5%
Some where in this post someone mentioned pick up impedance interacting with the capacitance value. Is there a chart somewhere that would list a cap at a certain value plotted against common pickup impedance values and how that would relate to different frequency responses
I swapped out the cap with the pots in my passive bass at the same time, so I wasn't able to do a true A/B of the ceramic vs the orange drop. What I will tell you is that the one that came with my Art of Tone kit that I ordered is huge compared to the ceramic on I took out.
Great link. Super Cheap. Thanks.I get mine here.
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304-716-473J400V
400 volts is way more than you need but it's the smallest they sell.
$.35
Our Radio Shacks went out of business.
Mammoth also sells some pretty cool knobs.
Ceramic capacitors have historically existed for the purpose of being cheap and crummy. It's not something that you ought to go out of your way to pursue unless there's something about them that you like. In that case, go for it! 
By the way, anyone who claims that he designs equipment and can't hear the differences between capacitors is bragging about a shortcoming. Arguments will ensue from this statement. People who lack knowledge can be extremely vehement.
That's okay. I myself don't believe in expensive pickups.
By the way, anyone who claims that he designs equipment and can't hear the differences between capacitors is bragging about a shortcoming. Arguments will ensue from this statement. People who lack knowledge can be extremely vehement.
That's okay. I myself don't believe in expensive pickups.
Not to argue, but he said, "There is NO difference in sound between caps of exactly the same value."
So, with low tolerance caps, a .047 cap on the low end could very well be the same as a .033 cap on the high end of tolerance...And so with the rest of the values.
But there is no specific tone from any specific cap value unless the (specific) pickup impedance while played is factored.
But there is no specific tone from any specific cap value unless the (specific) pickup impedance while played is factored.
That indicates that at least one of the caps was hugely different from 0.047uF.
