King/Cello in the house !

[rockitman]

Ohhh the bass.......my girlfriend is hating me now....
I added the hi eq trim pots on the outside of the case for relatively easy fine tuning if necessary. Using Sideral caps. Anyone using different caps other than Myles in their unit ?

God I love tape !

 

[Steve Williams]

Did you eliminate Charlie's output caps

 

[rockitman]

Did you eliminate Charlie's output caps

not sure what you mean ? Perhaps Charlie will chime in.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Ohhh the bass.......my girlfriend is hating me now....
I added the hi eq trim pots on the outside of the case for relatively easy fine tuning if necessary. Using Sideral caps. Anyone using different caps other than Myles in their unit ?

God I love tape !

Get rid of the Sidereal ASAP. Your ears will thank you.

 

[rockitman]

Get rid of the Sidereal ASAP. Your ears will thank you.

Really ? I find nothing objectional with them....I suppose I could try some different ones down the road.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Really ? I find nothing objectional with them....I suppose I could try some different ones down the road.

I tried the Sidereals years ago and **** canned them The Rel were far better. Sidereals are grainy, harsh, lack low end and low level resolution. Nowadays, for a moderately priced cap, try the Mundorf Au/Ag in oil. Best $160 or so you'll spend.

I had two K/C here, one with the Sidereals and one with the Mundorf to compare. No contest.

 

[rockitman]

I tried the Sidereals years ago and **** canned them The Rel were far better. Sidereals are grainy, harsh, lack low end and low level resolution. Nowadays, for a moderately priced cap, try the Mundorf Au/Ag in oil. Best $160 or so you'll spend.

I had two K/C here, one with the Sidereals and one with the Mundorf to compare. No contest.

I heard Mike L tried the Mundorf and put the sidereal's back in. In my system, they are not grainy nor lack any bass. I find them quite neutral. I'm not saying there are not better caps. I do disagree with your harsh assessment though. I not hearing those things.

 

[Steve Williams]

Get rid of the output caps as well

 

[MylesBAstor]

I heard Mike L tried the Mundorf and put the sidereal's back in. In my system, they are not grainy nor lack any bass. I find them quite neutral. I'm not saying there are not better caps. I do disagree with your harsh assessment though. I not hearing those things.

Mike was a different circumstance because of the Dart. And I'm not sure Mike put the Sidereals back in but I could be wrong. I think Charlie explained it elsewhere on the board.

You can also ask Rich. He heard the two units here

 

[rockitman]

Get rid of the output caps as well

and replace with what ?

 

[Steve Williams]

No output caps are better than output caps IMHO

 

[MylesBAstor]

No output caps are better than output caps IMHO

Unless they're there to block DC

 

[rockitman]

No output caps are better than output caps IMHO

what effect does that have on gain output if any ? Do you have a King/Cello w/o output caps Steve ?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I heard Mike L tried the Mundorf and put the sidereal's back in. In my system, they are not grainy nor lack any bass. I find them quite neutral. I'm not saying there are not better caps. I do disagree with your harsh assessment though. I not hearing those things.

in my system the Mundorf's were 'mud'. the orignial caps were put back in the circuit and i much prefer them. i could not say whether they are the Sidereal's or not.

Rich felt that i did not allow the Mundorf's enough time, i had run them 100 hours with a phono break in device, then another 30-40 hours of music. to my ears they were not changing much and i could not see them getting to where i could live with them. if the original sonic signature is so far from acceptable then i can't deal with an extended break-in time playing tapes.

but who knows what might have happened down the road. i'm not a guy who has any feel for what particular caps might or might not do. i'm not typically looking for warm and full. but i'm pretty happy with my bass and foundation i'm getting.

 

[RogerD]

For the money or otherwise I think Mundorf makes the best cap in the world.

 

[rockitman]

in my system the Mundorf's were 'mud'. the orignial caps were put back in the circuit and i much prefer them. i could not say whether they are the Sidereal's or not.

Rich felt that i did not allow the Mundorf's enough time, i had run them 100 hours with a phono break in device, then another 30-40 hours of music. to my ears they were not changing much and i could not see them getting to where i could live with them. if the original sonic signature is so far from acceptable then i can't deal with an extended break-in time playing tapes.

but who knows what might have happened down the road. i'm not a guy who has any feel for what particular caps might or might not do. i'm not typically looking for warm and full. but i'm pretty happy with my bass and foundation i'm getting.

me neither...thanks for chiming in...This cap deal has my head spining. I like neutrality. These caps (stock) seem to deliver. Those exoto caps sound intersting, but if they color the sound they might work better in some systems than others. It's all about flavor preference, I guess.

 

[flez007]

Ohhh the bass.......my girlfriend is hating me now....
I added the hi eq trim pots on the outside of the case for relatively easy fine tuning if necessary. Using Sideral caps. Anyone using different caps other than Myles in their unit ?

God I love tape !

Congrats Rockitman! I am sure your new set-up is and will sound great. I would just leave the system to find its pace for a while to let parts break-in nicely. Enjoy!

 

[MylesBAstor]

me neither...thanks for chiming in...This cap deal has my head spining. I like neutrality. These caps (stock) seem to deliver. Those exoto caps sound intersting, but if they color the sound they might work better in some systems than others. It's all about flavor preference, I guess.

Let me assure you Christian that my system is far from colored .I'd say the sound of the system is controlled more than anything by the front-end, esp the cartridge with a minor role played by the cables (the MIT Oracle cables are probably in a league by themselves but I also like the Kubala-Sosna) In fact, people have come over and are shocked at just how quickly the system reveals even the minutest differences between recordings, parts, equipment, etc. Just the other week, I hosted an electronics manufacturer who said he'd never heard Martin-Logans sound so seamless (oh and I'm now using his phono stage). And let me add, there's nothing like an electrostatic when it comes to revealing differences! On the whole, I'd say the system is pretty darned balanced between neutrality and musicality.

As far as the cap differences, both my friends and I compared six or eight caps several years ago when rebuilding some electronics and Magnepan speakers. The winner at that time were the Rels; since then, they've been surpassed but the fact remains the Sidereal were the least preferred In fact, we did another double blind study of caps where Larry Smith of Perfectionist Audio built a box where he could switch between five different caps without us knowing it. The bottom again was the Sidereal and at the top, half in the group preferred Rels and the other preferred the cap Larry was using (the name escapes me but it's made in CT and cj and Levinson among others, used them in their electronics; I liked them but could always hear the ferromagnetic leads on this cap).

If I had my druthers, I'd have used a Teflon say like the V-cap, but the cost is prohibitive. Later this month, am going to put the Duelands in Charlie's unit and see how they sound.

 

[stellavox]

Output caps are bypassed

Another "rockin" tapester!!!

Keep your heads clean and your tails out

Charles

 

[U47]

As Charlie stated in the last email, the caps in the last 10-12 units have the output caps bypassed. When Myles and I listened to the two K/C preamps last year, we both agreed that the Mundorf capped unit was considerably better sounding. We are only talking about various input caps in this discussion.

Rich