Characteristics and sound quality of audiophile capacitors

1. German WIMA capacitor: Features include fast speed, low loss, natural balance of sound quality, cool sound quality, and suitable for a variety of listening requirements. There are many varieties of WIMA, the best one is Black Box, followed by MKP MKS, and the other is German ERO, which has similar characteristics to WIMA. There are many disassembled products of this capacitor on the market, and the price is not too expensive.



2. French SOLEN capacitor: The tone is rich and feminine. Some people like it for its rich musicality, while others think it is too dull. In short, it has a strong personality. For hot devices, SOLEN is suitable for tonic, but some tube amplifiers may not be suitable. There are two brands of SOLEN, one is the big S SOLEM, and it is marked with FRANCE (France); the other is SCR SOLEN, this capacitor has a particularly low tgs (loss angle), and it deserves the title of the world's ace polypropylene capacitor.



3. Black Gate F (Black King Kong) capacitor: The tone is mellow, which is very helpful in increasing the musical expression of the equipment, but those who like clear and beautiful music (commonly known as cold and beautiful) should not consider it, and it is suitable for coupling.



4. Japanese ELNA capacitors: The materials are used at great expense, the pins are made of oxygen-free copper, the wire is thick, the aluminum foil is made of ceramic microparticle technology, and the appearance is large. The most outstanding performance during the test is that the loss angle tgs is particularly low. The tgs of ELNA's coupling-specific capacitor 22uF/50V is as low as 0.007, which is no different from the famous polypropylene ace SOLEN. It has several brands, namely For AV-DIO: the sound is sweet, like a young girl; CERAFINE DUOREX: the sound is regular, transparent, and the speed is medium; SILMIC: fast and powerful, suitable for expressing modern music. This kind of capacitor is available in ordinary products, customized products and top products on the market, and the price is medium.



5. Japanese Chemical (NIPPON) capacitors: The materials and size are the same as ELNA, and the sound performance is quite neutral. This kind of capacitor is marked with AWF, AVF, etc.



6. Panasonic gold-letter supplement capacitor: Although the materials are not very good, the pins do not use oxygen-free copper, and the tgs value is almost the same at 100Hz, so the sound is well balanced and there is no suspicion of choking the ears.



7. Tantalum electrolytic: small leakage, good stability, but the coupling high frequency is soft and weak, lacks penetration, and is better for decoupling.



8. RUBYCON (ruby) capacitor: This is the most used brand for domestic power amplifiers. It is mainly used for power supply decoupling. It has good high and low frequency response for coupling. Its brand is BLACK GATE, but the market has the most BLACK GATE counterfeits, so be careful when buying.



9. European and American brand ROE, FRAKO capacitor: has a good sense of music, especially when listening to classical works, the music lines are clear and vivid, which is unmatched by Japanese products.



10. Knack (Nikon) capacitor: a brand with a strong personality, the tone is warm, and cold equipment is suitable for knack supplement.



11. RIFA (Australia Sweden) capacitor: this capacitor is most suitable for supplementing the crossover, and has a strong penetration of high frequencies.



12. Japan Sanyo (OS-CON) capacitor: The electrolyte of this capacitor is not liquid or gel but solid. Its withstand voltage is not high, only up to 30V, but it is more than enough to supplement digital power supply, analog power supply and other low voltage occasions. The advantage of OS capacitor is good high-frequency performance, close to the characteristics of film capacitors. Its long life is incomparable to ordinary capacitors. The tone is sweet and very natural.



Tone winner metallized polypropylene MKP audio capacitor



Polypropylene capacitor is a variety developed in foreign countries in the 1960s. It has been favored since its launch. It is one of the excellent types of non-polar organic dielectric film capacitors. It is often represented by CBB in China.



Metallized polypropylene capacitor is a new type of plastic film capacitor put into use in the early 1980s. It is represented by MKP abroad. It is resistant to high temperature and has a small absorption coefficient. Its capacitance and loss tangent tgs change little with temperature, while the dielectric strength increases with temperature, which is difficult for other dielectric materials to have.



MKP pole piece is made of a metal film evaporated directly on polypropylene film, which eliminates the gap between the electrode and the film, greatly enhancing the capacity stability. In addition, when the voltage at both ends is too high and the capacitor dielectric is partially broken down, local high temperature will be generated, causing the adjacent metallized electrode thin layer to volatilize, achieving self-healing, and will not cause a short circuit between the capacitor pole pieces due to dielectric breakdown.



MKP capacitor is the guarantee of good sound quality of audio equipment. For power supply filtering, a 0.1~0.22uF MKP capacitor is connected in parallel to a large electrolytic capacitor to filter out impure high-order harmonics, making the positioning sense and resolution higher. It is used for frequency compensation and coupling circuit playback, which will be cordial and smooth. The bass has good bounce and less subtle loss. Connecting a small coupling MKP capacitor to the input end of the power amplifier can ensure good linearity and high conversion rate of the power amplifier. Using MKP on the frequency division network has small leakage loss, reduced sound coloration, and enhanced control over the speaker.



Polypropylene (MKP), polystyrene (MKS), polyethylene terephthalate (MKT), polycarbonate (MKC), polyester and other organic film dielectrics have the best performance of MKP and MKS. The loss, dielectric absorption, frequency, insulation resistance and other electrical parameters of MKP are higher than MKS in temperature strength, but its temperature stability is slightly worse than MKS, basically close to MKS. The biggest shortcoming of MKS is poor heat resistance, the limit is only 75℃, while MKP reaches 100℃.



Tone Winner metallized polypropylene audio capacitors are Hi-Fi high-quality MKP capacitors used in Tone Winner karaoke, power amplifiers, and crossovers exported by Chengdu Yadi Electromechanical Research Institute.



Metallized capacitors with polyethylene film as the dielectric in WIMA have good range of withstand voltage (50~630U) and capacity (120pF~10uF).