Black gate caps and vishay bulk foil resistors

Black gate caps and vishay bulk foil resistors - is it possible to do better for less? The cost of replacing all the parts in my phono, headamp and preamp would cost about £1200! Do audiophile passive parts (i.e. not opamps) really make a difference? If so how much improvement have people found in practice?

Regards,

Nick.

 

Good question! Succinctly phrased. I'd like to know the answer too.

 

The fun is in finding out for yourself, not always the Accepted gives the most sonically appealing results.

 

Don't put vishays everywhere, theres no point, just put them at crucial points in the audio signal. You can use any other accurate resistor elsewhere (e.g. RIAA filter etc.) welwyn precision films are good for that, RS sell them. But yes, vishay are expensive.
Yes they can make it sound like you have bought a new amp/phono/whatever but it probably depends what your putting them into really. The more components in something, the less difference you will gain from changing one or two parts but doing all should still yield good results. Simpler amps mean each component has a greater overall effect so doing things a bit at a time should give you good results as you go.

 

The fun is in finding out for yourself, not always the Accepted gives the most sonically appealing results.
£1200 is still cheap for the pre-amp in the world though Nick, Just think A Nagra is £26K, seems like £1200 is a bit of a bargin to me!!!

 

components

WM - Indeed, I never take the accepted wisdom at face value. You know that already :JOEL: However only a very foolish man doesnt research what has been done previosuly before commencing. Its fun to find out for yourself but no one man can try every component in existence. Which ones do you prefer?

Yes £1200 is quite cheap in high end terms compared with the nagra but if I can get the same or better results for even less - say £400, then even better. I guess my pre and phono have cost me £1k a piece so far and the headamp maybe £350.

The number of parts is low. At £7 each it would 160 parts. Half of which go into the balanced stepped attenuator. I already use welwyn there. I guess I could miss that out as half the expense is effectively being spent just to alter one component in the signal path.

 

Never takes wisdom would be more accurate

 

I have no problem with wisdom - just a problem with dogma

 

what ever you say Lord Billybong

 

Don't use Black Gates anywhere except the PSU.
Use DynamiCaps caps in signal path.
Only use Oscon in digital.
Try to avoid electrolytics.
If you have to use them bypass them.

Try Riken resistors.

Ignore everything above if you want

 

That is exactly where you DO want to use them

 

I have found the FG caps from Nichicon are comparable in performance to BG Standards.

http://www.nichicon.co.jp/english/seihin/pdfs/e-fg.pdf

IMHO Resistors are a lottery, I would not populate with all of the same type. I would use the vishays in the signal path (S102), the VTA series is also very good, still expensive but not as much as the S102.

I don't rate Holco's. The Rikens are good as well if you want to add 'colour'. All depends on application.

 

As aluded to already usually specific components make more difference than others, so blindly replacing the lot can end up being overly expensive for not much gain. Of course knowing where best to place them is the hard part. Trial and error usually. Close resistor tolderance matching often pays dividends in applicable places. Capacitors are the most audible parts in my experience. Also worthwhile looking at recticification (schottky dioides) and maybe even shielding in a pre-amp.

Nichicon KZ series are fantastic caps. As are the Fine Gold mentioned above. The Blackgate non-polarised (N/NX) jobs work well in coupling apps. And the FK types work well in PS. Panasonic FC type is OK for replacing tired old caps but not really and upgrade.

 

I have made measured differences in performance with different caps and differences between "new" and "burned in" caps of the same type and batch.

My picks for cheaper than BG but good caps for decoupling purposes...

Panasonic FC
Rubycon ZA
Elna RJH

I used a mixture of ZA and RJH in a superDAC and it certainly ended up sounding better than my own Oscon/Starget mix.

If you're designing, however, you can get ceramic 1206 caps up to quite high values now (47uF or so) which is more than enough for audio IC decoupling, so I would tend to go for 1 or 10uF per rail per chip bypassed with an 0603 100nF, and a few larger value electrolytics spread around (depending on board and IC layout).