Vitamin Q 0.022

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

A) there's more to an overdrive than an op amp

B) It actually uses an MC33178 https://forum.seymourduncan.com/show...=1#post3676781

Yes, I know.

805 Drive
Specifications
Distortion Circuitry: Glass diode, back-to-back stack

These combined with any op amp in that area, by virtue of electronic design rules , will not differ much from a TS808.

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

These combined with any op amp in that area, by virtue of electronic design rules , will not differ much from a TS808.

I have a Maxon OD808 as well as the SD 805. They don't sound alike. But even if you want to write that off as subjective, as is your right, there's the simple fact that the SD 805 has a three band EQ and the TS808, and most OD pedals, have a single tone knob.

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

" In the beginning, there were fuzz boxes ", then there were Tube screamers and OverDrives.

It's an overblown fuzz box /clone basically..

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Your grasping at straws to catch me in a contradiction is, among other things, 100% off topic.

[jon the art guy]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Y WE NOT USING TANTALUM

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Now the reality is I listen with no bias, always.

Wow. You really think that? Bias isn't a psychological defect or an affectation, it's how our minds work.

I have heard a difference, unrelated to slight value shifts. How do I know? Because you can test on either side of the part and see if the behavioral shift follows the dielectric or the value. In other words, get three PIO caps, .022 dead on tolerance, and one on either side of tolerance by a bit. Then get a ceramic disc that is dead on to the target .022 PIO. Listen to the control against all three PIO variables and you'll hear (or not hear) the difference between the two that are dead on target. To truly understand it is a longer experiment, but I can tell you that I can hear the differences, and feel the differences across the dynamic range, the attack, etc.

If someone else, for the life of them, with their ears pressed up against the amp can NOT hear the difference, it doesn't make my statement false. It means it is beyond their ability to hear and I trust their honesty in that. Suffice it to say, if a graph or chart plots the two as identical, I couldn't care less, because it would just mean they haven't created the right kind of test.

The right kind of test doesn't need measuring equipment or graphs or charts. All that's required is a double-blind ABX test. You have a box with switches, and the two capacitors connected invisibly behind it. Switch positions A and B choose between the two capacitors (anonymously). Switch position X selects either A or B, but the people in the room don't know which. You play your guitar, and switch between A and B and X as many times as you like, and then you say whether you think X is connected to A it B. Then the box is taken away and reconfigured, and the experiment is repeated again - lots of times.

By pure chance you would expect to get the right answer about 50% of the time. But if you were getting it right 90% of the time, that's very significant and you've proved that you can tell the difference. Whether that difference can be explained or measured, or whether one is "better", is irrelevant at that point - you have proved that the difference can be heard.

As yet, nobody has done this. It's a shame, because it would settle a lot of arguments if they did get that proof.

Thank you, though, for actually engaging with DreX's points. Some people here are using thinly-veiled ad hominem attacks, strawmen and sarcasm, never once addressing the actual point, and seem to think they're "winning" the argument.

Everyone: DreX has not said that you are not allowed to hold your opinion, so stop arguing that you are. We all already know that. But if my opinion was that a tone control turned down to 0 sounds the same with a 0.022uF cap or a 0.047uF cap, I'm sure that while you'd respect my right to hold that opinion, you'd still tell me that it was wrong.

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Your grasping at straws to catch me in a contradiction is, among other things, 100% off topic.

Exactly. I'd love to see where the argument is going: "DreX bought an 805; [fill this bit in later]; therefore, PIO caps sound better than ceramic caps".

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Y WE NOT USING TANTALUM

I don't know if it's still going on, but people were being murdered and forced into slavery to get Tantalum out of the ground. I saw a documentary years ago about a tiny African country where the only (relatively) profitable activity was digging up Tantalum that happened to be present on their land. Armed men from a neighbouring country moved in and forced the miners to bring the Tantalum up and then the interlopers would take it. Any who refused were killed.

The same thing happens somewhere else where they have deposits of whichever mineral it is that is used to make mobile phones vibrate when they ring.

So yeah, out in the remote places and jungles, people are being murdered for some of these materials. I remember being very glad that Tantalum caps are not used in tube equipment. The very few times i've had to buy them for low-voltage items like pedals, I have done so with trepidation.

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

The right kind of test doesn't need measuring equipment or graphs or charts. All that's required is a double-blind ABX test. You have a box with switches, and the two capacitors connected invisibly behind it. Switch positions A and B choose between the two capacitors (anonymously). Switch position X selects either A or B, but the people in the room don't know which. You play your guitar, and switch between A and B and X as many times as you like, and then you say whether you think X is connected to A it B. Then the box is taken away and reconfigured, and the experiment is repeated again - lots of times.

By pure chance you would expect to get the right answer about 50% of the time. But if you were getting it right 90% of the time, that's very significant and you've proved that you can tell the difference. Whether that difference can be explained or measured, or whether one is "better", is irrelevant at that point - you have proved that the difference can be heard.

A couple things; as noted, this only tests whether the difference is perceptible (which admittedly is all that really matters), and not whether there is a true electrical difference. Audiophiles like to believe they hear better than the average person, and I'd agree that you do hear more when you are aware of what you're listening for and hear it often, as with wine tasting. So if there is in fact an electrical difference, and an audiophile claims they do hear it, it's hard to prove they can't, unless we discover the differences occur at 30kHz, then we can say, "sorry friend, you don't hear that."

The other thing is that I'd expect the test subjects to actually play the guitar in case it difference is one of input response. Like with pickups, often the difference is more felt than heard, because only the person plucking the guitar is aware of difference in how his interaction with the guitar relates to what is being heard.

As yet, nobody has done this. It's a shame, because it would settle a lot of arguments if they did get that proof.

There are YouTube videos of A/B comparisons, but they'll never make everybody happy.

But if my opinion was that a tone control turned down to 0 sounds the same with a 0.022uF cap or a 0.047uF cap, I'm sure that while you'd respect my right to hold that opinion, you'd still tell me that it was wrong.

That's also true of the argument (to paraphrase) "if spending money on X makes a person happy, then the expense is valid". I'd like to see someone tell that to a CPA.

[jon the art guy]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

I don't know if it's still going on, but people were being murdered and forced into slavery to get Tantalum out of the ground. I saw a documentary years ago about a tiny African country where the only (relatively) profitable activity was digging up Tantalum that happened to be present on their land. Armed men from a neighbouring country moved in and forced the miners to bring the Tantalum up and then the interlopers would take it. Any who refused were killed.

The same thing happens somewhere else where they have deposits of whichever mineral it is that is used to make mobile phones vibrate when they ring.

So yeah, out in the remote places and jungles, people are being murdered for some of these materials. I remember being very glad that Tantalum caps are not used in tube equipment. The very few times i've had to buy them for low-voltage items like pedals, I have done so with trepidation.

TANX 4 BUMMIG MI OUT KRUSPY

[ParameterMan]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Somewhere on the internet I encountered a discussion about the microphonic tendencies of caps when used in different kids of circuits. IIRC it was mostly in context of high-gain, high frequency stuff like TVs.

It makes sense to me that a capacitor's physical construction can result in susceptibility to mechanical resonance at certain frequencies. How much this affects guitar circuits is debatable, although I did have a ceramic disk capacitor that was so microphonic that physical interaction with it like tapping or scratching produced an audible signal. It really "talked", too, but the character of the sound wasn't something I found pleasant.

I can imagine a PIO cap to be subject to the same issues as a guitar pickup - if wound loosely and poorly waxed it seems entirely likely that the whole thing could be quite sensitive. I don't pretend to know or assert anything beyond that.

[Myaccount876]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

No that is a totally false statement. When the first wax reel music players came out, people said they were shocked because they were so realistic it was like the person was in the room with them. If you listened to them today, you would disagree, and neither of you would be wrong. It is based on the hardware on your head and the software in between. It's relative.

I am one of those who has done the listening tests, and without the bias toward expense. In fact, you could argue that I would have been listening to justify the lower cost capacitors for use in OEM manufacturing. Now the reality is I listen with no bias, always. But that's not important.

I have heard a difference, unrelated to slight value shifts. How do I know? Because you can test on either side of the part and see if the behavioral shift follows the dielectric or the value. In other words, get three PIO caps, .022 dead on tolerance, and one on either side of tolerance by a bit. Then get a ceramic disc that is dead on to the target .022 PIO. Listen to the control against all three PIO variables and you'll hear (or not hear) the difference between the two that are dead on target. To truly understand it is a longer experiment, but I can tell you that I can hear the differences, and feel the differences across the dynamic range, the attack, etc.

If someone else, for the life of them, with their ears pressed up against the amp can NOT hear the difference, it doesn't make my statement false. It means it is beyond their ability to hear and I trust their honesty in that. Suffice it to say, if a graph or chart plots the two as identical, I couldn't care less, because it would just mean they haven't created the right kind of test. It's not just frequency response, there can be differences in phase linearity and the transient response that their test is not picking up. The audio exercise, and especially music creation that includes a bio-feedback loop to the human being is not (and never is) just a frequency response curve.

I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree with a few points. There is the argument that unconscious bias could still be in effect of your perception, there's the possibility of the placebo effect causing a difference in perceived sound, and saying 'if tests show there isn't a difference, than the tests aren't good enough' can boil down to a self-serving bias. You could still be correct, but I want to share some possible implications with your argument. I don't mean to make any accusations if that's how I come off, I'm just being skeptical.

I don't know if I'm more surprised that you thought to crush a capacitor with your fingers, or that you would consider it's ability to resist crushing an important indicator of quality.

You must really be running out of ways to put others down and insult their intellectual ability to make yourself feel superior. I pity you.

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

I stand by what I said.

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

A couple things; as noted, this only tests whether the difference is perceptible (which admittedly is all that really matters), and not whether there is a true electrical difference. Audiophiles like to believe they hear better than the average person, and I'd agree that you do hear more when you are aware of what you're listening for and hear it often, as with wine tasting. So if there is in fact an electrical difference, and an audiophile claims they do hear it, it's hard to prove they can't, unless we discover the differences occur at 30kHz, then we can say, "sorry friend, you don't hear that."

For the purposes of this conversation though, and for the purposes of whether or not spending money on expensive capacitors has any effect, we don't need to be able to explain it. We just need to be able to prove it exists. If I say "I'm buying these $150 capacitors, and I have scientifically valid evidence that I can detect when these capacitors are used", then it's completely irrelevant whether that difference shows up on a graph or oscilloscope. You can't look at your graph and then tell someone that they can't hear a difference, if they've just shown in a scientifically acceptable way that they can (ie, it's a not a case of them just insisting that they can).

The other thing is that I'd expect the test subjects to actually play the guitar in case it difference is one of input response. Like with pickups, often the difference is more felt than heard, because only the person plucking the guitar is aware of difference in how his interaction with the guitar relates to what is being heard.

Yes, definitely, that was supposed to come through in my description of the experiment.

YouTube A/B videos are completely useless, simply because they're about as far from that experiment you can get: you're not playing the guitar, you're not in the room with the guitar, the sound is compressed, they tell you which capacitor is which, and so on.

Of course you will hear a difference between two different values because the roll-off frequency is different between the two. The .047uf cap has a lower roll-off which shunts more highs to ground thus making the sound darker. Using .033uf vs .022uf is a matter of taste as to whether the player likes a darker roll-off or not.

Yes, but I think we're driving at the same point here: if there's a difference in what gets "lost" to ground, then there's a difference in what gets left behind, too. So if PIO vs ceramic does have an effect on exactly what is going to ground, then it also must have an effect on what doesn't.

I admit, I like the Sprague Orange Drops simply because they are easy to work with, I can read the values easily, and they're plenty cheap too. In the past I've used the Radio Shack green chicklet poly film caps and recently found another local source of caps on the cheap in bulk.

I like the orange drops for the same reasons: you can look at them to see what value they are, and they're nice and big and easy to work with. However, I quite often don't use them because I do object to how much UK retailers sell them for. We're talking 5-10 times the price of Maplin (our equivalent of Radio Shack, but they do still do a wide range of good quality components for hobbyists) would charge.

I use them when I do wiring for other people because if that person opens the guitar up, they look cool, sturdy etc. But most of the time, for my own personal wiring, I end up using resin-dipped ceramic capacitors. They're blue! I've also used polyester layer capacitors in PCB format, mounted on stripboard, for example in this Tele where there is a tone cap, and then a volume treble bleed kit, all mounted on the little bit of stripboard between the pots (click for larger image):

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

You must really be running out of ways to put others down and insult their intellectual ability to make yourself feel superior. I pity you.

You were doing fine until that last sentence, but then: