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Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

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  • #16
    Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

    Originally posted by Chistopher View Post
    Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but there are massive, considerable, and measurable differences between various hifi amps. Caps matter in amps because as certain constructions of caps get older, their internal resistance increases.
    Thanks.

    The usuall stuff for amps are - frequency response +/- so so dB, THD and IMD apart from wattage rms and musical - that is pretty much it,
    You have amp that are really the same in this regard - and yet, one will sound better - that was my attempt with comparison.
    Measurement tell one story - not the full story.

    I think there are every other reason for different caps in hi end amps - than age endurance thingy. Maybe not by normal measures - but by ear. My guess is it is to do with dynamic characteristics.

    I made my own DAC from this project - with massive improvement just swapping caps to hi quality ones.


    Most of these for digital purpose, delivering energy really fast when needed by circuits - filtering out any dips or flutter in power etc.
    My favourite became a combination of os-cons and tantal on top of those - suddenly a lush clean hi end to it all.
    Caps alone cost the same as the entire circuit board - so would make it manufactured like that probably 10 times the cost in retail.

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    • #17
      Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

      Originally posted by Larioso View Post
      Thanks.

      The usuall stuff for amps are - frequency response +/- so so dB, THD and IMD apart from wattage rms and musical - that is pretty much it
      Frequency response is always given with a +/-. That plus and minus is important! It means that any given frequency will be higher or lower that the ideal perfect reproduction. Two amps with a frequency response of 20 - 20,000 Hz +/- 3 db for example can sound radically different. You need to look at the (unsmoothed) frequency graphs of each to make comparisons that are remotely valid - totally measurable.

      dB really mean nothing, as there are no agreed upon standards for measuring dB levels of speakers. That's why you can compare numbers from within the same company (usually) but never from company to company. The human ear also perceives certain frequencies as louder than others, so two speakers that have the same sensitivity but a different frequency response will sound louder/quieter than each other. All of this is measurable though.

      THD is total harmonic distortion - it's a measure of additional harmonics that an amp adds to a signal. Two amps can have the same value of THD, but have the harmonics introduced at different frequencies which will make them sound different. This is a measurable difference, but amp companies don't bother to give out this information usually.

      IMD is intermodulation distortion - this is dischordant distortion (not in tune) that an amp adds to a signal. Same thing as above. Two amps can have the same value of IMD, but have the distortion introduced at different frequencies which will make them sound different. Again, this is a measurable difference.

      RMS wattage is a root mean square measurement - the average of the power that can be produced by an amp over time. It's usually measured at the power the amp can produce before it hits 1% THD. It's possible for an amp with slow transients to have the same RMS as an amp with fast transients . . . but both amps will sound/react quite differently. You need to include peak power and response time in your comparisons if you want to be accurate. There are measurable differences here.


      So yeah . . . you can easily have two amps with the same ad-speak figures that sound quite different. That's because these figures are approximations - not accurate measurements. Just like how you can grab two .033 +/- 20% caps and hear different things. Even though they're both marked as .033, one might be .027 and one might be .039. That's a huge and audible difference. That's why doing proper measurement (rather than just grabbing a few numbers off the box) is important.


      Originally posted by Larioso View Post
      You have amp that are really the same in this regard - and yet, one will sound better - that was my attempt with comparison.
      Measurement tell one story - not the full story.
      Measurements tell the full story. Grabbing a handful of advertisement related specs (as you described) will certainly not tell you the full story though. Often times doing proper measurement is time consuming and requires expensive equipment. We're fortunate that this is not the case in very simple guitar tone circuits.
      Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

      Originally posted by Douglas Adams
      This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

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      • #18
        Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

        I prefer log for tone and linear for volume.
        You will never understand How it feels to live your life With no meaning or control And with nowhere left to go You are amazed that they exist And they burn so bright
        Whilst you can only wonder why

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        • #19
          Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

          Originally posted by grumptruck
          so linear is best for Tone pots?
          That's more of a taste thing I think. Personally, I prefer log for tone and volume, but can get along just fine with a linear tone pot. Linear volume is a little too on/off for the way I like to use the knob.
          Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

          Originally posted by Douglas Adams
          This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

            Originally posted by Mincer View Post
            I am one of those people who use the tone control a lot, and if the value of the cap is the same, I can't hear a difference. I am not saying there isn't, but I can't hear it, so worry about other things that I can hear.
            Same. I hear the difference in different value caps, but not different types. And sometimes I don't hear the difference with different values if they're close (I replaced some well worn Emerson PIO caps in my LP with Orange Drops and went from .015 to .022 on the neck, and heard zero difference).

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            • #21
              Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

              Originally posted by David Garner View Post
              Same. I hear the difference in different value caps, but not different types. And sometimes I don't hear the difference with different values if they're close (I replaced some well worn Emerson PIO caps in my LP with Orange Drops and went from .015 to .022 on the neck, and heard zero difference).
              I wonder if the most revealing part might be with knob on 10. This you cannot do anything about if wanting to go brigther.
              I heard before and also listened to YT vids where they disconnected tone circuit, with clearly audible brigther tone.
              So it is filtering even as knob on 10.

              This is where those zero-something pots come in, where swiper touch no carbon at all at 10, so same as disconnected.
              So depending which direction you want to go you set capacitor value as starting condition, unless you have this disconnect functionality.

              I saw some example where they put .015 uF at neck, to have is slightly brighter, and .022 at bridge circuit since it need no extra treble boost.

              Others go 1 Mohm on volume pot in neck, DiMarzio has one, to also make it just a bit brigther. All components are part of the circuit - including the cable.

              So depending on guitar and pickups you can adjust some things around pickups to make it brighter.
              - if not using low capacitance cable like GeorgeL with 19 pF/foot or 60 pF/meter - you could start using that
              - go to 1 Mohm volume pot
              - set tone cap to smaller value like .015 uF instead of .022 uF

              All these things are cheaper than swapping pickups.
              Last edited by Larioso; 04-01-2020, 10:49 PM.

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              • #22
                Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                Originally posted by Larioso View Post
                I heard before and also listened to YT vids where they disconnected tone circuit, with clearly audible brigther tone.
                So it is filtering even as knob on 10.
                Yes, and it can be measured. I've the bad habit to mount custom home made tone circuits : when I put a switch allowing to from from a Q filter to a standard tone cap, the inductance of the pickup(s) changes on the meter, even with the tone pot full up...

                ... and in a counter-intuitive way, small value caps (below 10nF) are the most detectable in this case (!).

                To answer a bit too late to your initial question, my experience with tone caps is that...

                1-nothing replaces personal experience with such things;

                2-there's no legal rule when it comes to guitar circuits - but it's always possible to "tune" a wiring to optimize the specific pickups mounted in a specific guitars for the specific needs of any player. It requires to apply the point 1 above, IMHO;

                3-soldering irons develop potentially destructive heat, pliers can make damages, wires exhibit or generate more or less stray capacitance, time shifts the specs of some components and so on... For such reasons, "simple" guitar wiring might have unexpected "parasitic" properties that some measurements make clear. Possible reasons why I've seen some tone circuits reacting in an apparently illogical way on the screen of a frequency analyzer;

                4-For some reasons above in my point 3, I prefer to deal with "big" caps on thick legs: as long as they aren't "Tropical fish" models from the 70's, they won't crumble like some small caps do and they're less prone to be damaged by a bad (re)wiring job... or even by a loose knob whose rotation is potentially able to break or to desolder / pull off the leg of a tiny cap (!);

                5-some caps are more sensitive to interferences (for example, some ceramic caps favor HF noise). Cheap components are not cheap without reasons...

                6-generally, guitar tone caps are simply... a huge can of worms in online discussions;

                7-my point 6 redirects towards point 1. LOL.


                FWIW : my 2 cents. :-)
                Last edited by freefrog; 04-02-2020, 12:37 AM.
                Duncan user since the 80's...

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                  Originally posted by Larioso View Post
                  I wonder if the most revealing part might be with knob on 10. This you cannot do anything about if wanting to go brigther.
                  I heard before and also listened to YT vids where they disconnected tone circuit, with clearly audible brigther tone.
                  So it is filtering even as knob on 10.

                  This is where those zero-something pots come in, where swiper touch no carbon at all at 10, so same as disconnected.
                  So depending which direction you want to go you set capacitor value as starting condition, unless you have this disconnect functionality.

                  I saw some example where they put .015 uF at neck, to have is slightly brighter, and .022 at bridge circuit since it need no extra treble boost.

                  Others go 1 Mohm on volume pot in neck, DiMarzio has one, to also make it just a bit brigther. All components are part of the circuit - including the cable.

                  So depending on guitar and pickups you can adjust some things around pickups to make it brighter.
                  - if not using low capacitance cable like GeorgeL with 19 pF/foot or 60 pF/meter - you could start using that
                  - go to 1 Mohm volume pot
                  - set tone cap to smaller value like .015 uF instead of .022 uF

                  All these things are cheaper than swapping pickups.
                  You’re mixing different things here. Lower capacitance cables and a higher resistance volume pot will will retain more of the treble part of the signal.

                  Lower tone cap values will not make the overall signal brighter. The value of the tone cap changes the corner frequency that the treble rolls off when turning the knob toward zero. As such, the difference between tone caps is most evident when the tone is completely rolled off to zero. When the tone control is on ten, it’s doing almost nothing, sending almost no signal through the tone cap to ground, so differences in tone cap values when the tone is on ten are not detectable with the ear.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                    Originally posted by beaubrummels View Post
                    When the tone control is on ten, it’s doing almost nothing, sending almost no signal through the tone cap to ground, so differences in tone cap values when the tone is on ten are not detectable with the ear.
                    But that "almost" is actually audible - and in the range worth considering if you feel you need tiny bit more treble.
                    So yes, it is detectable by ear, from many sources on forums since 15 years or so and YT vids.
                    Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

                    Ignore it if you want.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                      Use a Fender Esquire if you want to test tone on 10 versus no tone in real world use. They have had that wiring since 1950.

                      An Esquire is my number one, and has been since 2002. I can only hear the hairiest hair of difference, if I am playing by myself in a sonically isolated environment, and really, really, REALLY listening for it. If I didn’t know I was flicking the switch, it would be impossible for me to tell the difference...and I have pretty good ears for that sort of thing. And that’s with a 250 KOhm pot. The differences are even smaller with a higher value pot.

                      Add a single other sound to the mix, let alone a whole band, and/or stop looking hard for it, and you’ve got no difference worth talking about in real world use. That is why my middle setting on the Esquire is with the tone pot rolled down a bit. Because if I left it all the way up, my number one and number two positions would sound the same in the mix.

                      “15 years“ of people online claiming they have golden ears or posting pretty graphs showing minuscule differences (that they then proclaim we can hear in a real world mix), while sitting alone in their bedrooms amounts to a hill of beans in my book. Of course there are slight differences; I even agree that they can be heard. The question is always whether or not they are appreciable in the real world, when we are actually using out instruments as they were built to be used.

                      And FWIW, I’ve been playing my Esquire for over 17 years, and I’ve only been deaf from using the no tone position for 15 or 16 of them, so I know what the hell I’m talking about!
                      Last edited by ItsaBass; 04-09-2020, 12:05 PM.
                      Originally posted by LesStrat
                      Yogi Berra was correct.
                      Originally posted by JOLLY
                      I do a few chord things, some crappy lead stuff, and then some rhythm stuff.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                        10mn of pause in my work online...

                        As a footnote to my last post and for my geeky nerdy fun (if not for yours)...

                        I share below the resonant peak of a Strat pickup through a standard wiring harness + cable in a 1M input.

                        The black line shows the Rz when the tone pot is connected to ground through a home made Q filter.

                        The pink line is the same Rz when the tone pot is connected to ground through a standard 47nF cap.

                        The tone pot is a 250k control set FULL UP (10/10) in both cases...

                        Click image for larger version

Name:	Tone pot FULL UP & various components.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	80.9 KB
ID:	5818613

                        No need to say that the difference pictured can be heard when the guitar is played. :-)

                        IF time permits, I'll share another slice of my experimental data, showing the difference between a 1nF cap and a standard tone cap with the same 250k tone control FULL UP - with this paradox that the 47nF cap, which is obviously making the tone much darker @ 0/10, is also what makes the sound a wee bit BRIGHTER when the tone control is @ 10/10.

                        There is a discussion about this paradoxal phenomenon and its explanation somewhere on guitarnutz2, for the record... but I've not enough time to search the related link right now (and anyway, the ambiance on guitarnutz2 is sometimes close-minded and based on ego-promoting naysaying so there's no reason for me to echo their discourse).

                        FWIW (2 other cents). :-)

                        So, more later maybe - although I strongly hesitate to dig further in the can of worms... :-))
                        Last edited by freefrog; 04-02-2020, 02:54 AM.
                        Duncan user since the 80's...

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                          Originally posted by Larioso View Post
                          But that "almost" is actually audible - and in the range worth considering if you feel you need tiny bit more treble.
                          So yes, it is detectable by ear, from many sources on forums since 15 years or so and YT vids.
                          Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

                          Ignore it if you want.
                          Again, you are mixing up the difference between pot values and cap values. Pot values have more impact on making the guitar brighter with the controls on ten than the tone cap value will.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                            Originally posted by beaubrummels View Post
                            Again, you are mixing up the difference between pot values and cap values. Pot values have more impact on making the guitar brighter with the controls on ten than the tone cap value will.
                            It's not a mixup.
                            Look at the circuit.
                            Pickup with it's internal resistance and impedance due to coil.
                            Parallell over pickup is volume pot.
                            Then also in parallell over pickup and volume pot is the tone circuit, which is a resistance and cap in series to ground.
                            Some tone circuits are connected to wiper on volume pot, but still is the same having volume on 10.

                            Some frequencies are drained on the signal always being connected - and what those tried it found, it is audible even.
                            Some do modify tone pot itself, and carve away carbon on one end, so wiper does not connect - or just isolate wiper in that spot.
                            Some buy the zero-something named pots for tone that have wiper disconnected at 10.

                            So total circuit with cable as well - being a capacitance straight over end - become a LP filter, than severely affect tone loss turning volume down.
                            So some make a bleed circuit over volume pot - same type as tone circuit, but other values - resistance and cap in series with signal over to wiper.

                            It's rather intricate - and in passive circuits one change affect it all.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                              Here is an article on no-load tone pot


                              Say you don't hear it - examine hearing loss maybe which I thought I had after too many hours in rehearsals way to loud when I was young.
                              But doing more recording and mixing I found I was quite alright in my hearing still. Maybe it repair over years.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Tonepot ceramic capacitor - should I change it?

                                Fender no-load tone pots
                                Original Fender No Load Pot with fine spline split knurled shaft. Works like a standard 250K pot from 1-9 but "clicks" in at 10 (full clockwise) and takes the pot out of the circuit entirely. This eliminates the path to ground that exists with standard pots in the full setting. The result is increased power and brightness at the "full treble" setting. Note: No Load pots are designed to expand the range of the tone control and can not be used as standard volume controls. Fender No Load Pot Specs Ohms: 250K-NL   Taper: Audio Tolerance: +/-15%   Pot Diameter: 15/16" (.9375") Shaft Material: Brass   Threaded Shaft Length: 1/4" (.25") Shaft Type: Split Knurled   Threaded Shaft Material: Die-Cast Spline Count (Type): 24 (Fine)   Threaded Shaft Diameter: 3/8" (.375") Shaft Height: 3/8" (.375")   Thread Pitch: 3/8-32NEF


                                "This eliminates the path to ground that exists with standard pots in the full setting. The result is increased power and brightness at the "full treble" setting. "

                                If you can hear probably is down to your ears and what sound you usually go for. The cleaner more bluesy tone, more probability you hear it.

                                If you never go for that Clapton woman tone, with tone knob all the way down - you might just choose a smaller cap value so tone on 10 raise crossover frequency for the filter as such. But you still can knock off a lot of treble turning tone down.

                                Half the cap value and you move crossover frequency with an octave. And difference in the circuit or not matter less - and you can turn it down.

                                Thinking about going for another pickup to get some more brittle in there - other things can be done to remedy that - cables, higher resistance volume pots or raise the bar for tone circuit.

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