Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Diocletian

Diocletian

BrandNewGlossologist
OK the Epiphone SG I bought yesterday sounds good, but I noticed the tone controls are basically binary. Full on or full off (muffled to hell).
In the past people have told me it's the pots at fault, others have said it's the caps.
Well, I opened the electronics cavity up and was pleased to see full size alphas. I've had good experiences with these so wasn't planning on buying CTS pots unless I had to.
The caps were the usual green mylar jobbies (0.22).

Now I only had ONE orange drop in my spares box (0.22) so I decided to fit it to the neck tone control as that's the only one I really like to turn down (to about halfway normally).

So I put the orange drop in. I now have a guitar with one orange drop in the neck circuit and one stock mylar in the bridge.

And I can say the orange drop DOES make a big difference.

The neck tone control now works perfectly, and when I switch to the bridge to compare, that tone control is still basically on or off so it's quite a noticeable difference.

It proves to me that orange drops (or better caps in general) are certainly a worthwhile upgrade, they DO make a difference!
 
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Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Just checking, I've seen people compare .22 to .47 like that. I've had a similar experience with the ceramic discs, but not mylars.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

thats been my general stand point on the cap issue as well: an upgrade over the crappy stock caps is worth while but a boutique upgrade isnt any different from regular orange drops.

I feel the same way about strat trems, ive AB'd GFS full size trem blocks and bridges against the callaham set up and there was no noticeable difference. Either one however, was a big upgrade over stock.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

King IzzO))) said:
Just checking, I've seen people compare .22 to .47 like that. I've had a similar experience with the ceramic discs, but not mylars.
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Yeah, well I get your point. The Epi LP standard I got a couple of weeks ago had mylar caps they seemed to work fine. I had orange drops lying around so put them in and never noticed a difference - the controls still worked fine!

Maybe mylars are just more prone to being total crap.

If I ever get another guitar where the controls work perfectly well, I'd leave the caps no matter what they are.
But when the tone controls are only working "on or off" then I've proved to myself the simplest way to sort it is to try changing the caps for something better.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Just to keep in mind, I've seen brand new Epi's with bad solder joints.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

scottish said:
thats been my general stand point on the cap issue as well: an upgrade over the crappy stock caps is worth while but a boutique upgrade isnt any different from regular orange drops.
Click to expand...

There's guys on the My Les Paul forum spending more on paper in oil caps than they do on their pickups. It's a good forum, but they have this thing for PIO caps. Many of them even replace all the stock Epiphone electronics (which these days means decent quality full size alpha pots and proper switches, not the closed box crap) with CTS pots, new switches and PIO caps which costs about the same as a couple of Duncans, yet leave the stock Epiphone pickups!

Maybe PIO caps great if you're playing clean jazz lines where the basic guitar tone is so audible, but for someone playing rock and metal, I really don't see the need for anything other than some £1.50 orange drops.
 
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Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

King IzzO))) said:
Dudes with more money than they know what to do with.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but then they leave the stock Epiphone pickups presumably because the money that they can afford for upgrades goes on a new wiring harness, then they can't afford new pickups.

Personally, I'd rather leave the wiring and buy a set of Duncans than PIO caps!
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Um, I thought the green ones were polyester film.

I tried the green one (polyester) and then mylars. And the mylars are awesome.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Diocletian said:
Oh maybe they are, sorry, I thought they were mylar.
Click to expand...

Mylar Capacitor Structure
Polyester film as dielectric, inductive construction, epoxy resin dip sealed.
A mylar capacitor uses mylar, which is a polyester film, as a dielectric.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Since we are talking about tone controls, meaning capacitance to ground, I am highly skeptical of anyone being able to tell the difference between cap composition, assuming the values are the same.

The only real way would be have another person present, for a blindfold experiment. Try, say, 20 takes, where each time, the other person would, in secret, switch out a cap, or pretend to. Then, the first person would play the guitar, then mark down on a piece of paper when cap they thought was in the guitar.

There is just too much expected outcome in place of the tester knows what cap is in the guitar each time.

Nothing personal, just not buying it.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

I had exactly the same experience with a .22 PIO Vitamin T from mojotone

when I first put it in it did the same on-off thing

broke the PP that it was on , thought about changing it(the cap that is), tried again

when I reinstalled the exact same cap it worked perfectly

here's what I believe happened

one leg of the cap, coming from the terminal
on the tone pot shorted to ground before the cap

same problem
reused same cap
same results

check your cap
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

Desert said:
Since we are talking about tone controls, meaning capacitance to ground, I am highly skeptical of anyone being able to tell the difference between cap composition, assuming the values are the same.

The only real way would be have another person present, for a blindfold experiment. Try, say, 20 takes, where each time, the other person would, in secret, switch out a cap, or pretend to. Then, the first person would play the guitar, then mark down on a piece of paper when cap they thought was in the guitar.

There is just too much expected outcome in place of the tester knows what cap is in the guitar each time.

Nothing personal, just not buying it.
Click to expand...

+1, you need to eliminate the tonal equivalent of the placebo effect.
 
Re: Orange drops vs mylar caps - evidence!

How can there be a placebo effect when I was getting "on or off" then changed the cap and got a tone control that worked right through the range? There's nothing subjective about it. It's a fact.

Maybe edhwuld hit the nail on the head with his suggestion - as I said, the controls on my latest Epi LP work fine and the caps seem to be the same ones as the ones in my SG.

But if that SG cap was faulty, both of them in it are, cos both pickups have the same issue with the tone controls.
 
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