Vitamin Q 0.022

[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:

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

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...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.

Look I get it. I've built a career that includes my abilities, and my objectivity in these matters. People engage with me because of it. And there will come a time as I age, that if I can't sense it through other means, eardrums alone will not be enough for me to continue to make those claims.

Someone questioned my statement about lack of bias, I should clarify that I mean in my business, I am not listening to these things with the bias that the more expensive is better, nor that it makes no difference.

Do I begin with the bias that IF there is a difference, I will be able to discern it? Yes. Because that is drive, that determination has caused me to identify things that others have missed. If guitar related, often times I can set up "the rig" that will reveal the differences. And it won't be a Line 6 Vetta. (Sorry L6, great amp, just not for critical listening )

Sometimes even a hifi reference system is NOT the best way to discern a difference, because that's not the world we live in. Sometimes gain, compression, power tube saturation, speaker cabinet SPL, and more combine to reveal something we can hear, that does make a difference in our enjoyment come gig time, or jam time. Sometimes through test equipment, or studio monitors with a high quality buffer you simply have not added enough magnification to perceive it.

You run that double blind cap test through a Fender Super Reverb on 4, it might be harder to tell than through a dimed Plexi (a good one) even with ear plugs.

The best, cleanest hifi reference system with the highest headroom may reveal nothing, because theres no gain structure to start adding exponents. And guess what we guitarists do sometimes? We play loud, we play with gain. So when someone tells me they set up the cleanest, purest, most scientific-iest test procedure and nothing happened, I guess you could say I'm a little bit biased. LOL!

As for the insults, okay yeah you all probably smell like pee and can't even play Smoke on the Water. How's that, good?

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Sometimes even a hifi reference system is NOT the best way to discern a difference, because that's not the world we live in. Sometimes gain, compression, power tube saturation, speaker cabinet SPL, and more combine to reveal something we can hear, that does make a difference in our enjoyment come gig time, or jam time. Sometimes through test equipment, or studio monitors with a high quality buffer you simply have not added enough magnification to perceive it.

You run that double blind cap test through a Fender Super Reverb on 4, it might be harder to tell than through a dimed Plexi (a good one) even with ear plugs.

Absolutely, and therefore the experiment would be performed with the exact rig that you were able to hear the difference through. The only difference would be the addition of the ABX switch. Of course, traditionally, if the ABX methodology causes the success rate to drop to 50%, then the test subject will argue that there is something about the ABX switch that is removing the difference between A and B. The switch, an arrangement of signal-agnostic electrical contacts and springs, magically knows how to make A and B sound the same, and applies that change to the signal. Of course, with guitars, I think that argument would be harder to convince with, given that a large majority of guitars already have mechanical switches through which the signal flows, and just about all of them have a mechanical jack output*.

Of course, we're now at the point where we're saying that a very specific set of circumstances needs to be in place, and even then only some people can hear it, and even then it's a subtle differece. At that point, it's helpful to have a bit of perspective, and realise that when you put on a CD you've never heard before, you can make a pretty reliable statement as to whether you're hearing a single coil or a humbucker, almost instantly. But however long you listen to that Cd, however much the player rolls his tone control up and down, and however loud or quiet you play it, you will never be able to produce anything better than a guess as to the contruction of his tone cap.

As for the insults, okay yeah you all probably smell like pee and can't even play Smoke on the Water. How's that, good?

Pretty good, but the "probably" lets you down a bit.

* Yes, I'm sure that somewhere on the internet there's a guitar with no switching and with its cable soldered direct at both the guitar and the amplifier end

 

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

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).

I guess I should have said that, since it's 2014 and this debate still rages on, despite many various A/B tests people have performed with varying degrees of scientific rigor, I believe that even a very well conducted A/B blind listening test would most likely to produce negative/ambiguous results. We're already at the point of needing graphs/oscilloscope to prove there is some sort of difference. Whether it turns out to be a difference that anyone could possibly hear is another matter.

 

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Of course, we're now at the point where we're saying that a very specific set of circumstances needs to be in place, and even then only some people can hear it, and even then it's a subtle differece. At that point, it's helpful to have a bit of perspective, and realise that when you put on a CD you've never heard before, you can make a pretty reliable statement as to whether you're hearing a single coil or a humbucker, almost instantly. But however long you listen to that Cd, however much the player rolls his tone control up and down, and however loud or quiet you play it, you will never be able to produce anything better than a guess as to the contruction of his tone cap.

Being a 'bedroom player' (as I'm sure many of us are) who likes to pick a clean Strat very lightly sometimes, my perspective doesn't include how I might sound recorded. I'm all about how subtle differences and differences that are felt, if not heard. That's why I'm more interested in pickups now than I ever was before; half of the difference between one and the next are only perceived by the guitarist.

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

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

once again , that's your interpretation and defensive at that. Of course you never go off topic , do you!

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

I guess I should have said that, since it's 2014 and this debate still rages on, despite many various A/B tests people have performed with varying degrees of scientific rigor, I believe that even a very well conducted A/B blind listening test would most likely to produce negative/ambiguous results. We're already at the point of needing graphs/oscilloscope to prove there is some sort of difference. Whether it turns out to be a difference that anyone could possibly hear is another matter.

Frankly I think that if you could measure absolutely every single thing about the signal, at infinite resolution, then there would be a difference between the materials. But I don't see what it would be relevant to. The pertinent information (in this thread at least) is whether it makes a perceptible difference to the person playing the guitar.

I'm not sure exactly what blind tests have been done, but if, for the sake of argument, they've all been fully rigorous, that would put us in a position where the current body of knowledge does not support the assertion that a guitar player can hear the difference between capacitor materials. We still don't need a graph or an oscilloscope or anything when someone makes a claim like that in the first post. The null hypothesis is "the material makes no difference that I can hear". This is an easily falsifiable hypothesis, and a simple experiment can be performed to show that it's not true, if the result is "95 times out of 100, I correctly identified which capacitor was being used". At that point, while we may not have explained the difference, we at least know it exists. But, like I say, nobody seems to be able to actually do this.

Being a 'bedroom player' (as I'm sure many of us are) who likes to pick a clean Strat very lightly sometimes, my perspective doesn't include how I might sound recorded. I'm all about how subtle differences and differences that are felt, if not heard. That's why I'm more interested in pickups now than I ever was before; half of the difference between one and the next are only perceived by the guitarist.

I agree. I was simply talking about perspective. But if you are all about differences that are felt if not heard, then surely the experiments you suggest ought to be experiments about feeling and hearing, not measuring signals with equipment.

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

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".

You seem to be furnishing your own "argument ", so you should know.
Do you want to point out where anyone said PIO were better than ceramic ?

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

once again , that's your interpretation and defensive at that. Of course you never go off topic , do you!

Well, here's my interpretation, and I have no need to be defensive (not having been attacked).

Your initial comment about the 805 pedal was based around a straw man: that DreX considers more expensive capacitors to be inferior. The resulting back-and-forth about whether or not the 805 is a clone of some other pedal was also useless - if DreX finally admitted that the 805 was a clone of a TS808, and that he likes the sound of it even though it was expensive, then that says nothing about whether capacitors of different materials have perceptibly different sounds.

Additionally, the fact that DreX sometimes goes off topic does not mean that you haven't gone off topic.

Do you want to point out where anyone said PIO were better than ceramic ?

People are saying it in quite round-about ways that don't lend themselves to quick quoting (for example, comparing caps to tires, then saying some tires have better tread and will last for more miles). But sure, here's a few.

I have a polyester film cap sprague 0.22 a ceramic disk cap (RadioShack) 0.022 and a Russian NOS PIO 0.022 and a Vitamin Q nos pio and I can almost promise you everyone here will pick the Vitamin Q

I would throw out the ceramic disc. Any of the others, as long as the value was in tolerance would be just fine.

All my guitars have Sprague Vitamin Q caps. [...] I sleep fine at night knowing my guitars have the best parts in them

You know, if you want to win this argument, it's actually very easy. All you have to do is post a link to one rigorous, properly conducted experiment that shows that at least one person can reliably tell the difference between two types of capacitor used in a guitars' tone circuit. You do that, the argument is over.

I don't know why people get so upset about this, though. Like, genuinely grotesquely offended by the idea that their perceptions may be informed by context, in the exact same way as every human being ever born.

 

[CTN]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Christ, I am beginning to seriously hate this area of the forum

 

[DreX]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

I agree. I was simply talking about perspective. But if you are all about differences that are felt if not heard, then surely the experiments you suggest ought to be experiments about feeling and hearing, not measuring signals with equipment.

I'm optimistic that even "felt" differences are measurable somehow, like I think the attack or slew rate of a pickup factors into what people think of as "feel", it should be possible to measure that sort of thing. I plan to try soon.

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Christ, I am beginning to seriously hate this area of the forum

Yeah, full of snide, saracastic, mocking ad hominem posts like this one, instead of ones that actually address the point:

first he designs an experiment to measure relative enjoyment of art vs amount of time spent exposed to stimulus, contrasted against other control studies such as relative enjoyment of watching paint dry, and relative enjoyment of posting useless stuff on the internet.

Then a graph of the dataset follows.

An analysis of the graph will indicate the amount of enjoyment the subject may or may not have received. His enjoyment can be measured in units of something abstract, like widgets, or rat whiskers.

 

[CTN]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

meh, I already had my say on the topic.

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

I'm optimistic that even "felt" differences are measurable somehow, like I think the attack or slew rate of a pickup factors into what people think of as "feel", it should be possible to measure that sort of thing. I plan to try soon.

I'm sure you're right. The measuring part isn't really relevant to us as guitar players, of course, but in terms of advancement of human knowledge it has some value. If it can be measured completely then it can be reproduced and "feel" might one day be something we can manipulate in the same way as we currently manipulate tone.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Christ, I am beginning to seriously hate this area of the forum

Remember kids...down the road, not across the street.


Sent from my armored space station via iPad using Tapatalk

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Vitamin Q 0.022

Well, here's my interpretation, and I have no need to be defensive (not having been attacked).

Your initial comment about the 805 pedal was based around a straw man: that DreX considers more expensive capacitors to be inferior. The resulting back-and-forth about whether or not the 805 is a clone of some other pedal was also useless - if DreX finally admitted that the 805 was a clone of a TS808, and that he likes the sound of it even though it was expensive, then that says nothing about whether capacitors of different materials have perceptibly different sounds.

Additionally, the fact that DreX sometimes goes off topic does not mean that you haven't gone off topic.



People are saying it in quite round-about ways that don't lend themselves to quick quoting (for example, comparing caps to tires, then saying some tires have better tread and will last for more miles). But sure, here's a few.

Originally Posted by WhoGivesAPluck I have a polyester film cap sprague 0.22 a ceramic disk cap (RadioShack) 0.022 and a Russian NOS PIO 0.022 and a Vitamin Q nos pio and I can almost promise you everyone here will pick the Vitamin Q

Originally Posted by beaubrummels I would throw out the ceramic disc. Any of the others, as long as the value was in tolerance would be just fine.

You know, if you want to win this argument, it's actually very easy.

Once again your furnishing your own argument. I'm not arguing, nor did I attack Drex.
Your quotes say nothing about PIO being better than Ceramic. Your suggestion of inference is an unsubstatiated
conjecture.

Your initial comment about the 805 pedal was based around a straw man: that DreX considers more expensive capacitors to be inferior.

Drex didn't say that at all. He said he didn't think they were worth paying more for.

If there really is a difference,..... and move on to the more mundane issue of whether that difference is worth $5.