[mouse]

I have a powered subwoofer that recently went dead due to a burned up cap. The company who designed and manufactured it is out of business, therefore, a schematic and parts list is unavailable. Since the cap in my sub is unmeasureable due to the damage, a friend who has the same model sub let me pull his amp board to get a look at the cap. It is a small, orangish-beige axial design, with a "^" symbol directly over the shaded bottom half of a circle. Below this arrow and half circle symbol is the number "520". On the other side of the cap are the numbers "104" with the letters "ZES" or "ZE5" below it (hard to make out even with a magnifying glass). Many thanks to anybody who might know what the value of this cap is.

[JohnR]

It's 0.1 uF (micro-Farads).

The "104" means "ten times ten to the power of four picofarads"...

[wongstein]

I just made a http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=6093.msg52349#52349">post in the Reference 3A circle about upgrading the lone capacitor in the De Capo, and I'm not sure where to begin in finding a replacement.

This is what the cap says on it (click the link above to see a picture):

Ilusion
Paper in oil capacitor for Audio
5MFD 630VDC

Can I read something into these numbers?  Or does this just mean that it's a 5 micro-farad cap with a 630 volts DC limitation or something?

Thanks,
Anthony

[bubba966]

Or does this just mean that it's a 5 micro-farad cap with a 630 volts DC limitation or something?

I don't know my caps as well as John does. But I think that's exactly what the markings mean, that it's a .5uF 630VDC cap.

Interesting that it's such a high voltage cap. I think that 50VDC caps are usually good for speaker crossovers. But with higher voltage ratings, you're supposed to have higher quality caps. So maybe they were just going with the best quality cap they found to be reasonable priced. And the 630VDC is just overkill for the sake of higher quality.

[mgalusha]

Close Bubba, it's 5uF not .5. You are right about the voltage rating, caps with a higher voltage rating often sound better and will usually last longer as well.

Mike

[bubba966]

I was thinking 5uF. Don't know why I hit the decimal place...

Thanks for catching that Mike!

[bubba966]

You are right about the voltage rating

At least I got something right...

[wongstein]

Great, thanks a metric ton guys.  Does this mean that I can just get a 5 micro-farad Black Gate or something "high-end", with a high voltage value, say above 200V for overkill (They're sensitive speakers), solder it in where the old one was, and expect it to sound good?

Any opinions on what brand to try?  The De Capo has only three active components in it - the woofer, the tweeter, and a cap that's connected between the tweeter and the top set of binding posts.  That's it, so I figure that cap has got to be pretty significant.  I think that the goals are to get even more transparency and to find out if any more HF extension can be squeezed out of the silk-dome tweeter without changing the high-pass properties.  Seems like a lot of people are driving these speakers with much more expensive stuff, so the cost of the some of the best caps around can probably be justified.


Thanks again,
Anthony

[JohnR]

I wonder where they get those caps from, they almost look like mil surplus!

Anyway, replacing the cap will most likely make it sound different. Better, you will just have to try it and see. I hadn't heard of a paper in oil cap used in a modern speaker before, and I would guess it's a big contributor to the DaCapo "sound" (whatever that is, never heard one).

[mgalusha]

A few possible choices would be:

TRT Dynamicap -  5uF/310v - $26.95 ea (Film and Foil Polypropylene)
Hovland Musicap - 5uF/100v - $27.70 ea (Film and Foil Polypropylene)
Multicap PPMFX - 5uF/200v - $10.30 ea (Metallized Polypropylene)
MultiCap PPFXS - 5uF/200v - $34.15 ea (Polypropylene Film & Tin Foil)
Auricap - 5uF/200v - $16.95 (Metallized Polypropylene)

These were all listed on the partsconnexion webiste. As John mentioned, they will sound different that the original PIO cap but better... difficult to say without trying them. You can find people who favor certain caps and will argue that they are "best". IMO best is what sounds best to you. Could get expensive to try them all.

The TRT caps are supposed to be very good in speakers. I've heard them in the VMPS speakers and they worked very well but that offers no indication of how they will work in your situation.

Sonicaps are also highly spoken of. GR Research offers them for a very reasonable price. Might be worth a call to Danny Richie to discuss them.


I pity your wallet...  

Mike G.

[wongstein]

Thanks Mke, those sound like good brands to try.  I guess the only trick is matching or trimming, but I'm sure the suppliers can advise on that.  Maybe we have to get the old caps measured exactly or send them in.

Considering that the De Capos only have one cap, this shouldn't be TOO expensive (compared to other options, like high-end speaker cables or changing source components) to try a couple of "big name" caps against the stock offerings.

These aren't even my speakers, by the way, I'm trying to talk my friend Chris into trying this.  It's just too much FUN to resist when you've only got one cap and so few solder joints to muck with.  I think to make it even easier, I'm going to suggest that we remove the cap from the inside, and solder all the caps to spade connectors and swap them on the OUTSIDE of the speaker so we can break them all in and do blind A/B and left/right comparisons easily .  Any forseable problem with that?  The wiring layout won't hamper this at all ...

Can someone please go to my other http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=6093.msg52349#52349">post and say something like "My wonderful XYZ or VMPS speakers sounded excellent before, but ever since I upgraded my caps to XXX brand I've been in total heaven ...  you should really do this Chris, you've got plenty to gain and little to lose ... you're friend is a friggin' genius, I wish I had a friend like that .. " etc  ...

Thanks,
Anthony