I have asked this question in the pendragon thread because i was told by othe MA RS8 owners that uprgading the capacitors will improve the sound drastically especially the mid range…
I've said before that speaker capacitors are a controversial subject among audio fans. Do the material properties of capacitors in a speaker’s crossover network contribute to the sound of loudspeakers or not? Like most controversial subjects, there is little or no evidence for it or against it.
The same problem exists for claims about wires and cables. Can differences in wire composition (standard copper vs. high purity copper vs. silver), wire construction (stranded vs. solid vs. Litz or other expensive forms), or insulation (cheap polyvinyl chloride vs. Teflon) make an audible difference? There is lots of argument but little or no good evidence.
If any of these actually do make a difference, I’d certainly like to know. I think many others would too.
I’ve seen the
Capacitor Test link before. Frankly, my eyes glazed over because it was so very long without any real answers to the big question.
At the very start of it, it said “The
subjective results of this test…” Stop right there. If the question is: can material properties of crossover capacitors affect a speaker’s sound, you cannot conclude anything with a list of subjective impressions made by one person, no matter how long that list is. There was no systematic attempt to study or measure anything. You cannot demonstrate the existence of sonic differences if you assume they exist and discuss your personal observations about the differences you hear.
The variable mechanical resonance of capacitors was offered as a possible reason why they might sound different. If the goal is to convince doubters of this, you must at least provide test evidence that listeners could hear differences between capacitors with different mechanical resonances. The Humble Home Made HiFi test never did that.
Now about the
Clarity Cap white paper. It tried to go one step further. I’ll give them credit for that. Few details were provided about this test, and yes that matters. Maybe the test was good enough for a marketing oriented “white paper”, but there was not enough information to make a convincing scientific case that differences between capacitors can be heard.
In particular, for any test of the ability of a group of listeners to hear what might be subtle differences in sounds, it is absolutely necessary to ask the question just how many listeners could reliably tell the difference between two sounds that are known (or at least widely accepted) to be detectably different. It is unlikely to be 100%. At the same time, it is also necessary to test how many listeners reported they heard differences when two sounds were actually identical. Again, it is unlikely to be 0%. This was a test of human perception and it is extremely unlikely that people could always get it right. People who test food preferences or perform wine tasting tests are well aware of these problems with human perception. Why should audio be any different?
If different capacitors can be heard in speakers because of different amounts of capacitor mechanical resonance, I would expect to see some kind of relationship between the amount of mechanical resonance measured in a capacitor and the number of listeners who could reliably hear a difference. It would make sense if greater amounts of capacitor resonance translated into more audible sound differences. But no evidence was presented about this.
Finally, I have a problem with statistics. Specifically the number of people tested was said to be over 30. (They never said how many more than 30, but I think it’s safe to assume it might be 30 to 35, and not much more.) That may seem like a big enough number, but with numbers like 30, or 40 or 50, you do not have numbers large enough to make the conclusions that the white paper made:
"The results were dramatic – over 70% stated a clear preference for the capacitors with lower mechanical resonances."
In medical clinical trials, where human testing and great expense are involved, a blind trial of an experimental medicine involving roughly 30 people, with positive results similar to the white paper, cannot say with any degree of statistical confidence that 70% of patients responded positively to the test medication. It can say in a Yes or No fashion that it is worth further testing. Usually it takes much larger numbers of people, roughly 10-fold more people, before you can safely estimate a response number such as 70%.
So I have several objections to claims about audible differences coming from crossover capacitors. So far, no convincing evidence has been presented.
You, of course, can do whatever you want. Replace as many capacitors as you like. Just don't claim on an internet forum such as AH, that evidence exists to show that capacitors do make an audible difference, unless there really is such evidence.
