vintage tone via aging a capacitor?

[louped garouv]

Ok, so i don't understand this....

seems to me that someone is trying to say that they mechanically age the capacitors so that it has a "vintage tone"

do i smell something funny going on here? Is this somewhat dubious or is the practice of aging a cap for vintage tone meritious?




"Voicing of the xyz dwidget:

I took careful measures to design this x-over to give the xyz dwidget a 80s vintage tone.

I used very special technics to age the xyz dwidget to give this unit a 80s vintage tone, that will not have any effect on the reliability of my product. "
..........................................
the product name has been changed, just because

[scott fitlin]

And I know exactly who you are talking about, and what piece of gear, too!

They are talking about aging capacitors, so they sound more like what what things sounded like in the past. Does it work? I dont know!

:blink:

[louped garouv]

not talking about somebody Scotty, something.....

;)

ah...

so is it kinda like reforming NOS ones or ones that have sat on a shelf?

i've never heard of doing that type of stuff to new ones...

i have read about super freezing everything under the sun tho'




i'm kinda worn out and don't want the drama that this would bring over there....

just curious...

:)

on another note, i saw that you are digging old tubes....
something about those old ones, i tell you.....

**off to do some reading on capacitor aging**

[scott fitlin]

Yes, I dig the old tubes, IF you can get good NOS ones. Amperex in particular. They just sound great.

I hear you about the drama thing, I can say that guys figure out how to do things to get a certain effect, or tone, so what these guys are doing might actually work, its just something I had never heard of before. Have to hear that crossover and decide for yourself, and hey, you only have the perfect A/B comparison unit! The RLA-X2000.

[louped garouv]

pretty interesting, and it does take out of the box thinking sometimes....


Heck, I'm still trying to get a handle on the Sound Environments EQR5 that i picked up too....

;)

[Steve Schell]

Jeez, when I think of the boxes of caps that I threw away years ago, hundreds of old black beauties and other antiques. Now I see them selling for high prices on ebay. Some of these caps had lousy performance specs, and have deteriorated further over time, but this makes them desirable for expressive music devices like tube amps. I suppose it takes just the right amount of leakage or ESR to get that perfect tone.

I never threw away the oil caps though; they were always expensive and offered high performance. Lots of mystery and mysticism surrounding these too, but probably based on their high performance. I wonder if I've saved enough PCB filled caps to qualify my shed as a Superfund site?

[scott fitlin]

I see the Tropical Fish colored capacitors on ebay going for nice prices, and years ago they were the cheapest things out there.

But thats everything, not only audio, years ago, my dad bought another old building in Coney Island, and upstairs there were about 4 or 5 really old arcade games. I said to my dad save these, they will be worth money one day. He let the cleaning crew bust em up while they cleared out the building, and throw them in the container.

Turned out they were arcade games from the 1920,s, and would have been worth handsome money. That was back in 1974, and everything old was considered just junk! :blink:

Then, I was with my grandfather one Saturday afternoon, went down into the shop area of Wards Kiddie park in Coney Island, and under the platform the rides are on, was the storage area for all the old Coney Island Ocean Rolling Chairs. Same kinds of rolling chairs like they had in Atlantic City they use to push you in along the boardwalk.

So, the wicker chairs werent in great condition, and I said to my grand dad, lets get some of these and restore them, and then sell them. He looked at me like I was stupid or something, and said what do you want with dis ol junk, sonny?

5 years later? What I could have had for FREE was selling in antique shops for $3300 to $5000 each, depending on condition, or expert restoration!

And NOT 1 rolling chair was left down there in that old storage area, but what did I know?

:banghead:

[Ian Mackenzie]

Hand Made electronics are right into this niche.

The old paper/ and oil caps do have a distinctive signature.

If you are interested, try the Auricaps. They have the naturalness of old world paper capacitors but are very neutral.

Ian

[Thom]

I've never heard of caps going through any changes that didn't put them a whole lot closer to a drastic end of life.