Re: Tone control OT

[andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

d.nix wrote:
> (minor ramble ahead...)
> 
> as some one that has built several tube guitar amps from scratch, and 
>wired
> up five or six guitars over the years; you *can* recognise the genral 
>sound
> qualities of different capacitors from each other as you get exposed to 
>them
> in different circuits... I'd say most any of you folks that can handle a
> soldering iron and build a simple effects box kit could try substituting
> different types of caps (of the same electrical value) 

yes, I saw this claim several times when Googling.

...but there's always the same omission.


The clue is in the term "of same electrical value".
As caps usually have a tolerance of plus minus 10% 
in order to check that a different type of cap really
has the same capacitance you'd need to measure it,
and none of tone voodoo experts I checked out picked up on that.

Otherwise, it's much more reasonable to assume that 
the change in tone is because your capacitors don't
actually have the same value.

On the other hand of course, capacitors contain
conductors which may have an appreciable amount 
of resistance...and maybe the wrapped round
structure produces a bit of inductance.

This seems to overstate the case though ;-)

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Apr/Auditioning_Tone_Capacitors_Part_II.aspx

andy butler