Burning in hi-pass capacitors

[bkeane1259]

I understand that speaker caps tend to sound better after many hours of break-in, burn-in, heat up, or however you want to phrase it. My question is: Regarding high-pass capacitors -- Other than letting a cap break in naturally from many hours of normal listening/use, is there a way to burn them in via a resistor dummy load?? For example, hooking a cap up to an amplifier’s speaker output and then terminating to a resister dummy load that would simulate a speaker and running some program material (songs, frequency sweeps etc) continuously for several days. Is this something that is ever done? Has anyone ever experimented with an alternative way of "cooking a cap?"

[PWR RYD]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

I might get totally flamed here... but I think "burning in" of capacitors is audio hog wash.

[bkeane1259]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

I might get totally flamed here... but I think "burning in" of capacitors is audio hog wash.

At the end of the day it's all what your ears tell you. :D

However, I do know for sure that some caps require many hours of break-in while others seem to require only a few songs worth of break-in. To wit, I have experience with Jantzen and Dayton caps and the Jantzen Superior Z's definitely start to sound better after around 30 hours of break-in and get better still up to around 60 hours. IMHO, after that they sound the same and have been effectively “burnt-in.” On the other hand, I feel the Dayton's pretty much sound the same as they did on day 1.

With that in mind, I'm became very curious to test a bunch of different brands of caps as a project. So I went ahead and bought a bunch of crap for testing and I find myself at an impasse because of this burn-in controversy.

Seems only fair to burn all my caps in first before subjecting them to a critical listening test, and many others I have spoken to agree. So….now to find an easy way to burn in several sets of caps….. Since I’m relatively new to this, I don’t want to burn my house down.

[PWR RYD]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

I guess the next logical question would be, how does the actual capacitor manufacturer recommend burning in their capacitor.

[billfitzmaurice]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

I might get totally flamed here... but I think "burning in" of capacitors is audio hog wash.

+1. No moving parts=no burn in.

how does the actual capacitor manufacturer recommend burning in their capacitor.

IMO any cap manufacturer that recommends burn in is a purveyor of snake oil and should not be rewarded with your business.

[DoubleTap]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

If any of you would use a Teflon V-Cap you'd believe in burn in ... of course you'd have to crack open your wallet with a crowbar to buy one, and scrub the barnacles out of your ears to hear the difference. And even if you did miraculously hear the difference with your ears of stone, you'd probably ignore the truth because of your hardened preconceptions of audio hogwash voodoo.

... there, I feel better :D

[Servicetech]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

+1. No moving parts=no burn in.

IMO any cap manufacturer that recommends burn in is a purveyor of snake oil and should not be rewarded with your business.

+2

[Wolf]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

...Haven't any of you heard the 'break-in click'? I'm not joking.
Took about 5 min on the pair of Crescendos I have.
Later,
Wolf

[Herman Trivilino]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

With that in mind, I'm became very curious to test a bunch of different brands of caps as a project. So I went ahead and bought a bunch of crap for testing and I find myself at an impasse because of this burn-in controversy.

I'm a little confused here. You bought a bunch of stuff to test for what? Are you testing to see if there's a difference in some measurement as the caps break in?

Anyway, sure, you could use a dummy load in place of a driver. I'm not sure just what it is you're trying to measure.

I would suggest the following experiment, though. Pick one of those speakers that you talked about, one that has a Jantzen Superior Z cap in it. Get a new Jantzen Superior Z cap that's exactly the same, except new. Install a double throw switch that will allow you to switch back and forth between the two caps. Have a friend flip the switch as you listen, and see if you can tell the difference. Set it up, though, as a double-blind test. Your friend has to first assign letters A and B to the two switch positions, without knowing which position is the new cap or which is the old. And not tell you which position is which, and the switch needs to be hidden from your view. Moreover, he has to have the ability to start the test in either position, chosen at random, without your knowledge.

[killersoundz]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

snake oil

[biff]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

...Haven't any of you heard the 'break-in click'? I'm not joking.
Took about 5 min on the pair of Crescendos I have.
Later,
Wolf

I hope you aren't kidding, I posted a couple years back that my Sonicaps did that and was scoffed roundly for that. Mine clicked, and after sounded different than before. Capacitor forming is beyond my tech knowledge, but something happened, and our great mutual friend who doubted called me after it happened to him, too!

[Wolf]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

Yep- he called me right after he talked to you that night too!
I've heard Solens, Crescendos, Sonicaps, and a couple others do that, but not Daytons. Haven't heard them do it yet.

I agree- the sound changes from one side of the click to the other, and usually they are within 10 minutes of each other. I find that when I play back the piece, the click is not present. It has to be the caps.

Later,
Wolf

[bkeane1259]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

I'm a little confused here. You bought a bunch of stuff to test for what?

I reread my post and confused myself.

I have already swapped crappy caps for Jantzen Super-Z's in a set of speakers I use for a near field application on my workstation. I was a bit bummed at first blush, but ended up extremely happy with the sound after only 30-hours and when they hit around the 60-hour burn-in mark they became smooth as silk. ----Very happy with the result. That got me thinking to rebuild the ENTIRE crossover. However, I decided to also buy 3 more sets of decent hi-pass caps and do a comparison in the same set of speakers to see which one yielded the absolute best sound.

Then I got into heated debates with several people about burning-in caps before conducting any listening tests. Well, frankly I do not have the time, patience, or the set-up to let speakers run for up to 100+ hours on multiple sets of caps and then do the tests. I'm impatient.

The dummy load resistor makes sense to me....PE even sells one that handles 100 watts. That could, in theory, be my solution right there.

I'm no scientist, engineer, techie, or anything like that. I want to parallel all 6 of the brand new caps (they are all the same value, if that matters) and hook them up to my amp and terminate it with the PE dummy load resistor and let it run for a couple days with music, frequency sweeps, pink noise, etc. I DO NOT want $100 of caps or my amp to melt in the process though.

Guess I’m just looking for somebody who has tried this with success or failure before I go all in and just do it myself.

[r-carpenter]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

DBT on caps were done a number of times by a lot of different people. If done correctly, none can spot the difference between the capacitors, burned in or fresh. You are wasting your time but hey do it for the laugh.

[bkeane1259]

Re: Burning in hi-pass capacitors

...Haven't any of you heard the 'break-in click'? I'm not joking. Took about 5 min on the pair of Crescendos I have.

I did not experience that with my Jantzen's, but then again I purposely left the system on initially for a full day and didn't pay too much attention to it.

I have used Dayton's a couple times in small speakers and not only did I not experience a click, I also thought they sounded pretty much the same out of the box as they did months later. In my limited experience, the Dayton's are extremely good bang for the buck.


The caps I plan to compare are:
Jantzen 8.2uF Z-Superior Caps = $76.62 (pair)
ClarityCap 8.2uF ESA Caps = $51.30 (pair)
Sonicap 8.2uF G1 Caps = $32.60 (pair)
Dayton PMPC-8.2 8.2uF 250V Precision Audio Caps = $11.98 (pair)

Only the Jantzen's are seasoned -- and they are fricken sweet.