How To Choose Nichicon Audio Capacitors. Are They Worth It?

recently I decided to stock up on some frequently used electrolytic capacitors suitable for high fidelity solid state equipment as I research which wants to buy though I quickly got overwhelmed and decided it would be simpler if I just shopped within one brand of capacitors I chose Nishikawa as they have a good reputation for quality even when shopping just Nisha Kondo I found that the same value capacitors were available in many different series all with widely varying prices Nisha Khan has a special line of capacitors designed just for audio and within that line alone there are 17 different series in the end I purchased the Nishikawa audio application kit and the 370 lighting kit the audio kit has values up to 330 micro farad and the lighting kit has values up to 3300 between the two kits I have a good stockpile to cover much but not all of the electrolytic capacitors I'll need to repair this integrated amp for example I still had to separately order these 1020 300 micro farad caps even after ordering my capacitors I was still confused about Nishikawa lineup and decided to do more research to clear things up for myself and to make this video for you I'll break down each series in Nashik ons audio line and we'll compare their features and prices among each other and also to their general purpose capacitors in the spreadsheet I've broken their audio line into three general product lines miniature large and chip remember these are all electrolytic s-- note that the miniature and chip series have the prefix U and the large series have the prefix L in the spreadsheet I've added a hyphen between the U or ALP refix and the series name that's because Nisha con sometimes lists the caps with the U or L prefix and sometimes without let's first look at the miniature audio capacitors I've broken these down into five categories first is the small category which have smallest physical size of the miniatures the UMW's have a five millimeter height the usw is a seven millimeter height and the UFW z' are a bit larger the standard grid category includes the 105 Celsius rated UK t-series and the UK W series that nishikawa's is good for video as well as audio they don't explain why this would be and I haven't been able to determine this from these specifications the high grade category also includes a 105 C rated series called UK a and an AV series called u FG the u FG is also part of neocons muse lineup and it's the Feingold variant I told you this was confusing the premium grade category includes just the UK Z series which is rated for the typical negative 40 to 85 degrees Celsius and not the higher 105 degree rating last in the miniature audio line is the bi polarized category which includes the u DB and ue s by polarized electrolitic s-- are often used in speaker crossovers and nishikawa's the u DB series is specifically designed for that purpose note though that nishikawa's flagged the u DB series as having values which are scheduled to be discontinued they're also very expensive indicating that they may be harder to find as they're going out of stock perhaps that's why Nisha Khan also offers the by polarised ue s series which is part of their muse line Nisha con says the standard grade caps are for quote general audio equipment the high-grade caps feature quote selected materials for superior rich clearer sound and the premium grade are quote ideally suited for first-class audio but what if any differences exist between the standard high and premium grades the only spec that could possibly make a difference in sound quality is tangent of loss it tells us how much of a capacitors charge is lost to heat a tangent of 0.1 means it will have 10% loss obviously the lower the number the better tangent of loss is useful because it shows the overall efficiency of the capacitor from the combined effects of impedance leakage and ESR within the small category standard grades are only available but loss wise they perform admirably compared to their larger cousins there's just 12% loss for the UFW and an even lower 10% for the u.s. W's and UMW's for the 105 sea caps there are no differences in loss between these standard and high grade caps both have 14% loss for the a/v caps the higher grade you fgs do have less loss at 10 percent compared to the standard grade UK w's at 12 as expected you'll have to pay more for the improvement the premium UK z series has a premium price but does it offer premium performance it appears so as it has the lowest loss of all the miniatures at just 8% is it worth spending more for this better performance that I can't tell you but I do suspect that even the most golden eared among us would have a hard time hearing the difference between an 8% lost capacitor and one with 12% still when repairing top-of-the-line equipment even skeptical me might decide to splurge just to have that extra peace of mind looking at the by polarized miniatures the U DB series first appears to have lower loss at 10% compared to the you ESS at 12 but look closely and you'll find they've been measured at different frequencies so I'm not sure it's an apples to apples comparison and again just look at the price difference I'd say for nishikawa's buy polarized audio line stick with the UE s's unless you can get the UD bees for a good price I compared Nishikawa audio series miniatures to their general-purpose counterparts and found that for the most part the audio series offers a similar value the exception I found though was again with the 105 C rated caps as you can see the non audio general-purpose uvz series not only up performs the UK T's and UK A's but they're also cheaper at least the UK a series does appear to have a higher endurance rating than the general-purpose UV Z's which is measured at 2,000 hours instead of 1,000 but I just don't see any reason to get the UK T series when the standard grade UV Z's offer the same performance at a much better price moving on to nishikawa's large audio electrolitic s-- I've broken them down into four categories high voltage high grade higher grade and highest grade all have components rated under 100 volts except the lkx which has caps rated from 200 to 450 volts they're all snap in style which is suitable for PC boards the lkg series are also available with solder looks as an option although more capacitance and voltage values are available as snap-ins the LKG series comes in three grades type 1 type 2 and type 3 within the high voltage category there's only one grade the al KX these have the lowest loss compared to the other large caps but it's not useful to compare the lkx series against the others as they're really a different type suited for much higher voltages looking at the high and higher grade large audio caps we see that they all have similar performance at 25% loss unless you need solder lugs I would forget Nishikawa marketing claims that the higher grade sound better and just get the cheapest among them that you can find based on Mouser pricing it appears that the lks series will be your best bet there if you prefer solder lugs over snapping though you'll need to go with the LK geez looking at the highest grade LKG type 3 we see that it does have better performance than types 1 & 2 as well as the l KS 20% loss versus 25 it comes at a premium price though so you'll have to decide if it's worth it as I said about the higher performing miniatures I suspect that it would be difficult to hear the difference between 8 5 percent margin of loss but when repairing top-of-the-line equipment I still might splurge on the type threes to have that peace of mind or would I digging deeper we find that Nishikawa general-purpose LLS series offers the same 20% loss but is much cheaper in fact it's even cheaper than the types 1 & 2 and lks with better performance at just 20% loss compared to 25 granted the general-purpose ll S series are only available and snapping so if you really want solder lugs it might be worth spending more for the LK G's otherwise I don't see the advantage what do you have to say about that in issue con well their marketing department says that their audio capacitors are quote designed to give premium sound quality when compared to general-purpose capacitors and that their quote ideally suited for first-class audio equipment where qualitative and quantitative characteristics are required I couldn't agree more quantitative characteristics are required and you can't make qualitative claims without them in the case of their large can capacitors though neasha cons audio caps simply don't seem to have any quantitative measurements to back up their qualitative claims of course this is nothing new in the audio industry we're making claims that better sound can be achieved through means that can't be measured is de rigueur I'm of the opinion though that if it can't be measured it can't be heard just using exotic or expensive materials can't magically make something sound better so don't buy an Ishikawa capacitor because nisha Conn says it sounds better buy an Ishikawa cap because it provides the performance you're looking for at a price you're willing to spend that of course goes for any manufacturer sometimes the audio labelled cap will be the better choice and sometimes the general purpose cap will be better just do your homework to make that a little easier I'll leave you now with some uninterrupted video of the spreadsheets I made to give you a chance to grab some screenshots if you're interested to stay updated about my new videos please subscribe and click Bell and if you liked this video give it a thumbs up I'll see you soon you

Channel: Flux Condenser Vintage Audio Electronics

Views: 29,898

Keywords: Nichicon audio capacitor, Nichicon capacitor, audio capacitor, how to choose a capacitor, are audio capacitors worth it, who makes the best audio capacitor, nichicon versus panasonic, nichicon versus, nichicon vs., capacitor tangent of loss, capacitor leakage, capacitor esr, capacitor impedance, capacitor sound, capacitor sound quality, do capacitors sound different, which capacitor sounds best, Nichicon Muse, Nichicon Fine Gold, Nichicon Type 3, audio grade capacitor

Id: 37JCDYgzZdU

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 20 2019