A slightly more technical answer: Above a certain frequency the capacitor will behave like an inductor. A by-pass capacitor of a in parallel can fix that. It too will become an inductor, but at a much higher frequency, high enough to be out of the way.
Also worth noting that different film caps have (slightly) different sound characteristics. You might really like the effect of silver foil on the high frequencies. But a 1uF 600V silver cap is prohibitively expensive. A 0.1uF silver foil in paper bypassed with a 1uF copper cap will be wonderful and not require a mortgage. Others may dislike the sound. So cap selection is like cooking to get the flavor you like.
@@jacobclark89 An inexpensive way to get a silver cap is to look for a new old stock Russian military silver mica at .1uf and use it as a bypass to a good cap such as a copper film cap. The silver mica will be around $10 vs crazy prices for boutique brands.
GM ☕️Paul. I was at the Toronto Audiofest..and your set up this year was head and shoulders above last year …the guys put on a great performance 🥹 The room got a lot of attention and favorable reviews from the crowd. Take care .
Agreed. I went specifically to hear the FR20s. I had not been impressed by video tours of PS Audio speakers at other shows, so I wanted to hear them in person. They were good, and the presenter was a great ambassador. He mentioned he chose the room based on hearing a good presentation in that space by another vendor in a previous show. He had the FR20 with a Directstream, and Accuphase electronics. Begs the question if they just pair better with the Accuphase or if it was the room.
Bypass cap allows to fine tune detail and specific sonics to the sound of the tweeter or even electrolitic cap in power or preamp ... It can be a very important part of voicing and can be like a final touch of art in designing audio equipment
What Paul was explaining is the effect that capacitors have unwanted series R (ESR) but also unwanted inductance (ESL). Bigger capacitors have longer leads that tend to produce more ESL. At low frequencies the inductance acts as a short, so as frequency goes up, the capacitor impedance goes down, but at some frequency the ESL starts to take effect and the capacitor looks more like an inductor and impedance starts to climb again. Small decoupling capacitors have short leads, less ESL, so work as capacitors to a much higher frequency. Adding these to a bigger cap keeps the combined impedance low to a higher frequency. On power supplies you might see a smaller decoupling cap across the main supply cap and then much smaller caps spread across the PCB as local decoupling, especially on computers where the operating frequencies are much wider than audio.
Why do I have so often the thought of : 'Is that all !?'' 🙂Could of said a lot more about it and I do think if you don't have already have some knowledge you won't understand anything now. :-) But still... keep doing all this. 🙂
I thought a small bypass cap on a crossover was for faster discharge. Don’t fully understand it, but that was my understanding it could help make the big cap more efficient
In speaker crossovers that's typically what they are used for as they have a much faster discharge rate than larger caps. They can also influence the tone when using a different variety compared to the main cap (like a silver or copper bypass on a larger poly cap)
ESR drops, not increases, with higher frequencies and a 100uF will typically have an ESR of 1 ohm, making no difference as a pass through cap in the signal chain. It does need accounting for in a crossover though. Generally, DC coupled circuits eliminate phase shifts which occur with capacitors.
@@Hyxtryx I saw an article that explains the effect of dielectrics and the increase of the ESR for the highest frequencies after decreasing from low to mid frequencies. The graph draws an U curve for ESR vs frequencies.
@@Jorge-Fernandez-LopezHmm, you may be right about that. But ESR is pretty small, and isn't what causes capacitors to block DC or pass high frequencies, so isn't what makes them "couple" or "bypass". I still think AnalogGround is confusing ESR with impedance, and Paul still has it backwards. Higher frequencies pass easier. I know Paul knows this, I think it was a brain fart.
@@Hyxtryx I do know -I guess- that capacitors are like an open circuit for low frequencies and let high frequencies "pass through" (they can't pass but it's AC and charges increase on the other side). What I don't understand is what is ESR and difference (in audio) between capacitors with the same capacitance and different ESR values. I heard about that micro-capacitor from GR-Research, although I don't what's useful to us.
The thing is that electrolytic caps (NP especially) tend to have a maximum frequency response that can sometimes fall within the audio range. The tiny bypass caps in parallel simply correct for that. It's the same reason we use ceramic bypasses in bulk power supplies... A huge bank of electrolytic capacitors probably has an upper frequency response of about 500hz. They're perfect for filtering the line frequency (50 or 60 hz) but not so good with removing noise and RF... which the ceramics do to perfection.
Paul, you are mixing parasitic (geometric) ESR with the dispersion of reactance and inductance. You made the point though. Cheers Nice speakers in the background.
Thanks Paul, I am experiencing this for the first time...with my vintage Spendor S100...with it in the midrange circuit is definately makes the voices come to life and sound more real and an openess to the entire midrange...so not only is this good for your music but it makes watching movies way more enjoyable...I know this because i removed a Wima PP film bypass when I tried upgrading my two mid range Bennic capacitors with Mundorf, I had removed the Wima bypass caps out when I put in the mundorfs...I will now be putting the Wima back in the circuit with original new Bennic caps...somone who used to own my Spendors had the put in bypass when they upgraded all the caps and resistors...wish I had understood this before measing around...Live and learn...well, my soldering skills are getting a lot better by all this changing of the caps in and out of the crossovers...🤣
Is it same as using the formula of Xc=1/2#fc in which Xc is the capacitive reactance and #=Pi, f=frequency and c=capacitance. If so, then as the frequency goes up, the "Xc" should decrease, not increase?
When it's a "something technical" video like this, the colorful people on here usually stay away. They are more drawn to talks about so called "snake oil" or the psychology of audiophiles, or the definition of an audiophile etc. Of course when I start writing a comment, I have no idea where it will go or where it will end up. A little known fact is that most novelists writing a book have no idea where it's headed or what its ending will be, when they start writing it. The late great writer Hunter S.Thompson said that he could no longer stand to go a week without writing, any more than he could go a week without smoking cigarettes. When I subscribed to Rolling Sone magazine (one and done), each issue they were publishing excepts of his book Bonfire Of The Vanities. Isn't it weird when they come out with their ranking of Best Albums Of All Time. I think they rated a Sex Pistols album higher up than the Who's Next album several times. Name me 37 albums that are better than Who's Next. And with their list of rock albums, how does Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis sneak on to their list each time? Does Modal Jazz sound like rock and roll to them? And why is Ray Charles in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame; and Steppenwolf not? A verse from the song Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf, which mentions "heavy metal thunder," is credited with coining the term "heavy metal." Softer rock for me thank you; although I do enjoy Steppenwolf. We were talking about Ray Charles. John Kay, Steppenwolf's lead singer, didn't just wear dark sunglasses to look cool; he was legally blind. Don't look directly at the sun for long. Or worse yet through a telescope. They do have filters for that. You could fit 500 Earths in the sun.Or is it 5,000? In any case it's a very big place that you wouldn't want to visit. Peter Frampton wrote a song "I Wanna Go To The Sun."... Actually, no you don't! It was on his mega selling Frampton Comes Alive album. Most people don't know this or remember this; but that album was an experiment in record pricing. It was a double lp; but priced like a single lp. 1976 I think. Was that the year where it rained almost all summer in the East? Or was that 1977?
It would have been longer, but I'm tired; I could have covered more things... I totally bypassed talking about bypass capacitors. One correction though, I just looked it up and 1.3 million Earths would fit into the Sun.
@@sidesup8286 don’t quit your day job ..but at least you’re more entertaining talking about “other” things unrelated, than all these other idiots that come on here trying to contradict or correct technical wrongs that they feel Paul has created with his monologue. I mean all these idiots, if they think they’re so smart, why don’t they just start their own friggin RUclips channel . Most of them don’t know what they’re talking about half the time anyway, and these clowns are just as much NOT electrical engineering experts as Paul, the business owner, salesman, writer, and audio hobbyist is.. it’s nuts.
A bypass cap is usually for shorting high frequencies to ground, eliminating them. The question-asker called it a bypass cap, but don't trust them. Since we don't know where the cap was in the circuit, we don't know that it was a "bypass cap". "bypass cap" is a function of the capacitor in a circuit, not related to any specific type of capacitor, although some may be better suited for the purpose than others. A capacitor in series with a tweeter will pass higher frequencies better than low frequencies, but then it isn't a "bypass cap" because it isn't bypassing anything.
Bypass caps generally make the most difference in the tweeter circuit and can affect the tonality of the tweeter circuit. (esp with silver or copper bypass caps) They will still make an improvement in mid and bass circuits but since the wavelengths are longer their effect isn't as great compared to the tweeter circuit. Another reason for the lower effectiveness is that the caps in bass circuits are used in shunt to ground, creating a 2nd or 4th order slope so the frequencies where that cap has influence are very narrow. For midrange, it's most beneficial when a large cap is used in series to roll off the bottom end.
A slightly more technical answer: Above a certain frequency the capacitor will behave like an inductor. A by-pass capacitor of a in parallel can fix that. It too will become an inductor, but at a much higher frequency, high enough to be out of the way.
Also worth noting that different film caps have (slightly) different sound characteristics. You might really like the effect of silver foil on the high frequencies. But a 1uF 600V silver cap is prohibitively expensive. A 0.1uF silver foil in paper bypassed with a 1uF copper cap will be wonderful and not require a mortgage. Others may dislike the sound. So cap selection is like cooking to get the flavor you like.
" film caps have (slightly) different sound characteristics."
-According to Danny Ritchey, it makes a _yuge_ difference...
@@NotSure723 LOL. That is Danny's main business so it fits that he sees it as Yuge!
Interesting idea , 👍 I don't like the sound of silver speaker wires but maybe for the high end , I bet a platinum cap would sound amazing,
@@jacobclark89 An inexpensive way to get a silver cap is to look for a new old stock Russian military silver mica at .1uf and use it as a bypass to a good cap such as a copper film cap. The silver mica will be around $10 vs crazy prices for boutique brands.
GM ☕️Paul.
I was at the Toronto Audiofest..and your set up this year was head and shoulders above last year …the guys put on a great performance 🥹
The room got a lot of attention and favorable reviews from the crowd.
Take care .
Agreed. I went specifically to hear the FR20s. I had not been impressed by video tours of PS Audio speakers at other shows, so I wanted to hear them in person. They were good, and the presenter was a great ambassador. He mentioned he chose the room based on hearing a good presentation in that space by another vendor in a previous show.
He had the FR20 with a Directstream, and Accuphase electronics. Begs the question if they just pair better with the Accuphase or if it was the room.
Last year they had a completely PS system from the front end to the amplification chain …
Paul, I'm not clear as to where this hypothetical 100uF electrolytic cap was located! Also, aren't 'bypass' caps have one end tied to ground?
Bypass cap allows to fine tune detail and specific sonics to the sound of the tweeter or even electrolitic cap in power or preamp ...
It can be a very important part of voicing and can be like a final touch of art in designing audio equipment
exactly!!
What Paul was explaining is the effect that capacitors have unwanted series R (ESR) but also unwanted inductance (ESL). Bigger capacitors have longer leads that tend to produce more ESL. At low frequencies the inductance acts as a short, so as frequency goes up, the capacitor impedance goes down, but at some frequency the ESL starts to take effect and the capacitor looks more like an inductor and impedance starts to climb again. Small decoupling capacitors have short leads, less ESL, so work as capacitors to a much higher frequency. Adding these to a bigger cap keeps the combined impedance low to a higher frequency. On power supplies you might see a smaller decoupling cap across the main supply cap and then much smaller caps spread across the PCB as local decoupling, especially on computers where the operating frequencies are much wider than audio.
Great explanation, thanks!
Very interesting. Thank you.
What dust cap material do you recommend for speakers, paper? plastic? an "iron dome" maybe?
Material can affect response. Alum. Has the most treble, open screen type the least treble, paper in the middle., I prefer paper in home speakers.
@@vortexan9804 Iron Dome is the nickname of the israeli missile defense system, that is just radiating the struggle for peace in the region.
One of my DACs is a Sonic Frontiers SFD1-Mk2. I replaced the coupling caps with Modwright caps. It sounds very good.
Why do I have so often the thought of : 'Is that all !?'' 🙂Could of said a lot more about it and I do think if you don't have already have some knowledge you won't understand anything now. :-) But still... keep doing all this. 🙂
😂Add tiny bypass abit hi-freq tweeter Tasty Soya Sauce into Low base Sound again.😅. TASTY Airry Treats.
I thought a small bypass cap on a crossover was for faster discharge. Don’t fully understand it, but that was my understanding it could help make the big cap more efficient
In speaker crossovers that's typically what they are used for as they have a much faster discharge rate than larger caps. They can also influence the tone when using a different variety compared to the main cap (like a silver or copper bypass on a larger poly cap)
@@hoth2112 thanks for posting Hobbs, you would know more about this than anyone. I appreciate your expertise and what you and Danny do over there 👍🏻🔈
Am i the only one who thinks Paul's explanation on capacitance vs impedance is actually the other way round?
ESR drops, not increases, with higher frequencies and a 100uF will typically have an ESR of 1 ohm, making no difference as a pass through cap in the signal chain. It does need accounting for in a crossover though. Generally, DC coupled circuits eliminate phase shifts which occur with capacitors.
@@Hyxtryx I saw an article that explains the effect of dielectrics and the increase of the ESR for the highest frequencies after decreasing from low to mid frequencies. The graph draws an U curve for ESR vs frequencies.
@@Jorge-Fernandez-LopezHmm, you may be right about that. But ESR is pretty small, and isn't what causes capacitors to block DC or pass high frequencies, so isn't what makes them "couple" or "bypass". I still think AnalogGround is confusing ESR with impedance, and Paul still has it backwards. Higher frequencies pass easier. I know Paul knows this, I think it was a brain fart.
@@Hyxtryx I do know -I guess- that capacitors are like an open circuit for low frequencies and let high frequencies "pass through" (they can't pass but it's AC and charges increase on the other side). What I don't understand is what is ESR and difference (in audio) between capacitors with the same capacitance and different ESR values. I heard about that micro-capacitor from GR-Research, although I don't what's useful to us.
Capacitive Reactance has entered the chat, hello people :^)@@Hyxtryx
The thing is that electrolytic caps (NP especially) tend to have a maximum frequency response that can sometimes fall within the audio range. The tiny bypass caps in parallel simply correct for that.
It's the same reason we use ceramic bypasses in bulk power supplies... A huge bank of electrolytic capacitors probably has an upper frequency response of about 500hz. They're perfect for filtering the line frequency (50 or 60 hz) but not so good with removing noise and RF... which the ceramics do to perfection.
thank you for saying one word for israel. we really need support
Paul, you are mixing parasitic (geometric) ESR with the dispersion of reactance and inductance. You made the point though. Cheers
Nice speakers in the background.
Hi Paul,
Ever consider producing a batch of those PS Audio rugs?
One of those would look great in front of my system 😄
Thanks Paul,
I am experiencing this for the first time...with my vintage Spendor S100...with it in the midrange circuit is definately makes the voices come to life and sound more real and an openess to the entire midrange...so not only is this good for your music but it makes watching movies way more enjoyable...I know this because i removed a Wima PP film bypass when I tried upgrading my two mid range Bennic capacitors with Mundorf, I had removed the Wima bypass caps out when I put in the mundorfs...I will now be putting the Wima back in the circuit with original new Bennic caps...somone who used to own my Spendors had the put in bypass when they upgraded all the caps and resistors...wish I had understood this before measing around...Live and learn...well, my soldering skills are getting a lot better by all this changing of the caps in and out of the crossovers...🤣
Thank you Paul, helped me understand the electronics a bit better
Is it same as using the formula of Xc=1/2#fc in which Xc is the capacitive reactance and #=Pi, f=frequency and c=capacitance. If so, then as the frequency goes up, the "Xc" should decrease, not increase?
Resistance is not the same that reactance.
Slick
When it's a "something technical" video like this, the colorful people on here usually stay away. They are more drawn to talks about so called "snake oil" or the psychology of audiophiles, or the definition of an audiophile etc. Of course when I start writing a comment, I have no idea where it will go or where it will end up. A little known fact is that most novelists writing a book have no idea where it's headed or what its ending will be, when they start writing it. The late great writer Hunter S.Thompson said that he could no longer stand to go a week without writing, any more than he could go a week without smoking cigarettes. When I subscribed to Rolling Sone magazine (one and done), each issue they were publishing excepts of his book Bonfire Of The Vanities. Isn't it weird when they come out with their ranking of Best Albums Of All Time. I think they rated a Sex Pistols album higher up than the Who's Next album several times. Name me 37 albums that are better than Who's Next. And with their list of rock albums, how does Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis sneak on to their list each time? Does Modal Jazz sound like rock and roll to them? And why is Ray Charles in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame; and Steppenwolf not? A verse from the song Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf, which mentions "heavy metal thunder," is credited with coining the term "heavy metal." Softer rock for me thank you; although I do enjoy Steppenwolf. We were talking about Ray Charles. John Kay, Steppenwolf's lead singer, didn't just wear dark sunglasses to look cool; he was legally blind.
Don't look directly at the sun for long. Or worse yet through a telescope. They do have filters for that. You could fit 500 Earths in the sun.Or is it 5,000? In any case it's a very big place that you wouldn't want to visit. Peter Frampton wrote a song "I Wanna Go To The Sun."...
Actually, no you don't! It was on his mega selling Frampton Comes Alive album. Most people don't know this or remember this; but that album was an experiment in record pricing. It was a double lp; but priced like a single lp. 1976 I think. Was that the year where it rained almost all summer in the East? Or was that 1977?
You feeling ok?
It would have been longer, but I'm tired; I could have covered more things... I totally bypassed talking about bypass capacitors. One correction though, I just looked it up and 1.3 million Earths would fit into the Sun.
Consider the possibility that you may be overthinking things and take time to slow your mind with relaxation techniques. Peace and love ❤️
It was just some creative humor.
@@sidesup8286 don’t quit your day job ..but at least you’re more entertaining talking about “other” things unrelated, than all these other idiots that come on here trying to contradict or correct technical wrongs that they feel Paul has created with his monologue. I mean all these idiots, if they think they’re so smart, why don’t they just start their own friggin RUclips channel . Most of them don’t know what they’re talking about half the time anyway, and these clowns are just as much NOT electrical engineering experts as Paul, the business owner, salesman, writer, and audio hobbyist is.. it’s nuts.
See you in Warsaw 10.27.23!
Do Bypass Capacitors only work with the Tweeter?
A bypass cap is usually for shorting high frequencies to ground, eliminating them. The question-asker called it a bypass cap, but don't trust them. Since we don't know where the cap was in the circuit, we don't know that it was a "bypass cap". "bypass cap" is a function of the capacitor in a circuit, not related to any specific type of capacitor, although some may be better suited for the purpose than others. A capacitor in series with a tweeter will pass higher frequencies better than low frequencies, but then it isn't a "bypass cap" because it isn't bypassing anything.
My system has a Miflex bypass cap for the tweeter and midrange driver. That's why I ask.
Bypass caps generally make the most difference in the tweeter circuit and can affect the tonality of the tweeter circuit. (esp with silver or copper bypass caps) They will still make an improvement in mid and bass circuits but since the wavelengths are longer their effect isn't as great compared to the tweeter circuit. Another reason for the lower effectiveness is that the caps in bass circuits are used in shunt to ground, creating a 2nd or 4th order slope so the frequencies where that cap has influence are very narrow. For midrange, it's most beneficial when a large cap is used in series to roll off the bottom end.