Blackgate Caps

laatsch55

laatsch55

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Halfbiass...Electron Herder and Backass Woof
Gentlemanm, I have made head to head comparisons with KZ muse in the C6 position on the White Oak driver board. The blackgates win hands down, no comparison. I have seen them priced from 38.50 to 68.00 each. IMHO they are worth every penny, YMMV. If you find some for less I AM VERY INTERESTED!!!!
 
laatsch55 said:
Gentlemanm, I have made head to head comparisons with KZ muse in the C6 position on the White Oak driver board. The blackgates win hands down, no comparison. I have seen them priced from 38.50 to 68.00 each. IMHO they are worth every penny, YMMV. If you find some for less I AM VERY INTERESTED!!!!
Click to expand...

What value is C6?
 
The original C6 electrolytic capacitor was rated at 100uF/6V in the PL700B (there was no C6 in the PL700). The early PL400 boards (PL 400C/PL14A) used a 100uF/10V capacitor for C6, later PL400 boards (PL14B) changed C6 to 100uF/6.3V because the voltage across the device should never exceed a few volts.

In the initial (PL14-PL20) White Oak Audio boards the design for C6 called for a 100uF/100V device. For the revised White Oak Audio boards, the rating of C6 was changed to 470uF/25V to improve low frequency response according to the designer of the board.

The consensus is that a 470uF/25V capacitor in the C6 position for all the PL amps is an improvement, the 25V rating is overkill but the combination of 470uF and 25V is a common design.

I tried to tell Lee back in 2011 that the Blackgate capacitors in C6 made my PL700B growl, but he clung to his Nichicon Muse capacitors (actually, very fine devices). Now, I believe he is a convert.

Mark
 
Well, well well, good to see one of our historians post agin. And you are ABSOLTELY right, and YES I'm as converted as a cured alcholic( nothing worse). There is a palpable and very sonic difference, all I had to do was fire it up and gold ears was allover it!!!!Much better soundstage!!
 
470 at 25 volt Doug. The night Joe told me to try it said " try one of your 470 Muse in C6, I think you'll like it." Been grazing that 10hz fl;at from then on.....
 
BTW Dr' Lucitt you have some catching up to do on some Shpongle....
 
And my latest set of copper heatsinks is IMMACLATE. Finally got some predictable repeatability!!
 
laatsch55 said:
Gentlemanm, I have made head to head comparisons with KZ muse in the C6 position on the White Oak driver board. The blackgates win hands down, no comparison. I have seen them priced from 38.50 to 68.00 each. IMHO they are worth every penny, YMMV. If you find some for less I AM VERY INTERESTED!!!!
Click to expand...

I found some 470uF/16V Black Gate STD series caps for $18.75 each. Their dimensions are 12.5mm x 25mm.
 
Lee if I remember right there are BGs in a tube amp you soldered. I may have some here for another project.
 
Last edited:
NavLinear said:
I found some 470uF/16V Black Gate STD series caps for $18.75 each. Their dimensions are 12.5mm x 25mm.
Click to expand...

Those 470uF/16V Blackgate capacitors would be a slight deviation from the specifications called for in the parts list, but fully adequate because the negative side is grounded and the positive side will only be exposed to a volt or two (maybe three if Spongle is selected as the audio source). Joe can weigh in here, but you should be safe by a factor of four, at least.

Mark
 
laatsch55 said:
Well, well well, good to see one of our historians post agin. And you are ABSOLTELY right, and YES I'm as converted as a cured alcholic( nothing worse). There is a palpable and very sonic difference, all I had to do was fire it up and gold ears was allover it!!!!Much better soundstage!!
Click to expand...

Lee,

What series of BG caps are you using for your testing?
 
mlucitt said:
Those 470uF/16V Blackgate capacitors would be a slight deviation from the specifications called for in the parts list, but fully adequate because the negative side is grounded and the positive side will only be exposed to a volt or two (maybe three if Spongle is selected as the audio source). Joe can weigh in here, but you should be safe by a factor of four, at least.

Mark
Click to expand...

In the WOA board, the maximum voltage this cap sees is 0.65V. 16V will be fine. The reason 25V was chosen is that this is a polar cap that sees a maximum reverse 0.65V for half of its life (typically much less than 0.65V), I designed it to make it as high a voltage as possible given the space constraints on the board. Higher voltage caps will be more immune to these slight negative voltages imposed by the signal and ensure basically infinite component life.
 
NavLinear said:
I found some 470uF/16V Black Gate STD series caps for $18.75 each. Their dimensions are 12.5mm x 25mm.
Click to expand...

Just to be sure we got it covered, Joe tells me C11 has some impact too. Need 2-47/100 to cover those.
 
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