What do you guys think of cap upgrades!

I'm thinking of buying a Cary SLP-2002 preamp. There is scant information about this preamp online, but what little discussion there is, many guys have talked about having done cap upgrades. Some have compared the difference in sound to what you might experience with tube rolling.

I'm interested to hear from those who have done it, or at least considered it. Is this something relatively easy to do yourself, or would you recommend a factory upgrade? I'm not very tech savvy when it comes to the guts of my system, I just know what sounds good to me.

I upgraded the electolytic caps in my DAC to Black Gates, and they made a huge difference, i.e. improvement. I also upgraded the single electrolytic cap in each of my SL3s, and so far I hear no difference.

One problem I have found with doing some upgrades is the lack of room on some boards, i.e. the components are too close together. So before you even order the caps you have to make sure that they will physically fit. When it comes to replacing electrolytics you have to make sure that the voltage rating is right, and that if they are polarised you have them in the right orientation. In general if you are not tech savvy I would suggest leaving it to a technician.

I have also upgraded caps in my preamps and in the low-level parts of power amps.

Beware:
1. This can be a very expensive process, depending upon the caps chosen, their values and how many are going to be replaced. Not very hard to run up a cap bill of more than $500, fast.

2. Hard to know what caps will sound the best, you'll often end up taking others' advice because it is difficult to test various caps yourself (expense, time, etc.).

3. Take a good look at what caps are already in the preamp, amp, etc. that you are thinking of modifying. Truly high-end equipment is very likely to already have premium quality caps.

4. Adding to (3), some high-end equipment may have a limited number of premium caps in specific circuits. These were generally chosen to be in these circuits for a reason and changing the rest of the existing caps may not result in a significant audio improvement.

5. Be very careful in changing out any caps found in the RIAA EQ section of a phono preamp. These form a precision EQ circuit and you shouldn't mess with it.


When all is said and done, my experience is that cap substitutions do result in tonal changes, but not always for the better. Just different. So long as the changes are to your liking, terrific!

Best Wishes!

Bernard and rhom, thanks for the helpful information. Any suggestions on which caps I should consider? I'm looking for a slightly warm, but not thick sound. Apparently Jensen caps have been used by a few Cary preamp owners with varying reports of satisfaction. Mundorfs have also been discussed.

asindc, I'm sorry but my experience has only been with Black Gate caps, and I don't know the others. You may want to try the tweek section of www.audioasylum.com. There are a bunch of guys there who have tried them all, I'm sure.

You can find Black Gates at www.partsconnexion.com.

BTW while you are in the upgrade business, I can't recommend highly enough the DACT stepped attenuator in place of the typical ALPS volume control that is in a lot of preamps. It is ridiculously expensive (close to $200), but well worth it - a HUGE upgrade. Also available at Parts Connexion.

Bernard said:

asindc, I'm sorry but my experience has only been with Black Gate caps, and I don't know the others. You may want to try the tweek section of www.audioasylum.com. There are a bunch of guys there who have tried them all, I'm sure.

You can find Black Gates at www.partsconnexion.com.

BTW while you are in the upgrade business, I can't recommend highly enough the DACT stepped attenuator in place of the typical ALPS volume control that is in a lot of preamps. It is ridiculously expensive (close to $200), but well worth it - a HUGE upgrade. Also available at Parts Connexion.

Click to expand...

Bernard,

How does the DACT stepped attenuator improve the sound?

asindc said:

Bernard,

How does the DACT stepped attenuator improve the sound?

Click to expand...

The stepped attenuator consists of a number of discrete resistors instead of the conductive plastic in the typical pot, so you do not have the problems associated with dirty contacts; after a while the pots generate noise when you turn them because of dirt. The sound is definitely more clear with the DACT; instruments are better defined. It's like removing the proverbial veil from the sound, except that in this case it's more like a wool blanket.

asindc said:

Bernard and rhom, thanks for the helpful information. Any suggestions on which caps I should consider? I'm looking for a slightly warm, but not thick sound. Apparently Jensen caps have been used by a few Cary preamp owners with varying reports of satisfaction. Mundorfs have also been discussed.

Click to expand...

Like Bernard, I have tried Black Gates. And, in the past, Wimas and some other exotic foreign makes (both German and Japanese). No experience with Mundorfs or Jensens.

Now this is just my experience, so please take the following comments with at least a whole shaker of salt....I haven't heard the caps that I have substituted create a "warmer" sound. My experience is that premium caps tend to affect the transient performance of the preamp/amp they are installed in. That is, premium caps store and release their electrons more efficiently (i.e. more quickly) than lesser quality caps, and this generally results in better transient performance. This seems to be especially true in the tubed electronics that I have modified. In the course of improving transient performance, my experience is that the overall tone of the electronic device becomes anything but warm. This was evident to me when changing the caps in a late 1970s vintage ARC SP-6 preamp as well as a ARC amp from the same era. When better caps came along years later, re-upgrading the same caps further improved transient performance and moved the overall tone further away from what I would call "warm." Overall, I did think that my re-capped units were more neutral in tone, reproducing music that was closer to reality than before. ARC's current products use current premium caps and to my ears do not sound like ARC's products from 20 years ago (which IMHO were warmer-toned by comparison).

Again, just one guy's experience with a limited number of mods. Your experiences may be quite different.

Regards,

Rick

Thanks again, Rick. That is indeed useful information. I emailed Cary about the possible cap upgrade, and they said both Jensen (apparently that is what they use if you leave it to them to choose the caps for the upgrade) and Mundorf would be good choices. I did not tell them I was looking for any particular sound. More than anything else, I want the preamp to function better. If I get a slightly warmer sound out of it, all the better.