Truth about Capacitors

Ceramics are problematic due to huge tolerances vs other types, as well as value drift vs temperature, and yes, microphonics as they said (but personally I think this is overblown in a guitar application.... diff story in a high gain amp). This refers to old style disc types; newer multilayer ceramic capacitors or MLCCs (ones with the NP0/C0G dialectric as they say in the vid, but fail to point out applies to ceramic caps especially) do not have these issues and are the ideal thing to use for super small cap values, e.g. in the pF range due to being cheaper than other types that go that small (except ceramic disc, which are cheaper still but suck). For higher values (nf to lower end of uF) polyester (film) are cheaper. Due to this reason, I wouldn't use any type of ceramic cap in a guitar tone circuit - film caps are the most cost effective and quality type you can get for that value range. Maybe in treble bleed circuits tho.

I still never read about people comparing the change in sound/tone, as the relationship between volume and tone are adjusted together?
Its almost like "Look, this little compact car feels just as fast going 100Km/h as the race-car at 100Km/h.... "here wait, lets accelerate both to 120km/h.. same feeling of speed".
And even if there was no difference, don't coolness points count anymore?

BSTheTech said:

Great article. Watch the video for the readers digest version.

The Truth about Tone Capacitors | Atlantic Quality Design, Inc. Musical Products

* They recommend not using ceramics in guitars - but not why you might think.
** Apologies if previously posted.

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Well I'll be damned. We're currently working on a video kind of like this, testing tons of different tone capacitors. It's certainly interesting stuff!

I'm not big on tone myths. I have a feeling our results won't be much different than the guys in this video, but we'll see.

buyusfear said:

I still never read about people comparing the change in sound/tone, as the relationship between volume and tone are adjusted together?
Its almost like "Look, this little compact car feels just as fast going 100Km/h as the race-car at 100Km/h.... "here wait, lets accelerate both to 120km/h.. same feeling of speed".
And even if there was no difference, don't coolness points count anymore?

Click to expand...

Coolness always counts.