Capacitor upgrade in crossover - You CAN'T handle the TRUTH! - Part 3

[A800]

I also didn't notice any difference between tracks.
But maybe because I didn't listen to any.

 

[krabapple]

A great example of the pitfalls of expectation bias in sighted comparison came from Amir in his Audyssey review. At one point he switched from plain to Audyssey playback, and notices a big improvement! But then he realized...he hadn't actually switched in Audyssey!

 

[Octalman]

Capacitors Identified as "Audio" quality are audibly different. It would be great to identify one or more measurable characteristics that correlate with audible characteristics. I am confident there are others like myself that are Engineers and musically trained. The Engineer understands science and maintains healthy skepticism. The musician is trained to listen to a single instrument or orchestra and hear small details.

Over the last 4 months of incremental modifications and careful listening, capacitor quality does make a difference. It is not necessary to spend a small fortune on esoteric capacitors. Nor is it reasonable to convert a $99 pair of speakers into audiophile quality. The starting point must be reasonably good.

My modifications were fortunate to start with the designers hand drawn crossover schematic. He hand matched drivers and crossover components were selected to achieve specific values. I followed that specific value process during modifications. Every capacitor removed was checked. All were within tolerance and displayed no physical damage. My musically trained ear told me audible differences existed at each step. The Engineer knew how to conduct a valid experiment.

Why would capacitors have an audible characteristic that is not measurable? My 40+ years in Military/Aerospace lead to a theory. The source of raw materials processing of raw material, storage, manufacturing process, physical construction and other factors play a role. Why did an electrically identical part from a new vendor that passed a battery of tests prematurely fail or behave differently in a circuit? First hand experience with excruciating analysis of failures and performance differences many times led to unexpectedly obscure causes. I believe there are contributing factors to an audible difference between capacitors that are simply not revealed by electrical measurements.

 

[BDWoody]

My musically trained ear told me audible differences existed at each step. The Engineer knew how to conduct a valid experiment.

How did you go about comparing?

Please say the Engineer in you knew that uncontrolled subjective testing wasn't the way to go, especially when trying to find vanishingly small differences.

 

[krabapple]

Capacitors Identified as "Audio" quality are audibly different. It would be great to identify one or more measurable characteristics that correlate with audible characteristics. I am confident there are others like myself that are Engineers and musically trained. The Engineer understands science and maintains healthy skepticism. The musician is trained to listen to a single instrument or orchestra and hear small details.

1) Proven how? Double blind tests, the actual scientific standard? Your sighted anecdotes don't count...unless you've been certified as a 'trained listener'...via double blind testing.
2) The details musicians are trained to listen for --pitch, rhythm, phrasing, relative level -- are not necessarily related at all to differences between electronic components. A difference large enough to cause audible difference in those musical parameters, would be indicative of a seriously broken or mismatched component.

 

[Octalman]

Music is to be enjoyed. Analysis has it's place, but is not the end all-be all. Music cannot be quantified by endless measurements that don't actually measure music. Single pitch tones, noise, frequency sweeps, harmonics are only approximations that do not exactly and precisely replicate actual music.

To krabapple - 1) My results certainly do count. They are not anecdotes. Jumped through the double blind hoop already. Also have the intellectual honesty to have reported if I heard no difference.

2) Unless you are a trained musician with decades of experience, you don't know what a musician can hear. To say a seriously broken or mismatched component is the only possible cause for an audible difference is sadly misguided.

 

[richard12511]

Music is to be enjoyed. Analysis has it's place, but is not the end all-be all.

I agree. I do think we can fully capture the sound with measurements, but I agree that they're not the end all-be all. I don't think our current interpretations of those measurements are sufficient to fully characterize sound. We still need to listen.

To krabapple - 1) My results certainly do count.

The problem is that they only count for you, and no one else. The only data you could provide that would count for others would be either:

1. Measurements
2. Proof that you took a blind test and passed

Also have the intellectual honesty to have reported if I heard no difference.

I don't think anyone thinks you're being dishonest. We just know that the difference you heard is far more likely to be due to placebo than it is an actual change in sound. I believe you heard a difference. What I don't believe is that it had anything to do with the sound waves entering your ear.

Did you happen to take before and after measurements? Given that measurements are far more sensitive than the human ear, if you heard a difference, then it would for sure show up in the measurements. If you did take measurements, showing those could support your case.

2) Unless you are a trained musician with decades of experience, you don't know what a musician can hear. To say a seriously broken or mismatched component is the only possible cause for an audible difference is sadly misguided.

I think research has shown that musicians aren't really any better at hearing subtle differences. I could be wrong on that. Someone correct me if I'm misremembering. I know @amirm has posted the study results multiple times, but I don't remember the exact details.

 

[krabapple]

Training to hear small difference between audio devices, audio software treatments, etc, a topic much discussed elsewhere on ASR lately, is not the same as musical ear training. And may even need to be customized for particular kinds of difference. Harman's listener training course, for example, is not a musical ear training course. Musicians do NOT necessarily do better in the sorts of trials documented in the loudspeaker research literature, for example.

I didn't claim that broken/mismatch is the only basis for audible difference *generally*. Obviously, for examples, we have good reason to believe loudspeakers -- electromechanical transducers in a box -- do typically sound different. But we are talking about capacitors, no?

When there's little a priori reason to expect an audible difference between properly chosen components -- and for capacitors in this case there is none, AFAIK -- you start with either a positive DBT series, and then measure to see what's causing it, or you start from a measured difference, and argue for its audibility (again requiring controlled listening tests). The rest is anecdote and argument from authority.

You didn't mention having audibly differentiated capacitors using DBT. Now you are indicating otherwise...or are you just indicating that you've done some unspecified DBTs in the past?

I've been a musician for 43 years now. Scientist for 30. Your anecdotes don't mean anything to me.

 

[BDWoody]

2) Unless you are a trained musician with decades of experience, you don't know what a musician can hear.

Right.

So, your version of golden ears, making your results unassailable...?

My mother still plays piano professionally in her 80's. I heard music being played from my conception, and then grew up playing in every band I had access to. Do you automatically have an advantage over me? Seems you think you do...

So, still trying to clarify how you compared. Did you keep one unaltered, so you could do a meaningful comparison? You do realize your musical memory is not suited for comparisons separated by significant time, I assume?

Yes music should be enjoyed. Gear, though, can be measured.

 

[Speedskater]

When audiophiles or musicians hear differences in electronic circuits (that measure the same), it often comes down to overlooked uncontrolled variables in their listening tests (or poor listening test protocols) .

When musicians hear real differences in electronic circuits, there will also be measurement differences.

 

[ctrl]

Why would capacitors have an audible characteristic that is not measurable?... I believe there are contributing factors to an audible difference between capacitors that are simply not revealed by electrical measurements.

Differences between capacitors are very easy to measure, as my small series has repeatedly shown - for example, the increased resistive active component (ESR) of electrolytic capacitors, compared to film capacitors.
The equivalent circuit diagram of a capacitor shows us immediately that in reality a capacitor unfortunately not only has capacity, but there are also undesirable effects.
Source: https://www.elektronik-kompendium.de/sites/bau/0205141.htm

The crucial question is whether these differences play a role in the frequency range of human hearing when using undamaged capacitors in "normal" quality compared to, for example, a high-end capacitor - see part 1.

Among other things, in order to exclude possible speculations about undiscovered physical phenomena or "things" not revealed by electrical measurements, the experimental setup was deliberately chosen with a 0.75'' tweeter and a measuring microphone (and the capacitors connected in series).
No one in their right mind would claim that there is an "undiscovered way of air molecule movement" (back and forth from tweeter to the measuring microphone) which comes into play when high-end capacitors are used, but not with normal film capacitors.

Thus, the question is reduced to the sensitivity of the experimental set-up and whether all parameters/aspects decisive for hearing are covered by the measurements.

a) sensitivity of the experimental set-up
The sensitivity of the test setup was truly surprising. I would never have thought that such small deviations in the capacitance of the capacitors could be detected.
See the section "Capacitors - low capacitance deviations" in part 1. Even 0.3% capacitance deviation in the capacitors was detected by the test setup as sound pressure deviation.
And the measured deviation in sound pressure was about 0.02dB. This is much better than the human ear is able to distinguish (at least according to all sources I know).
The measurements of the multitone distortions showed that the differences there were at -60dB or less. The measuring microphone used for the measurements shows even extremely low THD values up to 128dB sound pressure.
So also in this area a high sensitivity of the test setup can be assumed.


b) measured parameters/aspects
The investigations on "normal film capacitor versus high-end capacitor" compared
1) the frequency response curves
2) the impulse responses (the temporal behaviour)
3) the CSD diagrams (decay behaviour of the tweeter)
4) the multitone distortions (which capture HD and IMD)

With capacity differences <<0.5% (in part 1 the capacity deviation was about 0.2%) all measured parameters showed no significant difference.

From the results of the section "Capacitors - low capacitance deviations" in part one, we know that even a 1% capacitance deviation can lead to 0.1 dB sound pressure difference and that this is a deviation that is within the range of what can be perceived by human hearing under certain circumstances.

Further down I will discuss whether these measurements are sufficient to explain possible auditory impressions after a capacitor exchange.



c) psychological effects
@krabapple had already given an example of this. I can report something similar.
When tuning the crossover, it happens again and again with dozens of tunings that I forget to really implement the changes (whether passive or active) and when switching between the two versions I still think I hear a difference in sound.

However, this aspect of human hearing should not be part of this three part series.

My modifications were fortunate to start with the designers hand drawn crossover schematic. He hand matched drivers and crossover components were selected to achieve specific values. I followed that specific value process during modifications. Every capacitor removed was checked. All were within tolerance and displayed no physical damage. My musically trained ear told me audible differences existed at each step. The Engineer knew how to conduct a valid experiment.

The decisive factor is not whether the capacitors were within their tolerance range, but the relative capacitance deviation of the capacitors among themselves. In order to determine the relative deviations of the exchanged components a cheap LCR-meter or software like Arta-Limp (available in a free version) is sufficient.

In order to rule out changes in sound caused by different capacitance values, the deviation of the replaced capacitors should be less than 1%.
This is damn hard to realize, but anything else quickly leads to 0.2dB and more deviation in the overall frequency response of the speaker.

Here is a small example. If the deviation of a capacitor is 5% (5.3µF replaced by 5.57µF) this leads to a deviation of up to 0.25dB over three octaves for an [email protected] crossover.
This deviation will be audible - by direct comparison.

If an electrolytic capacitor is replaced by a film capacitor, the ESR difference is very likely to be significant. This effect also very quickly leads to a 0.2dB difference in sound pressure during replacement, as shown in part two in the section "Comparison with 8.2µF capacity".


Are the measurements used today sufficient to explain auditory impressions?

This question arises not only in connection with an alleged sound change caused by high-end capacitors, but also frequently here in the forum with the sound impression of speakers that show very similar spinorama, angular frequency responses and distortion and yet sound different.

I think many people don't realize how much even the smallest changes in the frequency response of a loudspeaker can affect the sound.

Here again a small example. Below are the horizontal angular frequency responses of a speaker with slightly different crossover tuning.
I'm pretty sure that everyone here in the forum would immediately and without difficulty notice a difference in sound when comparing them directly.
Even significantly smaller changes are easily audible in direct comparison.

The measurements made in the ASR are therefore perfectly sufficient to explain the different auditory impressions of almost identically measuring loudspeakers - to predict the sound only on the basis of the measurements in detail is however very difficult for us humans, a self-learning AI is certainly an advantage.

Therefore, when assessing the reasons for supposedly heard sound differences when replacing capacitors in the crossover of loudspeakers, it is crucial that the capacitance values of the capacitors involved are precisely determined in order to rule out that they are responsible for the different sound impressions (aside from the other influences, such as non-blind testing....)

 

[RayDunzl]

I wonder which line of code in my miniDSP is the capacitor, and which is the inductor?

 

[Speedskater]

Using a microphone to measure differences in electronic circuits, is indeed a very poor test protocol.

 

[KaiserSoze]

In debates such as this one, the same fundamental flaws are almost always present and are almost always the ruination of the debate. The fundamental flaw in the debate is the failure to clearly identify the question being debated, before beginning the debate. Ctrl has done a commendable job with illustrating facts which are pertinent to specific questions. It is nevertheless important to sort out the different questions and first come to agreement on which question or questions are the questions being debated.

One thing that is guaranteed to occur every time this debate is reawakened is that someone will report on the various modifications they made to their speaker and will report that it made a huge improvement in the sound. I would not even attempt to guess how many times I've seen people do this even though it has absolutely no relevance to any meaningful question. The reason it is not meaningful isn't per se the lack of a proper double-blind test, although this is part of the problem. Rather, the more fundamental reason it isn't meaningful is that it was never in doubt that wholesale changes made to a speaker can change the way it sounds. Should anyone desire to obfuscate the questions that are genuinely meaningful, this sort of thing is a perfectly good way to do just that.

So, what exactly are the meaningful questions?

(1) It is meaningful to ask whether it is or isn't possible for two different capacitors that measure exactly the same, in every conceivable way, to sound different.

(2) It is meaningful to ask whether it is or isn't possible for a cheap capacitor to sound the same as a given expensive capacitor, i.e., whether it is necessary to buy an expensive capacitor in order to have a capacitor that produces the sound that is deemed optimal or most desirable.

There may be other questions that are meaningful, in addition to these two, but I think that these are the two most important ones.

As to question (1), there is no doubt that there are limitations to accuracy and resolution in laboratory equipment. This goes without saying. But from this obvious fact it does not follow in any absolute way that two different capacitors can sound different even if they measure identically. If someone wishes to argue that modern electronic measuring equipment is not as good as we need for it to be, then the person making this claim bears the burden of proof. I respect ctrl for his motivation, ambition, and determination, but it just doesn't make very good sense for someone to try to show the flaws in an argument that hasn't yet been given. I've done this sort of thing myself on occasion, and I have been slow in realizing that it just doesn't make good sense to do this. If someone claims that two capacitors sound different and that it isn't possible to explain the differences via the measured differences in the capacitors, the appropriate procedural steps are simple but exact and unwavering. The person making this claim must first prove that the difference is audible. To do this, the person making this claim must set up a fully proper double-blind test and must invite one or more devil's advocates to monitor. This test is needed to establish with reasonable certainty that the two capacitors do in fact sound different. After this has been done, the two capacitors must be turned over to someone who is particularly skilled in measuring capacitors, e.g., ctrl. If ctrl can measure any difference, the assertion is disproved. It's as simple as that.

Question (2) is more difficult. I will try to describe what I think is required. From the retail stock of a major supplier of Brand E (the expensive brand or type), a random selection of, oh, perhaps a half dozen capacitors will need to be taken. Similarly for Brand C (the cheap brand or type), but these capacitors obviously need to have the same tolerance rating as the expensive capacitors. Then a crossover will need to be built, with a high-quality switching arrangement so that any one of the dozen or so individual capacitors can be switched into the circuit. The switching and control will need to accommodate the double-blind protocol. If the blind listeners exhibit a statistically significant preference for Brand E, then the claim will be supported by the experiment; otherwise the experiment will have demonstrated that the claim is likely devoid of merit. Once more the burden of proof to perform this experiment falls on the shoulders of the person who is making the claim that Brand/Type E capacitors sound better than Brand/Type C. Please note that in this experiment it would not be appropriate to permit any "cherry picking" of the individual capacitor, for either of the two Brands/Types.

Potentially, the experiment needed to answer question (2) will be substantially simpler if there is agreement that two capacitors cannot sound different unless they measure differently. In fact, since the question (1) assertion is highly doubtful to put it gently, reasonable people would carry out the question (2) experiment by taking accurate bench measurements of a random sample of Brand/Type E and Brand/Type C, to determine whether there is any statistically significant difference in the closeness to which each Brand/Type adheres to the quoted parameter values. If a statistically significant difference is found, this would not necessarily prove that there is an audible difference, however it would be reason enough for the proponents of Brand/Type E to claim objective, measurement-based justification for their preference.

Finally, the thing that everyone ought to be grownup enough to understand without even a hint of misgiving is that unless and until the people making fringe claims start acting like responsible, professional engineers and scientists, all of it should be treated like a pile of malarky. In any scientific field, it is preposterous for a bunch of professional people to accept a bunch of unproven crap in the total absence of any scientific evidence or even an honest scientific effort to prove the hypotheses. At present we have a fellow who willingly put himself in the spotlight because he wanted to increase his revenue. He is obviously not a scientist, as evidenced by his utter lack of understanding of scientific process. Scientists are rightfully annoyed when they encounter some bozo running around making preposterous claims all the while displaying a complete lack of understanding of what would be expected of him before any of his claims would be taken seriously by the scientific community. But it isn't just that one guy. To focus too strongly on him would serve no true purpose. All of the people who make claims that aren't substantiated by proper scientific investigation should be labeled charlatans. Because that's what they are, and because they themselves are the only people benefitting from their bogus claims.

 

[Octalman]

Ctrl - Testing a capacitor standalone using non-musical signals is a straw man argument. Knock yourself out twisting into a pretzel arguing you are doing science.

KaiserSoze - You remind of when an FBI agent I knew requested an evaluation of a page of technical jargon. It was part of a response to a solicitation for a major airport expansion. The proposal evaluation team could not decide between technical brilliance or complete BS. The FBI was suspicious of attempted fraud. That page was nothing but unrelated technical jargon strung together in attempt to sound impressive. Total BS. But you do have a cute moniker. And also, your insults reveal you to be an immature passive-aggressive bully.

How about this test? Pick a loudspeaker test subject that has tested well and received high marks during listening evaluation in the $1500 - $2000 retail range. Have Amir conduct a double blind listening test and document the listening results. Then Amir can perform his complete test suite and document the results. Next a crossover network will be constructed. Duplicate exactly the stock crossover using the least expensive components possible. Electrolytic capacitors, carbon resistors, iron core inductors, small gauge interconnect wire. Hey, you could use some of those 20 year old electrolytic capacitors that test just fine. Parts is parts, right? Perform a double blind listening test comparing the untouched speaker against the speaker with the parts is parts crossover. Run the full Amir test suite again and document.

As far as my evaluation being anecdotal, it is no more or less anecdotal than listening evaluations conducted by Amir. He is doing a sighted test, right? Also, knows the test results before a listening session. Seems like two violations of science right there. Ya But - Ya But - Ya But Amir is a "qualified" listener and didn't he work for Harman so that justifies granting a waiver. Sorry, the law of science has to be equally applied to all, no exceptions.

 

[pogo]

Maybe this will help (WWW search)

Humble Homemade Hifi Capacitor Test
Among other things, this involves different mechanical resonances within capacitors (depending on the structure). You should read the embedded Clarity Cap white paper.

Cyril Bateman's Capacitor Sound articles
With the appropriate test equipment, it was possible to measure the differences between capacitors.

 

[ctrl]

Maybe this will help (WWW search)

Did you read the first part? There you will find the link to "Humble Homemade..." in the first post.

You should read the embedded Clarity Cap white paper.

Did you carefully read the embedded Clarity Cap white paper?
Can there be "mechanical resonances" in capacitors? According to the investigations in the paper, yes.

Are these "mechanical resonances" in "normal" film capacitors relevant in the audible range?
Let's take a closer look at the "proofs" in the paper.

The paper says:

We designed capacitors with differing resonances and asked the panel to compare them to each other. The tests were blind and
based on the ITU-R BS.1116-1 standard; they involved an independent panel of over 30 listeners.

It does not say that we took film capacitors from our competitors and compared them with our special low-resonance capacitor (that would have been the most obvious), but rather that we designed special, crappy (I read this between the lines ), very resonance-prone capacitors to be able to detect any effect at all.

It continues:

The resonances always occurred between 5 and 25kHz – exactly the range of frequencies where the capacitors would be used!
...
Since the force between the plates of a charged capacitor is always attractive, driving with a sine wave, like an audio signal, will produce a mechanical force at twice the driving frequency; an example of this ‘frequency doubling’ effect is shown in figure 8. This raises the issue of the capacitor being a possible source of intermodulation distortion products at double the frequency of any audio signals present.

Let's take the given example of a capacitor driving with 8kHz sine wave, this capacitor produces mechanically caused HD2 (or IMD as it says in the paper) at 16kHz. In order to perceive this distortion, it must be considerable and therefore very easy to measure.
At higher frequencies (>10kHz), the distortions are no longer audible at all (if they exceed the hearing threshold at all).

The crucial measurements in the paper are not explained in detail (what exactly was measured and how?) and there is no measurement that shows the improvements when replacing a conventional film capacitor with a "low resonance capacitor" in a loudspeaker - although the alleged differences in IMD would be very easy to measure. I wonder why.

If ClarityCap or a seller of high-end capacitors reads along, I would be happy to repeat the capacitor test with especially "low resonance capacitors", to see if there are changes in IMD.
I will use again twenty years old film capacitors (which I bought for 0.10cent a piece as remaining stock) and cheap standard film capacitors.

With the appropriate test equipment, it was possible to measure the differences between capacitors.

The twenty year old capacitor tests mainly refer to capacitors for use in electronic devices (like amps).
Furthermore I measured differences between capacitors in my mini-series too. But these are, with really identical capacitance's, tiny and don't play a role in the audible range (apart from the comparison electrolytic capacitor vs. film capacitor, where the differences in ESR come into play).

 

[pogo]

I read the white paper differently and would have expected differences due to the different capacitor structures during your measurements, at least with an accurate test setup. I miss a complete list of the devices in the signal chain here used during your measurements!? From my experience you have to look at the whole signal chain. E.g. an amplifier must be able to drive the audio signal precisely in the time axis so as not to blur it. If this does not happen in your case, this may result in the same capacitor plots for you.
Amplifier timing is a critical factor in such audible sound gains. That's why I ordered a NAD M33 to replace my already very good NAD C388. It is not without reason that the trade press speaks of an amplifier revolution which, among other things, no longer adds its own sound.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Ctrl - Testing a capacitor standalone using non-musical signals is a straw man argument. Knock yourself out twisting into a pretzel arguing you are doing science.

KaiserSoze - You remind of when an FBI agent I knew requested an evaluation of a page of technical jargon. It was part of a response to a solicitation for a major airport expansion. The proposal evaluation team could not decide between technical brilliance or complete BS. The FBI was suspicious of attempted fraud. That page was nothing but unrelated technical jargon strung together in attempt to sound impressive. Total BS. But you do have a cute moniker. And also, your insults reveal you to be an immature passive-aggressive bully.

How about this test? Pick a loudspeaker test subject that has tested well and received high marks during listening evaluation in the $1500 - $2000 retail range. Have Amir conduct a double blind listening test and document the listening results. Then Amir can perform his complete test suite and document the results. Next a crossover network will be constructed. Duplicate exactly the stock crossover using the least expensive components possible. Electrolytic capacitors, carbon resistors, iron core inductors, small gauge interconnect wire. Hey, you could use some of those 20 year old electrolytic capacitors that test just fine. Parts is parts, right? Perform a double blind listening test comparing the untouched speaker against the speaker with the parts is parts crossover. Run the full Amir test suite again and document.

As far as my evaluation being anecdotal, it is no more or less anecdotal than listening evaluations conducted by Amir. He is doing a sighted test, right? Also, knows the test results before a listening session. Seems like two violations of science right there. Ya But - Ya But - Ya But Amir is a "qualified" listener and didn't he work for Harman so that justifies granting a waiver. Sorry, the law of science has to be equally applied to all, no exceptions.

I have ignored this response for a long time and have now decided to respond.

You accused me of being a "passive-aggressive bully", and of being immature, and of having insulted you. None of this is true, and it all amounts very plainly to a personal attack. It would not be the least bit difficult for me to think up some stupid and irrelevant story comparing you to some foolish person who walks around with his shoes on the wrong feet or something of that sort, akin to the way you inappropriately treated me in your stupid and irrelevant anecdote about the FBI agent. But I would first have to ask myself whether I really wanted to ruin the remaining semblance of intelligent debate by taking your bait and allowing you to turn it into an exchange of personal insults.

In the post I wrote here I was only trying to explain the reasons why the debate that had been undertaken here was flawed out of the gate. It was not directed at you in any strongly particular way, no more so than to other people taking part in the debate. No person possessed of ordinary intellect should have had any real difficulty in understanding what I was saying. It wasn't that complex.

The most fundamental thing that you need to understand is that if you want to make a claim such as the one you made, the onus is on you, not people who are skeptical of your claim, to conduct proper scientific tests to support your claim.

Additionally you need to understand the importance of stating your claim in a manner that is genuinely meaningful, i.e., substantive. Let's suppose that you were to say, "Mylar capacitors sound better than electrolytic capacitors". This statement is not sufficiently specific. It seems to be wanting to say more than it actually says. But all that matters is what it actually says, and what it actually says is silly because anyone could select some mylar capacitors that have the ideal parameter values for a given crossover and then select some electrolytic capacitors that are not close to the ideal values.

You would need to say something more like this: "Mylar capacitors and electrolytic capacitors sound different even when they measure exactly the same, i.e., even when no difference can be detected in their measured parameters." Or you might not want to be this bold, and may only want to challenge the argument that ctrl has given, by saying something like, "All electrolytic capacitors have higher ESR values than all polyethylene film capacitors, and due to this difference, all electrolytic capacitors sound inferior to all polyethylene film capacitors." These two claims appear to me sufficiently clear and sufficiently substantive. Were you to make either of these specific claims, the onus would then be on you to perform a proper scientific test to provide scientific proof to support your claim. But unless and until you say something similar to one of these two statements, then you haven't yet even managed to say anything that is substantive and deserving of more than a sideways glance.

As for "straw man" arguments, the only argument I see here that resembles a straw man argument is you having compared your anecdotal evidence to Amir's subjective evaluations of speakers. What do the two things have to do with each other? Nothing at all. Amir's subjective evaluations of the sound of speakers is a very, very, very different kind of thing, vs. the claim of inherently superior sound quality of one type of capacitor over another.

 

[tomtoo]

Not everything can be measured.

What you can hear, can not be measured???

We can measure sounds you cant hear easaly. So tell me what you can heare and we cant measure? Just one example please!!