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Romy the Cat wrote:

I do some very interesting experiments with Rohde & Schwarz tuner. Dima and I have discovered a way to use the Schwarz without the wide bandwidth amplifier, driving the Multiplex Decoder from the Schwarz’s preamps. Basically we put two stages with all it caps cap out of services - a very nice intellectual improvement. Doing it I discover that Rohde & Schwarz is heavy on use right in signal pass he Tantalum Caps. They are 16V 10uF-220uf. I was looking at them and desired to replace them with non-polar Nichicon Muse - the tested good cap. Well, I would like to reports that it got substantially better but am not sure. The Muse need some time to open up but since I know them very well and can predict their sound I still am not convinced that muse will my cap of chose. Thinking about it I was educated myself about the Tantalum Caps. It turned out that there are Tantalum Caps, that are not partially too exiting and there are WET Tantalum Caps. The Wet Tantalum Caps are very different animals. They expensive like hell but it is very possible that is they are probably used (they must be DC biased) then they do just fine: http://www.itiomar.it/pubblica/Telecomunicaz/lezioni/3_anno/Cap-Ta-2.pdf http://www.vishay.com/capacitors/tantalum/wet-tantalum/ Rohde & Schwarz used both dry and wet caps I replaced them all to wet. What attract me in the sound of the wet caps is notable higher transient performance… and substantially less foggy bass.  Well, perhaps I need to let the   Nichicon Muse to settle down and then to see what happen. Anyhow, my initial prejudices that those Tantalum Spragues from 70’s should be replaced on spot might not be too reasonable. Let see what happen… The Cat

Well the whole saga with the Wet Tantalum Caps turned out to be exiting but disappointing. I bought the 138D Wet Caps:

http://www.vishay.com/docs/40025/138d.pdf

….and tried them in the Schwarz’s critical signal pass. I mean it is not bypass or PS but right in series with signal as the coupling caps. The Schwarz’s used originally the 150D the Dry Tantalum Caps, those were replaced with bipolar Nichicon Muse. The MUSE was better, Muse sound like bipolar BG caps that were burned in for 16 years. Anyhow, to make the long story short – the ugly (but expensive like hell) Wet Tantalum Caps left no doubt that they are way more superior then even MUSE, not to mention the dry Tantalum caps.

I do not want to talk about it a lot – this is the Rohde & Schwarz tuner thread and I mention it here juts because the Rohde & Schwarz project let me to discover the wonderful sound of the Wet Tantalum caps. So, why do I call the result disappointing?

The sound of the Wet Tantalum caps is not disappointing – quite in cotasry but I was told by many “experienced” people with whom I consulted before and I heard from them only (with exception of one guy) one answer from them: “as soon you see those Tantalum caps then get rid of them immediately.” Well, this indicated nothing more then there are too many idiots in audio who love to talk confidently about the subjects that have no clue.

Anyhow, the Wet Tantalum Caps stay in my Rohde & Schwarz.

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