UncleMeat

'Long May You Run' by The Stills-Young Band on "Long May You Run"

'Until I'm Dead and Cold', by BB King on "Indianola Mississippi Seeds"

If there is no Prince song suitable for a C! Reference CD of 2016 artists who have passed; then should we be considering music he wrote for other artists to perform? BB King (AKA King of the Blues) passed in 2015, should he be included here?

I just thought the lead-in was fitting to his life story, and a CD of passed artists. I'm not a huge fan of Prince's music. The song "Let's Go Crazy" charted #1 on all 3 US charts (Pop, R&B, Dance); so that's why I suggested it. If there are other songs that would be better for a reference disc then please, post your top picks. There were no posts in reference to Prince and I did not want his music to be forgotten.

'Lets Go Crazy', by Prince on "Purple Rain" Dearly beloved We are gathered here today To get through this thing called "life" Electric word, life It means forever and that's a mighty long time But I'm here to tell you There's something else The afterworld A world of never ending happiness You can always see the sun, day or night So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills You know the one, Dr. Everything'll-Be-Alright Instead of asking him how much of your time is left Ask him how much of your mind, baby Cause in this life Things are much harder than in the afterworld In this life You're on your own

Wow, sorry to create a stir; but I just thought it would be good to hear the voice of Glenn Frey on a reference disc honoring people who have passed. Don also sings the lyrics in On the Border. What about 'Take it Easy'? Great vocals by Glenn there, he also finished writing the lyric for Jackson Browne who credits Glenn as being the person who got the lyrics to sound right. 'Peaceful Easy Feeling' is also a great song with Glenn on vocals; he also helped Jack Tempchin in completing the song.

Pink Floyd - 'Fearless' on the Meddle LP Hotel California was sung by Don Henley. I propose either Life in the Fast Lane or Heartache Tonight.

The increase in clarity was unexpected; I thought adding "tone" with these PIO's would make the sound go toward being muddy. I can see how going too far in the direction of 'clear' would also be dis-satisfying also. All of this with regard to PIO caps makes me wonder what the sound differences were (when vintage amps were being constructed) among brands of the old (new back then) PIO, or wax impregnated caps. Do the caps owe as much to the sound of a certain amp like a Scott, or Marantz as the circuit design, transformers, & tubes?

To answer your question; IMHO there is a big difference between the sound of a Mylar, Poly, or PIO cap as coupling caps in a tube amp. I know this is a bit OT from the original post about caps in the XO's but if I'm hearing it at the coupling capacitors in my tube amp, then possible there will be some difference on the speaker XO also. How I noticed the sound change is because I was re-capping the Marshall and put in Mylar caps not knowing they were of lesser audio quality than the original Poly Sprague caps. When I played the amp it sounded very harsh and dry. Wasn't sure what I had done wrong so I soldered the old caps back in (luckily there was still enough metal on the leads). The sound went back to the way it was originally; better overall tone and the highs were not just a bunch of hiss noises. Intrigued by this I decided to give NOS Sprague PIO caps a try. I suggest getting metal can PIO caps; my first attempt using Cornell Dubilier "CUB" (recycled) was a failure; they leaked DC badly. The metal can caps have glass ends and are hermetically sealed so less chance of absorbing moisture. The improvement in overall sound I got from the PIO caps was enough to make me wonder how there could be such a large difference with such a minor component change. It was like rolling in a better set of tubes; and I already had gone through several sets to find what I thought was 'best'. I'm getting more top-end sparkle, and clearer midrange vocals. The image has gone from a 2-D plane to a 3-D room filling sound; the sound seemingly does not come from the speakers it just jumps out from different locations in the space of the room.

Jim- Jupiter Vintage Tone caps are not PIO capacitors. They are poly/aluminum foil. By the description on Jupiter's website the sound of their Vintage Tone model would be more similar to the Sprague Blue caps that I pulled than the Sprague Vitamin Q's I replaced them with. http://jupitercondenser.com/product/handmade-vintage-guitar-tone-capacitor/

I've been working on my Marshall tube amp; I just swapped the coupling capacitors from Sprague Poly blue "Gum Drop" caps over to vintage Sprague "Vitamin Q" Paper-In-Oil. The overall sound is quite an improvement. I did also change the capacitance values a bit but that should not account for the amount of change in the overall sound. I'm not sure about the audible differences between different types of poly caps or poly vs. 'lytic, but in my case going from Poly to PIO did make quite an improvement in the sound. My Wife noticed it also and her comment was "wow the volume is turned up but it does not sound 'loud' it just fills the room with more music". Which was exactly what I was noticing also in addition to other improvements.

A little Z-Mass Concert music...