Ceramic disc capacitors

[sergio]

Hi , I'd like open a discussion about the variety of ceramic disc capacitors

what type you prefer to use?

Temp coefficent: X5S , X5R , X5F , X7R ,X7T , C0G , etc..
Brand: Vishay , Murata , Kemet , etc..
tollerance: 5% , 10% , 20%

I always used vishay x5f but now can be found only buying them in big quantities

S.

[gui_tarzan]

I haven't found a disc cap that didn't work (aside from bad ones in amps) including my old pulls. I think that's one part that just works, no matter what brand it is.

[Stevem]

Tonal difference wise I may choose a Mica type over a ceramic type, I do not know that I would place too much concern as to different brand ceramics, or there tolerance!

[pops]

Tonal difference wise I may choose a Mica type over a ceramic type, I do not know that I would place too much concern as to different brand ceramics, or there tolerance!

+1

[Richie]

NPO is really good, but getting harder to find in the higher voltages now days. Those are the cream of the crop disc caps.

[gingertube]

Ceramic Caps have no business anywhere in the audio path.

Use them 2 places ONLY:
1) On isolated from chassis input jacks - wire a ceramic cap (say 1 to 10nF) between the ground side of the input jack and chassis, right next to the input jack, this connects the input jack ground side to 0V at Radio Frequencies and effectively extends the shielding action of the chassis out along the input cable.
2) Across the power supply rectifier diodes for supression/absorbtion of diode switching spikes, 10nF 2kV will do.

All ceramic caps have terrible dielectric absorbtion and a lot are microphonic. Keep them out of the signal path.

Cheers,
Ian

[roberto]

Saying that ceramic capacitors are useless in the audio path is not right nor wrong. Is boring.

90% of all history of rock passed through ceramic caps.
Some kinds of ceramic caps sound right in certain applications, others don't.
In other cases SM can be the best choice.

[RockinRocket]

I was just experementing with ceramic vs mica in a modded jca20. I prefer the ceramics actually. The stock ceramic ones were probably the chepest ones on the market too FWIW. And those sounded better than CDE micas. I ended up using two of the ceramics as snubbers in a circuit that ended up in the vain of a "one wire" mod so im stuck with the Micas for now.

So this thread interests me as well

[Blackburn]

I did a thread like this way back, but didn't get into too much detail about the different kinds. Having just bought a shit load of them in recent months, I'm happy to see this thread here. My primary use for them will be in a single triode, bias vary tremolo circuit. They're in my '66 PR and I dig. Z5F, Z5P, Z5U, X5F, MP, etc. Some of what I just looked at. So many designations!

[Structo]

As I recall we had a discussion about ceramic caps a while back.

The Temperature Coefficient was the spec that was most discussed.

Inside a hot tube amp, it may be wise to choose the rating that performs well in the heat.

[stretch2011]

I just bought a bunch of 500 of and .022....or .0022 NOS ceramic caps. I don't know what brand but they are orange 1kv for a nickel a piece!

[Mat Cortex]

I prefer MLCC: multi layer ceramic capacitor

I found they sound more warm an organic than a standard ceramic disk

[Tony Bones]

Just be aware that the multilayer ceramics can be fragile and will fail in a shorted state.

[Synchu]

To my amusement, dismay or revelation? - while tweaking my Ceriatone Bluesmaster HRM 50W (acquired before I got into all this amp building craziness) in the last few weeks, I changed few times back and forth the treble cap (gravitating around 390pf value) from Vishay ceramic to CD Silver Mica. I found two almost identical in capacitance caps (should check notes, but the difference is 3-4 pf - still significant for some, but not in my book).
They definitely sound different and I definitely prefer the Vishay ceramic The clean channel sounds a bit better with the Silver Mica, but the OD definitely sounds much better with the Ceramic.
Just my .02 whatever, FWIW,
Niki