Yeah, since you brought it up, I have to give it up for Jim at Scumback Speakers He is/remains nothing but a fountain of help and descriptive info - sonic and physical, and all the while running his business! Which is amazing, actually. And, yes, I certainly am aware of his quest, including his purchase record of vintage Celestion speakers. Here's a guy who did his homework, no question about it, and also someone who has great ears. Vintage ears at that.
As to Sozo, well I didn't know his first name was John, and actually, I sure don't see him as even coming close to being on the same customer service level as Jim. NO WAY. Which doesn't mean he's not a nice guy, BTW, just that I have never run into him in cyberspace other than on his site, or through his products. Does he post around here somewhere, answering all the inane questions that people like me can ask? If so, put me in that direction, I would love to see some of his comments about his caps - or other brands, new or old - that I could learn something from.
Anyway, the Sozo brand caps seem like a very good thing to me, not a question. However, I still take exception to the very limited info on the Sozo site. I had to go off site to see a picture of someone else cutting one of his caps open and exposing the guts of it. Why not at Sozo? And then regarding the special Vintage - HAND WRAPPED - Sozos, why not a picture of this? How hard would that be to post, and what could this hurt? Too, oddly enough, to point out even further confusion that occurs as, IMO, the result of such information withholding, if you go here:
http://www.turretboards.com/ , you will see that the Sozo product is described as 'metalized' tubular - ? - and the info at Sozo says:
"Each material will interact differently with the conductors because of their dielectric constant (a measure of the extent to which the insulating material's surface interacts with the electric field set up between the charged plates). These factors and elements were considered in the building of this capacitor however, as in the original, Polyester film was chosen because of its deeper tonal qualities and the performance exceeded our objective. On a typical film capacitor the conductors are usually a metalized material bonded to the dielectric by means of vacuum impregnation. Better quality capacitors incorporate metal foils such as aluminum, tin, copper or even silver. "
..which means what, exactly? For myself, looking at both sites, I have maybe deciphered this to mean that the Sozo cap is made up of a metalized polyester film, ...er, just like an orange drop cap (OD). Do you all agree? Something which - most of us - call simply a 'polyester' cap. But then why doesn't John just say this? Eh, and then getting back to the idea of audio examples of a new cap vs. broken in cap, why not? But then even without this audio example, why doesn't John simply DESCRIBE - in words - the CHARACTER of the tone of a new Sozo cap vs. a broken in one?
All I read is on the site is, "It will take up to 100 hours of break in for the capacitor to operate to its full potential. The dielectric will polarize and develop a pattern creating a clearer, full frequency sound." (OK, the opposite of 'clearer' and 'fuller' is maybe duller and less full? Eh, this is vague, and in fact, not exactly what I experienced, and not, IMO, exactly what the picture on the site shows. The pic shows a jagged back edge of a single waveform. Hm, its not square wave distortion, yet its not a perfectly symetrical wave either.... and this means that when I hear a wave like this, I am hearing a 'duller' and 'less full' frequency sound? OK, if you say so.)
Alright, my second rant about Sozo over... If there's a point here, it might be that amp builders need to check out these Sozo caps if you haven't already. Obviously I am a fan of the product at this point, as are many others here, but you need to take a leap if you are someone who typically only reads about something from the manufacturer before he buys. I waited too long to check these out and - more specifically - to try one in the PI coupling cap position in my Express(s).
P.S. Just went to Mercury Mags and found this to add to the cap construction confusion:
"The SoZo Mustard Cap is longer and thinner as compared to most high production caps readily available today. The additional length results in a different signal delivery time, changing the harmonics of the capacitor and yields smooth, clear, thick lower-mids. Polyester film was chosen because of its deeper tonal character and aluminum foil was chosen to exactly recreate the capacitor’s original sound and performance. SoZo also chooses to use tin-coated pure copper leads, which SoZo claims aids in the retro mustard cap sound."
So, WTF, here someone else (Mike Mullen) is saying that the Sozo cap is polyester film and aluminum foil. Eh? I do not see this specific description on the Sozo site, in fact it looks like a misquote. Oh well...
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
