expensive capacitor?

[3roomlab]

i saw this capacitor. 22uF 800v approx USD200
suppose to be some sort of MKP i think
(made in china)
 

[Rerouter]

It is intended for audiophiles, add 2 zeros and you will still find capacitors sold at that for this market, you can even find tone balancing rocks for that much, and they sell...

[Psi]

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/WF165336WQ75233BJ1/WF165336WQ75233BJ1-ND/5086082

[janoc]

Oh, audio stuff ... All reason tends to leave the room in that case. My favourite are probably the "wooden" capacitors from here:

http://studiozey.com/woodencapacitor/index.html

Don't expect audiophools to behave in a rational way or to pay sensible prices for components ...

[PeterFW]

You have to be a bit out of touch with reality to buy those caps.
Here are some capacitor review quotes from this site:
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html

Sound: These caps have a lean, clinical brightness to them and at the same time lack transparency. A form of artificial clarity is created by means of a treble glare in the top end - at least they don't have a loudness effect. They work well in opening-up a dull, lifeless speaker but that's about it. Use them as a small value parallel to a large "dull sounding" cap only; they will clean up a cheap Intertechnik Audyn Cap nicely.

the Clarity Cap MR doesn't have that dark character of the standard Clarity Caps and sounds in comparison very spatial and clear. Spatiality is one of the main strengths of this capacitor supported by very good separation of the individual instruments and vocals. The music is placed before a very quiet background with lots of detail making retrieval of ambient information like the natural reverberation of a concert hall easily distinguishable. Compared to a Mundorf Silver-Gold-Oil they are ultimately a little less transparent, presenting the information more up-front with a slight focus on the lower treble range. In comparsion the Mundorf SGO has a slight focus on the upper treble range.

Musicaps deliver fine dynamics, speed, focus, correct timbre and depth of field, and good inter-transient silence

[Zero999]

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/WF165336WQ75233BJ1/WF165336WQ75233BJ1-ND/5086082

But there's a reason for that: high voltage, close tolerance.

[jpb]

Those are a lot of money for low capacitance values.

The prices of low ESR highish Voltage large value capacitors (for linear power supplies) get pretty expensive (I was searching through the lists on Farnell recently and the more expensive ones were in the 100s of pounds/dollars). But I guess if you're building a very low noise supply for sensitive electronic instrumentation then the cost is not a major component of the overall expense.

eg

http://uk.farnell.com/epcos/b43740a5109m000/cap-alu-elec-10000uf-450v-screw/dp/2284046

[SeanB]

4uF 4kV capacitors for laser excitation are pretty expensive as well, but they are constructed to survive. Those are ordinary polycarbonate film units with a fancy outer case and an epoxy end fill added to an existing unit. Strip the case off and under it you will find a regular yellow cased axial capacitor.

[amyk]

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/WF165336WQ75233BJ1/WF165336WQ75233BJ1-ND/5086082

But there's a reason for that: high voltage, close tolerance.

And it's water cooled.

[SeanB]

No, the audiofool caps are regular polywhatever with the wanky case. The laser caps were made from proper polycarbonate sheet with a foil bonded to the one side, and 2 rolled up into a sandwich with the foils bonded on the end with multiple tabs to the terminals, and the whole lot was vacuum impregnated with oil ( a really nice PCB oil as well, which was the same dielectric constant as the plastic foil so that voids were not going to create a problem) and then sealed into a tinned steel can with glass seals for the leads. the whole can was dipped in a solder bath to seal it, with a nice soldered pipe for the oil fill. I never knew of them changing one, and the price in the stores system was expensive, even for military parts. The failure mode of the laser was the flash pump tube exploding into powder and taking out the ruby rod with it. Often you had to change the rod, pump tube, mirrors and chamber after this from the damage done to them.