Linus Tech Tips Pushes Audio Grade Capacitors

[EEVblog]

 

[TomS_]

Debunk video time?

[magic]

 

I wanted to rant that coupling capacitors aren't actually created equal but then he talks about power supply caps

Most capacitors today are designed for low cost and high reliability

and high reliability

screetching noises as you move your mouse around

That's caused by shit grounding and no amount of capacitors will ever fix it

[Rerouter]

I just put it down to correlation bias, The motherboards that buy and advertise "Audio grade" capacitors generally are a bit higher spec than the bottom of the barrel Dell / OEM motherboards,

If you look on just about any modern motherboard, the sound IC is practically crammed up next to the 3.5mm jacks, You have to make almost deliberate mistakes to get strong coupling into an area that is generally fairly free top side space.

[magic]

All you need is to allow audio ground to contact chassis. Or use front panel jacks where the chassis manufacturer made this mistake. Or make a ground loop on the board. Then you get exposed to all the ground bounce of the CPU handling mouse interrupts.

[janoc]

Surprises exactly nobody - the guy is pretty clueless and not only about capacitors. His video about "fixing" videocards with a heatgun is another such example - and earned him a pretty savage response from Louis Rossmann.

If anyone is relying on Linus for their technical information, I am pretty sorry for them.

[Raj]

OMG, I was just minutes away from starting a forum topic on the same.
I find Linus tech tips to be quite inaccurate. They were also promoting laser and ultrasound based power transfer tech.
And to make it worse, most thing he seems to promote are computer versions of "as seen on TV household tools".
You buy them thinking they'll be super useful, you use them twice then throw them in storage.

What bugs me more, they want things to be impossibly small and yet require them to function equally good.AND THEY ARE READY TO PAY 100X MORE FOR IT.

You can have better capacitor performance just by having more of small ones than a single big one while keeping costs low.. You can't do that in small form factor.

[madires]

That guy always forgets to add the "paid promotion" and "infomercial" banners.

[wraper]

I just put it down to correlation bias, The motherboards that buy and advertise "Audio grade" capacitors generally are a bit higher spec than the bottom of the barrel Dell / OEM motherboards.

I recently bought Asrock A320M-HDV R4.0 for EUR 38 ($42) (without VAT) which is the cheapest AM4 motherboard I could get and it has a few audio grade Elna on it.

[StillTrying]

He needs to do one(LOL), on how well these cable-burn-in devices improooove the sound.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/i-wonder-what-effectively-does-this-audiophool-_cable-burn-in-device_/

[Bud]

Did anyone ever picked useful tech tips out of Linus Tech Tips?

[Gary350z]

I went to Audionote.co.uk, the website that Linus says helped him with this video. One of their products is tantalum resistors (audionote.co.uk/resistors). Never heard of these and sounds bogus, so I did a google search just to make sure. The search only turned up audiophoolery sites. Audionote says these resistors are "tone-full components", whatever that means. Audionote also sells non-magnetic tantalum resistors, which the say "provide increased texture, a darker background and a greater sense of immediacy". I need to order some for my next project.

[StillTrying]

I went to Audionote.co.uk, the website that Linus says helped him with this video.

Have you looked at their price list, I couldn't find the resistors.

Edit The 0.5W Tantalum resitors are £3.39 each +Vat and the 2W up to £35.70 + Vat each.

AN SOGON LX96 SPEAKER CABLE 100 METER ROLL  £256,666.66 +Vat.

Did anyone ever picked useful tech tips out of Linus Tech Tips?

Yep. Don't waste your time watching his videos.

[madires]

I prefer rubber resistors as they are damping down vibrations from trucks and heavy tools used by neighbours. Any vibration will change the electron's spin and therefore impact the sound. Tantalum resistors are total nonsense. Get some good quality audio grade rubber resistors!

[SiliconWizard]

I just put it down to correlation bias, The motherboards that buy and advertise "Audio grade" capacitors generally are a bit higher spec than the bottom of the barrel Dell / OEM motherboards,

If you look on just about any modern motherboard, the sound IC is practically crammed up next to the 3.5mm jacks, You have to make almost deliberate mistakes to get strong coupling into an area that is generally fairly free top side space.

Indeed, this is nothing else than marketing talk for dummies, but yes it usually comes with better overall design for the corresponding motherboards.

I admit the "Most capacitors today are designed for low cost and high reliability" was pretty funny though
.
 

[Gary350z]

Audionote.co.uk also has a 3.3UF 600V Silver Foil Capacitor for £2,406.25.

[Gary350z]

I prefer rubber resistors as they are damping down vibrations from trucks and heavy tools used by neighbours. Any vibration will change the electron's spin and therefore impact the sound. Tantalum resistors are total nonsense. Get some good quality audio grade rubber resistors!

"rubber resistors": Excellent. That puts a smile on my face.

[SiliconWizard]

Audionote.co.uk also has a 3.3UF 600V Silver Foil Capacitor for £2,406.25.

Nice.

Of course we still shouldn't confuse use cases here.
Caps typically used in power filter sections for speakers, for instance, can have a definite influence on the result. Especially their ESR.

[JackJones]

Audionote.co.uk

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e7c3b_e22dd850df9e4b3a9cc014778c2e4e38~mv2_d_2997_2000_s_2.jpg


Are those Rifa caps?  My ears deserve better!

[Raj]

Did anyone ever picked useful tech tips out of Linus Tech Tips?

Well, I did find reasons to avoid all the gaming junk, except for good gpu , cpu and save money on PSU by putting 2 small ones instead of a large one.

[SiliconWizard]

Audionote.co.uk also has a 3.3UF 600V Silver Foil Capacitor for £2,406.25.

Nice.

Of course we still shouldn't confuse use cases here.
Caps typically used in power filter sections for speakers, for instance, can have a definite influence on the result. Especially their ESR.

And that said, here is a similar cap that seems fine for this use: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cornell-dubilier-electronics-cde/940C6W3P3K-F/338-1141-ND/809434
$10 per 1. A bit less than £2,406.25. (and actually, I suspect it has lower ESR than the one sold by Audionote.co.uk!)

[wraper]

Audionote.co.uk also has a 3.3UF 600V Silver Foil Capacitor for £2,406.25.

Nice.

Of course we still shouldn't confuse use cases here.
Caps typically used in power filter sections for speakers, for instance, can have a definite influence on the result. Especially their ESR.

And that said, here is a similar cap that seems fine for this use: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cornell-dubilier-electronics-cde/940C6W3P3K-F/338-1141-ND/809434
$10 per 1. A bit less than £2,406.25. (and actually, I suspect it has lower ESR than the one sold by Audionote.co.uk!)

But it does not have silver foil  . FWIW their parts are expensive but many of them not ridiculously expensive.

[wraper]

Although I would prefer them selling tin foil hats instead of tin foil capacitors.

[SiliconWizard]

Silver foil sounds nice. But at the current price of silver, this cap would be worth over 5 kg of silver. 

[Bud]

I prefer rubber resistors as they are damping down vibrations from trucks and heavy tools used by neighbours. Any vibration will change the electron's spin and therefore impact the sound. Tantalum resistors are total nonsense. Get some good quality audio grade rubber resistors!

"rubber resistors": Excellent. That puts a smile on my face.

Embedd ferrite dust into the rubber for EMI supression.

[free_electron]

Explain me this : the entire data tract in a computer is digital. Even the amplifier is a PCM type class D or T.
What signal path capacitors do you need ?

Audio leaving the computer is over USB , wifi , ethernet or SPDIF ... or other digital formats.

[Rerouter]

The AC coupling capacitors to the outputs and line in / mic, and front panel out / mic

People use headphones and external speakers, even computer monitors with speakers give a 3.5mm jack input option.

[floobydust]

Electrolytic capacitors can cause high THD due to dielectric absorption, this has been known for decades as well as the increasing ESR above ~10kHz older parts have. It depends on the circuit, impedances and size of the cap whether the distortion is significant. It can be highly audible.

I didn't care much for boutique audiophool parts, then I see Nichicon's Muse capacitors with "silk" dielectric and realized science crossed into quackery? Nichicon makes at least 10 different audio electrolytics with nothing but psycho-acoustic terminology, 85C only rated and no data on DA.

Douglas Self and others measured the distortion caused by electrolytic capacitors, so there is some science that can be done.

[wraper]

Audio leaving the computer is over USB , wifi , ethernet or SPDIF ... or other digital formats.

In most cases none of the listed. Simply analog output to either speakers with amplifier or headphones.

[0culus]

Surprises exactly nobody - the guy is pretty clueless and not only about capacitors. His video about "fixing" videocards with a heatgun is another such example - and earned him a pretty savage response from Louis Rossmann.

If anyone is relying on Linus for their technical information, I am pretty sorry for them.

Man, I missed that Rossman video, gonna have to go find it.  I don't always agree with him, but I definitely appreciate his no BS attitude.

As to Linus, I guess he must appeal to people who don't know any better judging on his channel size. I find him exceptionally annoying, and the punchable face he puts in all his video thumbnails is the cherry on top. 

[EEVblog]

AVX have "audio grade" capacitors, and they watch my videos. I'm going ask them to prove their marketing claims, and in what way their "audio grade" are manufactured differently from their regular capacitors of the exact same spec. And how they actually quantify "deeper bass" and all those wank words. Let's see if I get a response 

[EEVblog]

As to Linus, I guess he must appeal to people who don't know any better judging on his channel size.

When your channel gets to that size you get dozens of offers a week for paid promotions. He has to take these in order to keep his large staff media empire going. It's a vicious cycle.
I get a couple of offers week but turn them all down.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Don't you know that all this audiophile grade gear sounds even better yet if fed with clean, renewable power electrons only?

[EEVblog]

As to Linus, I guess he must appeal to people who don't know any better judging on his channel size.

When your channel gets to that size you get dozens of offers a week for paid promotions. He has to take these in order to keep his large staff media empire going. It's a vicious cycle.
I get a couple of offers week but turn them all down.

Actually, because I rarely watch LTT, is there a single video on the channel that isn't sponsored in some way?
BTW, individual video sponsorships on a channel his size would run at least 5 digits per video.

[BravoV]

The real question is, when Dave will going to debunk this at a new EEVBlog video, particularly for this LTT episode ? 

Its worth it Dave, imo.

[ogden]

AVX have "audio grade" capacitors, and they watch my videos. I'm going ask them to prove their marketing claims, and in what way their "audio grade" are manufactured differently from their regular capacitors of the exact same spec. And how they actually quantify "deeper bass" and all those wank words. Let's see if I get a response 

Meanwhile you can check AVX audio tantalum benchmark paper: https://www.interstatemarketing.com/Papers/TechArticles/Tant-Niobium/tantbench.pdf

[0culus]

As to Linus, I guess he must appeal to people who don't know any better judging on his channel size.

When your channel gets to that size you get dozens of offers a week for paid promotions. He has to take these in order to keep his large staff media empire going. It's a vicious cycle.
I get a couple of offers week but turn them all down.

Actually, because I rarely watch LTT, is there a single video on the channel that isn't sponsored in some way?
BTW, individual video sponsorships on a channel his size would run at least 5 digits per video.

Not surprising. I'm sure the guy is absolutely loaded.

[janoc]

AVX have "audio grade" capacitors, and they watch my videos. I'm going ask them to prove their marketing claims, and in what way their "audio grade" are manufactured differently from their regular capacitors of the exact same spec. And how they actually quantify "deeper bass" and all those wank words. Let's see if I get a response 

Meanwhile you can check AVX audio tantalum benchmark paper: https://www.interstatemarketing.com/Papers/TechArticles/Tant-Niobium/tantbench.pdf

You know, a benchmark "paper" (it is not peer reviewed nor published) where the authors are two reps of the capacitor manufacturer, a rep of a company selling equipment using those caps and two guys from a Czech uni that got likely roped in to give this some kind of scientific veneer (Zajaček was a PhD student and J. Šikula is likely professor Josef Šikula who was his thesis advisor - and most likely had nothing to do with this paper. It is routine to put the name of the advisor on publications by the student as a courtesy) is totally a valid and trustworthy source of information. 

And "published" by a dealer of AVX (seriously, I thought "interstatemarketing.com" was a spam domain - the name doesn't get much more spammy than this).

BTW, there is absolutely nothing about any special "audio tantalums" in that paper. They measure things like THD, sensitivity to piezoelectric effect and impact of ESR of different capacitor technologies (regular consumer tantalum, low ESR tantalum and 2 polymer tantalums in parallel, normal and low ESR niobium oxidide type, normal electrolytic and X5R MLCC) that AVX manufactures when used as a coupling capacitor for a Wolfson audio codec (supplied on an eval board - that's likely why there is the Wolfson rep as a coauthor).

I have no means to check the measurements but just looking at how this is written is making me laugh (yeah, I did review a few research papers before). The best are the final results - they recommend the tantalum caps over aluminium elcos, even though the elcos were at least as good as the tantalums in their test with this copout:

"Aluminium   capacitors   performed   well   in   the   tests,  however  a  special  care  should  be  paid  to  their  limited  reliability,  capacitance  drop  with  time  and  lead-free  process  compliance.  This  is  beyond   scope   of   this   paper. For   Reference see 7."

 

Where reference [7] is a marketing paper by AVX written by the same AVX rep that is   the coauthor of this "study" (3 out of total 8 references are self-citations by this guy) about how their niobium oxide "Oxicaps" outperform aluminium elcos. Which actually this study doesn't show - the "Oxicaps" performed the same or worse than both the tantalums and the elcos.

You can guess why they had to write that despite the results, given who has supplied the capacitors and paid for the study  I am really sorry for the PhD student that they had convinced to do the measurements and to put his name on this "paper".

(We are talking small signal audio coupling caps here, not highly loaded power supply switching filter caps or coupling caps passing many watts of power where an aluminium elco would be particularly stressed).

[ogden]

You know, a benchmark "paper" (it is not peer reviewed nor published) where the authors are two reps of the capacitor manufacturer

LOL. Do you see any other technical paper coming out of research laboratory of ANY manufacturer to be peer reviewed same way as scientific publications do? Note that AVX have capacitor research lab in Czech Republic, obviously they collaborate with University of Brno.

[janoc]

You know, a benchmark "paper" (it is not peer reviewed nor published) where the authors are two reps of the capacitor manufacturer

LOL. Do you see any other technical paper coming out of research laboratory of ANY manufacturer to be peer reviewed same way as scientific publications do? Note that AVX have capacitor research lab in Czech Republic, obviously they collaborate with University of Brno.

I am not saying it should be peer reviewed. However, then you must take it as what it is - a marketing material at best, not as a source of any hard information.

And yes, I know they have a lab in Czech republic (I think they have a factory there too). The collaboration with the Technical University Brno is also not in dispute - those people on the paper do exist (I did check who the authors are) and prof. Šikula actually works on supercapacitors and similar stuff too. That's not a problem.

The issue is that when you look at what they present in the paper in the measurement data and what they conclude at the end it doesn't make any sense. They recommend expensive capacitors over cheap elcos, despite the elcos actually performing at least as well or better than the expensive stuff (and their disadvantages being very unlikely a factor in this type of application - a typical elco will most likely outlast anything they put the capacitor in). And to suport their argument they cite materials  written by the same AVX guy.  That's totally trustworthy and reliable info, especially when their own measurements don't support the argument they are making ...

[ogden]

The issue is that when you look at what they present in the paper in the measurement data and what they conclude at the end it doesn't make any sense.

One is clear - ceramic caps are worst for both audio input and output Note that they used lowest grade MLCC (X5R). Yes, that paper is weak and not only conclusions but even test results shall be taken with grain of salt.

[janoc]

One is clear - ceramic caps are worst for both audio input and output Note that they used lowest grade MLCC (X5R). Yes, that paper is weak and not only conclusions but even test results shall be taken with grain of salt.

Oh they have actually used 2 of those MLCCs in parallel for good measure (so double the noise, microphonics and distortion, just to be sure). And even then the MLCCs performed almost identically to the rest, with the exception of the distortion below 100Hz and in the presence of vibrations (I guess they want to account for the thumping bass in the headphones ...) In other words, how to rig the setup so that the chances of getting the result you want are maximized.

[wraper]

The issue is that when you look at what they present in the paper in the measurement data and what they conclude at the end it doesn't make any sense.

One is clear - ceramic caps are worst for both audio input and output Note that they used lowest grade MLCC (X5R). Yes, that paper is weak and not only conclusions but even test results shall be taken with grain of salt.

X5R is not lowest grade, it's about the same as X7R, just with lower maximum working temperature. The worst are Z5U, Y5V.

[floobydust]

What a bunch of wankers. "Capacitor distortion" is real and most of the drama is where/how the capacitor is used in a circuit.
It's highly audible as the NFB divider (to GND) electrolytic capacitor (assuming DC bias is not a problem), and in some coupling capacitor situations.
Here are two measurements and snippets from Douglas Self and Bob Cordell's fine books which mention the topic. Elektor also did a shootout many years ago, I think it was John Lindsay Hood that wrote the article.

[TERRA Operative]

Have you looked at their price list, I couldn't find the resistors.

Edit The 0.5W Tantalum resitors are £3.39 each +Vat and the 2W up to £35.70 + Vat each.

Oof, that's expensive..... I can get Tant resistors off the shelf in Akihabara for less than a third of that IIRC.

Maybe I should get a bunch and do a heads up comparison on a class A/B amp along with carbon comp and metal film resistors using my HP 8903B audio analyzer.

[magic]

What a bunch of wankers. "Capacitor distortion" is real and most of the drama is where/how the capacitor is used in a circuit.

Yes, and "no capacitors in the signal path" is a common slogan in marketing materials of modern audio gear for that reason.
The real wankers are those who use "audio" series capacitors for power supplies, which is the remaining widespread application of electrolytics.

Wanker soundcard:
https://www.asus.com/us/Sound-Cards/Xonar_Essence_STX/
Actually, this one uses coupling capacitors despite being marketed as high end, but it's only two of them. The rest is wank.

[legacy]

Most TV shows are trash, and people do like it. Most of Youtube is completely useless trash, and people do like it.

 I am not surprised that there are guys who only care about Youtube and "Faceflop" (Facebook) rather than forums.

Youtube sounds like "easy money, honey-honey" nowadays, and there are too many idiots around who know that most users love trash.

In fact, there are even on Youtube a couple of dudes claiming they are the most brilliant minds in the universe, so brilliant and super smart that they can insult every single forum on the internet just like (they must have decided) a modern man can insult a caveman simply because the primitive communication used on forums cannot have a video stream where you watch someone.

Oh, and here if you make a video 4K, you get more credits and points.

And in this, the sad point is that with the modern Youtube you can watch bullshit, but since Youtube is not designed to facilitate "discussions", well every single bullshit remains uncommented, and people only briefly comment on his "cool" T-shirt, and "cool" desktop setup.

Does such persons deserve any better attention? Well, most people like trash, hence this is fine.

---

LTT is somehow a completely different story; they have a team, they have a forum, they discuss things ... but certain times they talk about things they don't actually know.

Yet again, because earning money on Youtube for a living require you to upload a lot of videos, sometimes you do not have the time, neither to know what you are goind to show to the audience.

[SiliconWizard]

Yep. LTT is actually not nearly as bad as many other Youtube tech channels, but the same still holds. Professional "youtubers" just sell audience. This is a form of business purely based on advertising. Making "free" content to get advertising money is nothing new; it became popular with TV, and then the Internet (I'm sure it existed before TV even, but in much less effective ways...)

The content itself just needs to be effective at keeping/increasing the audience, just like TV. Nothing else. And the content can be complete bullshit, as long as it doesn't make the audience plummet. This is the only key point.

I wouldn't say Youtube is "easy" money. It takes a lot of work to get any significant revenue from a Youtube channel. But most of this work is not  technical; which is something that eludes many engineers.

And finally, if you're looking for dependable sources of information, don't pretend that Youtube is. There's a lot of everything on Youtube. Getting to know anything about capacitors on a random Youtube channel would be like asking random people in the street. Just because someone is popular doesn't mean that they should be blindly trusted.

[legacy]

I wouldn't say Youtube is "easy" money. It takes a lot of work to get any significant revenue from a Youtube channel. But most of this work is not  technical; which is something that eludes many engineers.

I was talking about how it's perceived by most new YouTubers, especially the kind who spit against forums.

Why? Not because they believe making a video is easier than writing stuff (specifically digital reviews), but rather because they believe it's easier to persuade people with a video than with a text, this because they hate to type, to read, because they are simply ignorant, and, worse still, because they rely on ignorance to earn money.

There is a psychological mechanism behind. People tend to trust a human face rather than a PC screen with just text, therefore if you put a human face on a PC screen, you are done.

In fact, they sell "stories", which is the way these things are now "called" on twitter and similars, and stories are more about personal lifestyle and this stuff rather than on competence and technical skills, but this is what companies use nowadays to promote and sell stuff.

[SiliconWizard]

I wouldn't say Youtube is "easy" money. It takes a lot of work to get any significant revenue from a Youtube channel. But most of this work is not  technical; which is something that eludes many engineers.

I was talking about how it's perceived by most new YouTubers, especially the kind who spit against forums.

I see what you mean, but those new Youtubers are still not going to make any money (well, most of them anyway.) They can spit all they want. This won't be growing anything (except bacteria).

Oh, and seeing videos as an alternative to forums would be completely silly anyway. Videos are one-way. Forums are for discussions. There's no discussion (except with oneself) in a Youtube video. Two completely diffferent things. And don't talk about the comment section of videos. This is nothing like a discussion in most cases. "Great stuff!" and "You suck bitch!" (and variants thereof) are probably the most common comments under Youtube videos.

Of course, when there's no discussion, it makes things easier for people too lazy, and/or not clever or knowledgeable enough to discuss.

There is a psychological mechanism behind. People tend to trust a human face rather than a PC screen with just text, therefore if you put a human face on a PC screen, you are done.

Yeah. Generally speaking, we humans tend to "trust" only people we know (which kinda makes sense). And our brain shortcuts make us think that actually seeing someone makes them known to us, whereas if we have never seen them, we can't possibly know them. Sure with modern communication tools, in some cases we may actually know someone online much better than someone we've met IRL (because online they are more likely to openly share their opinions for instance), but that's all pretty recent in human history. Our brain still pretty much functions as if we were still hunters in the woods.

You'll notice that on forums. It often takes a while, and quite a few posts, before you feel like you "know" some user, and even so. If you've never seen them, you'll never really think you know them. OTOH, if you've just met someone IRL and have exchanged a few mundane sentences, you're a lot more likely to think you know them. That's just how our brain works.

[legacy]

Oh, and seeing videos as an alternative to forums would be completely silly anyway.

I had a few words with a dude on Youtube today regarding this, but he seriously doesn't think so. And at the end, to avoid to feel depressed by such bullshit, I switched to a funny episode of "Because Science", where a crazy dude explains why we should put a small black hole inside Jupiter rather than applying the "Nuke Mars" plan.

Crazy theory, but crazy true, which no doubt is as useless as the other channel and based on bullshit, but if there are Bullshit and bullshit, at least here the intent is less arrogant, and offers you sane entertainment

[SiliconWizard]

Oh, and seeing videos as an alternative to forums would be completely silly anyway.

I had a few words with a dude on Youtube today regarding this, but he seriously doesn't think so.

The dude may think what he wants. He could also think that swiss cheese grows on trees. How is he ever going to justify that a monologue is equivalent to a discussion?
This would really be symptomatic of the relative schizophrenia of the way people tend to communicate these days.

[PlainName]

How is he ever going to justify that a monologue is equivalent to a discussion?

Video discussions merely involve reply videos instead of reply posts. The only thing videos don't currently do that forums do is thread the stuff.

I really hate videos for info. Sure, they can show how to do things which are tricky to describe properly, but you can't flick through or speed read them. Everything about them is just so slow. I guess the youth of today like them because they remove even the tiny effort of hitting a few keys.

[free_electron]

The AC coupling capacitors to the outputs and line in / mic, and front panel out / mic

People use headphones and external speakers, even computer monitors with speakers give a 3.5mm jack input option.

when is the last time you actually sent audio in to the computer ?

In all the years i have had computers i have never used the audio jacks.
i play back audio using built in speakers ( and they are without capacitors directly on the pcm class d amplifiers. )
headphones ? bluetooth.

Anyone serious about audio i/o does NOT use the on board hardware. They hook up MOTU machinery.

[wraper]

when is the last time you actually sent audio in to the computer ?

In all the years i have had computers i have never used the audio jacks.
i play back audio using built in speakers ( and they are without capacitors directly on the pcm class d amplifiers. )
headphones ? bluetooth.

Anyone serious about audio i/o does NOT use the on board hardware. They hook up MOTU machinery.

When you last time used desktop PC, not a laptop?

[legacy]

Video discussions merely involve reply videos instead of reply posts.

Youtube has not yet been structured to allow full comments. Have you ever commented on a video? More than two lines and you are out. Making a discussion is impossible, you cannot discuss anything, and this is not even the purpose of Youtube, neither Youtube is interested in "comments", they earn money by providing contents, therefore more videos they get, more money they make. And! more money they get this way more they are happy to not spend time and effort at implementing chat and better comments.

Comments are literally useless for making money, to keep the audience, to make a discussion, they are only useful to express brief likes or dislikes, but it's all what they mean, and nobody cares.

[legacy]

The only thing videos don't currently do that forums do is thread the stuff.

I do believe this depends on the platform you use to access the information and on the platform implementation itself. Do you use a smartphone? With a 5" display? Youtube is better than any forum on the earth simply because you can "listen" when you LCD is too small. And of course, you can even listen Youtube when you drive your car. Doesn't the platform care about "mobile devices", isn't optimized or capable of rearranging pages considering small LCDs? Yet again, forget forums because scrolling pages with your finger in order to read each line of the text becomes too annoying after 2 seconds.

[legacy]

Then we have a second order of problem: do you prefer to be active and actively look for information? (you digit something, and access something), or do you prefer to be passive and let the information knows doors at you?

In the second case ... the mailing list is preferred to the forum, unless you program Erlang agents, like on modern experimental apps on Facebook, to "collect" information for you.

This means also you need artificial intelligence to understand what you are interested in and manage the collecting of information in the background.

Note: Youtube has already implemented a kind of algorithms, collaborating with Google, hence they know what you are interested in, and they accordingly try to provide custom-driven contents.

[PlainName]

do you prefer to be active and actively look for information?

It's not an either/or thing. If one is in need of info right now for some specific purpose then there is no substitute for actively seeking it out. But at other times, passively digesting random info can be very productive and lead to actively learning about a subject. That's one of the things about Youtube that suckers people: you go there to see some video and get sidetracked by other things, then before you know it you're down a rabbit hole digging out further similar videos.

[free_electron]

When you last time used desktop PC, not a laptop?

I still use  a desktop. It streams audio over tcp/ip to a dedicated player. My headphones with microphone use USB.
I can honestly say i have never used the analog audio ports in any of my computers. Even when i had dedicated computer speakers it was a Logitech Z680 running a fiber link from a Soundblaster Audigy 2.
Even for video editing the streams all came over firewire or usb. Why convert that stuff ?
And now with modern systems most amplifiers are PCM so the pathway remains pure digital all the way to the speaker. They don't even need capacitors going into the speaker from the differential PCM output.
Even microphones these days are mems and spit out digital streams. Bye bye capacitors. There is not a single capacitor in the signal path from mems element to voicecoil.

[wraper]

When you last time used desktop PC, not a laptop?

I still use  a desktop. It streams audio over tcp/ip to a dedicated player. My headphones with microphone use USB.
I can honestly say i have never used the analog audio ports in any of my computers. Even when i had dedicated computer speakers it was a Logitech Z680 running a fiber link from a Soundblaster Audigy 2.
Even for video editing the streams all came over firewire or usb. Why convert that stuff ?
And now with modern systems most amplifiers are PCM so the pathway remains pure digital all the way to the speaker. They don't even need capacitors going into the speaker from the differential PCM output.
Even microphones these days are mems and spit out digital streams. Bye bye capacitors. There is not a single capacitor in the signal path from mems element to voicecoil.

Then don't you get that most people have cheap speakers with analog input?

[mcinque]

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e7c3b_e22dd850df9e4b3a9cc014778c2e4e38~mv2_d_2997_2000_s_2.jpg
Are those Rifa caps?  My ears deserve better!

Those voltage select jumpers... my eyes deserve better!

[Cerebus]

I went to Audionote.co.uk, the website that Linus says helped him with this video. One of their products is tantalum resistors (audionote.co.uk/resistors). Never heard of these and sounds bogus, so I did a google search just to make sure. The search only turned up audiophoolery sites. Audionote says these resistors are "tone-full components", whatever that means. Audionote also sells non-magnetic tantalum resistors, which the say "provide increased texture, a darker background and a greater sense of immediacy". I need to order some for my next project.

You didn't search hard enough. Tantalum Nitride (TaN) is used to make low tempco high stability thin film resistors. IRC (now part of TT electronics) have had a range of thin film TaN resistors for years, IIRC Vishay make some of their resistor networks in TaN too. Less moisture sensitive than the more common materials such as Nichrome.

It's not uncommon for components that are intrinsically relatively expensive (because of some legitimately necessary characteristic for some applications - like very low tempco)  to find their way into audiophoolery where the special characteristics are wasted. There's a fashion for using Vishay's high stability hermetically sealed resistors (£20+ each from Vishay) for audiophoolery where a 1% 100ppm/C metal oxide resistor would do just as good a job and clock in at a fraction of a penny in commercial quantities.

[free_electron]

Then don't you get that most people have cheap speakers with analog input?

yes i do ... but then why use audio grade capacitors on the motherboard if you are going to send it through crap amplifier/speakers ?
i'll put the most expensive high octane fuel in my trabant so i can pretend i drive a ferrari

[PlainName]

why use audio grade capacitors on the motherboard if you are going to send it through crap amplifier/speakers

You gotta start somewhere and it's jolly difficult, not to mention expensive, to have the best of everything everywhere in one hit. Start with one small thing and build from that.

[rjp]

I always think of the Gibson scandal when i see special Audio Caps.

https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/historic-gibson-faux-bumblebee-caps.118027/

50c cents worth of caps put inside fake fancy cases and sold for $100 and people claiming to hear the differences.

[dmills]

A good rule of thumb is to read "Audio Grade" as "Not good enough for anything that matters".

I design broadcast gear professionally and don't think I have EVER deliberately specified an "Audio Grade" anything.

Sure, a poorly chosen cap can be measurable (and sometimes audible), but really picking an elco big enough to keep the ac across it down to below 80mV or so (which is what it takes to get the distortion down to really negligible) is not hard.
C0G is mostly blameless, for up to maybe 1nF or so use them, stop worrying.
Film is a PITA on SMT boards, but PPS is available in SMT and works if you get the profile right.

The 'philes worry about caps and swap opamps because most of them are incapable of figuring out when the part matters and when what is in there is what should be in there.

 

[The Soulman]

I'll throw something in here:

Why do have electrolytic caps have limited shelf live?
How much dc bias voltage is there across a typical audio signal coupling capacitor?
What could go wrong?

 

[dmills]

What does the tendency of an electrolytic to dry out have to do with anything?
The reforming thing is a basically high voltage part thing, meaningful for power supplies in valve gear, and maybe dc bulk caps, but not particularly relevant for audio coupling.

I would typically expect a small offset (typically mV) if using the cap to block dc from a pot wiper or such, and no that will not cause the plate to loose its insulating film even if the wrong polarity. The chemistry needs move voltage then that to activate.

If it is being used to bypass a Vbe multiplier or such that might be different, or as a bootstrap cap, but for small signal coupling in most split rail audio? Meh.