What are Jensen Caps?
Capacitors made by Jensen. Considered an upgrade over the standard provided capacitors.
They have what advantage over “standard” capacitors?
The blessing of select audiophiles.
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I am not sure, was just answering your main question. All, I know is that they are used in the PS and are considered a price upgrade. You might summon @andybob who is the proud listener/owner as he might be able to provide more on-point information.
Of all the major discrete components (resistors, capacitors, inductors), capacitors are the most problematic. They involve more and greater compromise in construction and come with various qualifications or side effects to performance. They age faster and have a wider quality variety.
In an audio context they are often used as high pass filters in speaker crossovers and have the most influence on the signal in that role. There are no capacitors in the midrange of my speakers, the designer regarded the best capacitor as the one you can leave out.
Capacitors also play a major role in power supplies where they smooth and stiffen the voltage rails.
I’ll add some links about the various types of caps, advantages and disadvantages. Jensen are a well regarded brand.
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Thanks @andybob.
I am educating myself.
I am looking out for one more roon zoneplayer (Dac or Streamer).
The one you bought is a candidate.
Here’s a nice review by an experienced audiophile of the effect of various capacitors on SQ when used as a coupling capacitors (DC block) in various amps. I like that Jon brings out how it’s the “least worst” capacitor that he is looking for, rather than regurgitating the marketing hype about sonic nirvana etc.
An ideal cap behave like a short circuit in AC and open circuit in DC. In practice cap contains a small amount of resistance which is normally called ESR, Effective Series Resistance in series with the cap. In high frequency application cap will have series inductance called ESL, Effective Series Inductance, so in high frequency the reactance of inductance becomes in series with the cap. Depending on the applications ESR, ESL, leakage current and charge/discharge characteristics play an important roles.
In power supply application reducing the ESR is important. You want to get rid the AC components by shorting them to ground so you get the least AC ripple possible. i.e. A clean DC current. To be effective, capacitors used in power supply for AC filtering have to be large in order of thousand of microfarad so that the ESR will become negligible. For DC blocking cap, leakage current play a important, one need to block DC and allow AC signal to pass. The construction of the cap and the type of material used influence the leakage current.
In high frequency application, ESL play an important part, now the reactance of the inductance becomes the main resistance, so the construction the cap has to be short and small as possible to reduce the ESL. Some designers use a large cap and connect in parallel with a small cap; this method works to the advantage at low frequency (such as filter off AC main 50/60Hz) while the smaller cap works by suppress the high frequency noise.
The rate of charging and discharging play an important role too, how it going to sound like when used in audio application. Normally, cap designed to charge/discharge faster tends to emphasize the highs, results in clear, lively sound, while slow ones tend to sound to a bit ‘warmer’ and more emphasize on the bass portion. Designers have to strike a balance between using these type of caps by tuning and tweaking to the sound they like. There are many audio grade capacitors out there that specially tune to audio. My personal liking is Elna Silmic cap, they sound silky smooth with an upper sweetness to it yet it has a full bodied sound down to the bottom.
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