PIO's... Are some people deaf to it?

[Guest Farnsbarns]

I put these little beauties in my R8 today....

 

 

There's been a handful of threads about PIO caps recently. I have swapped out caps in my pedal and amp projects before and have always heard differences. A couple of recent threads had people saying that it had made no difference in a guitar.

 

I decided it was about time I dropped the Spragues that Flight959 gave me (thanks mate, much appreciciated) into my R8. It has made a huge difference! had to re-eq my amp right off! I had got the bass to 9 o'clock and the mid and treble to 3 o'clock before. Now this is harsh and shrill and clangy with the Spragues, I ended up much closer to all three at 12 o'clock. I notice the time that each note in a chord sustains for has equalised where before, the high notes were dying out first. Harmonically, the guitar is more alive. I can now have my guitar volumes at 8 as a start point where before, 8 was getting a little muddy (50's wiring, audio taper pots).

 

This, frankly, is what I expected based on my own experience using PIOs as tone caps in germanium fuzz and amp tone circuits. I'm convinced that any change in cap will make some difference, even to the same type of cap. I can't help but think that some people simply can't hear it, it is strangely subtle and profound at the same time. Is it the high gainers, where these things matter far less, if at all? Is it just some peoples perception of sound? Or is it possible that microscopic ceramic caps sometimes just sound exactly the same as a pio cap, even just with a slight variance in tolerance not to mention an entirely difference chemical make up?

[Bender 4 Life]

that's nice clean work you've done...good job !!

I love a good looking control cavity

one thing you hit on is very likely.....the higher the gain or actual distortion used, the less of the guitars' tone will be heard, across the board....probably the same with excessive volume, reverb, trem/vib. too. and if you add pedals to the mix, well....you get the idea.

 

i've played around with PIOs and Orange Drops for a good while now and in some guitars they've made little to no difference in tone, but in some, the difference is profound.

it seems as if the hotter the p'up, the more a different cap changes the sound, but that's just what i've noticed in my own geets.

 

now, I must "qualify" the above statements by adding that I use no pedals, only a tube amp (modded 2x12 Blues Jr)and have swapped in ecc82s for the stock 83s in the preamp section.....the circuitboards in the amp its self are said to "suck tone" as a nature of the beast type thing, but I still hear a lot of difference in some guitars.

also, my hearing is tested 2x yearly for my job and my audiologist says I have "remarkable" hearing.

 

some of my geets seem to prefer PIOs or Orange Drops for their "best" tones and balance, but 2 of them have required 1 of each (OD neck/PIO bridge) to get the best balance.

 

but i'm the Village Idiot so don't put too much stock into my ramblings.....

[Riffster]

I can definitely tell the difference, all of my guitars have upgraded caps.

 

On pickups with alnico 5 magnets I tend to prefer orange drops.

 

Even within different PIO's there is a difference.

[surfpup]

... Is it the high gainers, where these things matter far less, if at all? ...

 

Yes, I think gain is certainly a factor. It tends to cover the subtleties.

 

FWIW, I have put PIO caps in almost all of my guitars and do hear a difference.

[Riffster]

Even on higher gain pickups the caps make a difference by removing unpleasant harshness but volume and tone controls work different on high gain pickups.

 

I have a Seymour Duncan distortion on my V and the 500T in my Explorer, I also have a GFS Pat 59 in my Squier 51 that is a copy of a SD JB and they all benefit from the PIOs.

[Bender 4 Life]

Even on higher gain pickups the caps make a difference by removing unpleasant harshness but volume and tone controls work different on high gain pickups.

 

I have a Seymour Duncan distortion on my V and the 500T in my Explorer, I also have a GFS Pat 59 in my Squier 51 that is a copy of a SD JB and they all benefit from the PIOs.

 

so that's why the PIO in my V (stock ceramic 496/500 set) made the most difference.....this, and covering the p'ups, has turned it into a Blues singer !

[surfpup]

Yeah, I don't think the output of the pickups will matter (unless maybe they are EMGs ) However, a ton of amp gain will tend to obscure the benefits of a good PIO capacitor.

[Guest Farnsbarns]

Yeah, I don't think the output of the pickups will matter (unless maybe they are EMGs ) However, a ton of amp gain will tend to obscure the benefits of a good PIO capacitor.

 

Yes, to be fair, there's no such thing as a high gain pickup, gain is associated with amplifier stages, not pickups although you could describe active pickups as having gain I suppose.

 

I wish I'd done some before and after recordings but I decided with the compression on you tube it was barely worth the effort.

[rct]

The way vast majority of my experience with a guitar has been at nice volumes with other players in rooms full of sweating, drinking, cigarette smoking people. Capacitors made by JC himself would do me no good ever, no matter what the guitar, with the exception of keeping some highs when I turn the guitar down a little.

 

The rest of my experience is recording someone elses stuff or in recent years recording my own stuff. The studio is a place where you can make any guitar sound like anything, so again, they have no real value to me.

 

I rarely sit in front of an amp and marvel at how good or not good my guitars sound, I am always thinking of them in different contexts and how they sound with the other stuff.

 

rct

[Searcy]

The type of capacitor used in a passive guitar circuit doesn't matter. What matters is the actual capacitance and the taper of the tone pot. The reason some folks believe that PIO caps sound better is because they have lower tolerances and will usually have a much lower capacitance than ceramic caps.

 

 

 

http://www.aqdi.com/tonecap.htm

[marvar]

The type of capacitor used in a passive guitar circuit doesn't matter. What matters is the actual capacitance and the taper of the tone pot. The reason some folks believe that PIO caps sound better is because they have lower tolerances and will usually have a much lower capacitance than ceramic caps.

 

 

 

http://www.aqdi.com/tonecap.htm

I'm with Searcy on this one....

as for myself- I don't use any caps, I unhook tone controls, and change my tones with the way I use my volume controls. works for me

[pippy]

I'm with searcy's sig;

 

"Always trust your ears."

 

What can I say?

 

I don't buy into what I'm 'told' nor all the myths that get spouted out.

I've only once altered any other guitar and that was 37 years ago so I'm hardly the type to go on the ultimate Tone-Quest by swapping-out the latest 'Must Try' stuff.

 

But I swapped-in a pair of Luxe PIO caps in one of my LPs and it improved the tone by a considerable margin.

 

Believe me or not. I really don't care.

 

P.

[Searcy]

Always trust your ears!

[Riffster]

As long as you can hear the difference and matters in your sound and what you are doing that's all that matters.

 

Like Murph used to say, it if does matter to you, it does not matter...to you.

 

I have a Tiger capacitor from the 50's that I found on my Granfather's parts drawer and I would really would like to use it in one of my guitars but...it does not sound good, it straight up muffled the sound of my LP, it may be bad but it has a good reading.

 

Also, I did not care much for the Mojotone PIO's until I used it on my Stratocaster with single coils, the bridge pickup harshness is gone.

[Searcy]

I'm not saying you guys arn't hering a difference. I'm saying that if there is a difference it's caused by a difference in capacitance. Not by the materials making the capacitance.

 

And yes, what really matters is what you hear. Not what I say. My own take is on the whole subject falls more in line with RCT.

[krock]

I bought some russian military spec K4Y-9's after reading the last thread on PIO's a few weeks ago and only just got round to installing them on my MK Patriot. Because of the way its wired it doesnt have too much of an effect on the overall tone unless I'm messing with the treble pot. It gives me a much nicer selection of tones available now though. Unfortunately, I've moved back home from uni for christmas so I dont have my standard rig. I'm guessing any major differences in tone would be more noticeable on that, rather than my Vox. I've still got another three caps, I'm not sure whether to put them in my modded squier or keep them

[capmaster]

It also depends on '50s or '60s wiring when using the volume control other than turned up to ten.

 

Two of my guitars, SG Supra and Alex Lifeson Les Paul Axcess, and all the four of my Gibson basses call for '50s wiring forcibly since there are two respectively three pickups with several volume pots but just one tone pot. This is bad since when '50s wired, the tone control will have a normal reaction with the volumes fully cranked up only. In case you turn the tone pot completely counterclockwise - very useful when combining magnetic and piezo pickups - the volume pots work just like switches. The related PU is next to set off from zero to nine and set on when turning up to ten.

 

There are no problems with Fenders since their one volume/one tone circuit is '60s wired. In my opinion, '50s wiring is the main culprit when it goes around misconceptions and wrong evaluations of pots and caps. And for myself, I would never deliberatly leave, wire or rewire an instrument with respectively for '50s circuit - it is just poor.

[Guest Farnsbarns]

One thing that may explain this voodoo... PIO caps have a lower ESR (equivolent series resistance). Basically, as well as having the property of capacitance, caps also have resistance. The resistance changes with the potential difference across the cap (how charged it is). This has a number of effects in an audio circuit where the capacitor is being used as a frequency filter with it's effect graduated by a variable resistor between it and ground. With PIO caps, the more we turn the volume down the more signal is allowed to leak to ground, this means there is less current to charge the cap, increasing the resistance of the cap and in turn reducing the high frequency leakage through the cap to ground.

 

With a guitar, higher frequencies tend to be at lower energies. This is simply because they are shorter wavelengths and therefore, smaller movements of the string in the magnetic field of the pick up.

 

This might just explain why PIO caps often have this positive effect on tone.

 

Just BTW. I do sit in front of my amp and consider tone, unlike RCT. I s'pose this is because I'm a spare room warrior with little else of a pressing nature on my guitar playing mind.

[Bender 4 Life]

The way vast majority of my experience with a guitar has been at nice volumes with other players in rooms full of sweating, drinking, cigarette smoking people. Capacitors made by JC himself would do me no good ever, no matter what the guitar, with the exception of keeping some highs when I turn the guitar down a little.

 

The rest of my experience is recording someone elses stuff or in recent years recording my own stuff. The studio is a place where you can make any guitar sound like anything, so again, they have no real value to me.

 

I rarely sit in front of an amp and marvel at how good or not good my guitars sound, I am always thinking of them in different contexts and how they sound with the other stuff.

 

rct

 

but, JC DID bring me my caps.....so my rig sounds better than yours

[krock]

One thing that may explain this voodoo... PIO caps have a lower ESR (equivolent series resistance). Basically, as well as having the property of capacitance, caps also have resistance. The resistance changes with the potential difference across the cap (how charged it is). This has a number of effects in an audio circuit where the capacitor is being used as a frequency filter with it's effect graduated by a variable resistor between it and ground. With PIO caps, the more we turn the volume down the more signal is allowed to leak to ground, this means there is less current to charge the cap, increasing the resistance of the cap and in turn reducing the high frequency leakage through the cap to ground.

 

With a guitar, higher frequencies tend to be at lower energies. This is simply because they are shorter wavelengths and therefore, smaller movements of the string in the magnetic field of the pick up.

 

This might just explain why PIO caps often have this positive effect on tone.

 

Just BTW. I do sit in front of my amp and consider tone, unlike RCT. I s'pose this is because I'm a spare room warrior with little else of a pressing nature on my guitar playing mind.

 

Isn't the current going through it too small for that to make much of a difference though, in terms of resistance?

[capmaster]

One thing that may explain this voodoo... PIO caps have a lower ESR (equivolent series resistance). Basically, as well as having the property of capacitance, caps also have resistance. The resistance changes with the potential difference across the cap (how charged it is). This has a number of effects in an audio circuit where the capacitor is being used as a frequency filter with it's effect graduated by a variable resistor between it and ground. With PIO caps, the more we turn the volume down the more signal is allowed to leak to ground, this means there is less current to charge the cap, increasing the resistance of the cap and in turn reducing the high frequency leakage through the cap to ground.

 

With a guitar, higher frequencies tend to be at lower energies. This is simply because they are shorter wavelengths and therefore, smaller movements of the string in the magnetic field of the pick up.

This might just explain why PIO caps often have this positive effect on tone.

 

Just BTW. I do sit in front of my amp and consider tone, unlike RCT. I s'pose this is because I'm a spare room warrior with little else of a pressing nature on my guitar playing mind.

It's not the energy from the strings which makes the difference but the frequency-depending impedance. For the lowest frequencies, the pickup impedance is close to its DC resistance. Then it is rising up to the tenfold or even fiftyfold of it, depending on inductance and capacitances of pickup and cable. Beyond the resonance peak at the maximum impedance, the impedance falls with further rising frequency.

 

Due to the high source impedance in the mostly affected frequency range, the equivalent series resistance of a cap is neglectible. It is by the way the lowest in ceramic caps and highest in all kinds of coiled caps like PIO. PIOs also suffer from a certain parallel resistance which causes current leakage, too. In this respect, ceramic caps are those with the lowest losses also. Moreover, all coiled caps do have a certain inductance, making them inappropriate for radio frequency applications as well as for suppression of phase-shift caused oscillation in amplifier circuitries, in particular in power amplifiers.

 

Luckily there is next to no danger of electrically destructing any parts when fooling around with caps in passive instrument circuits...

[Guest Farnsbarns]

Isn't the current going through it too small for that to make much of a difference though, in terms of resistance?

 

In order to consider that we need to know how much of a difference it takes to effect harmonic content in the circuit. No much is where I'd expect that measure to be. Just floating an idea though.

[Guest Farnsbarns]

My link

 

Found this. A proper scientific scope analasys. Guess what... There is a measurable and definable difference and further, PIO's had the most "desirable" characteristics for audio/tone circuits. Interesting!

[pippy]

Interesting link, Farns.

 

One major observation from Farns' link for those too 'Rabbit Caught in Headlight' to read all the text;

"The paper in oil is extremely clean, best of the group. That may be one reason why some people prefer the sound of the paper capacitors."

 

From Searcy's sig, once more, because it bears repeating;

"Always Trust Your Ears."

 

I don't understand the science at all but I've been playing the LP I modded for seven years before I carried out the mod and I've used the same amp exclusively for over 30 years.

I know how they both sounded before the cap swap and I know how they sound afterwards.

And I do trust my ears.

 

P.

[Guest Farnsbarns]

This paragraph is also interesting....

 

Also, notice the very apparent non-linearities associated with the ceramics. All of these are bad enough to be acoustically displeasing. The characteristics also change quite radically with frequency.