It had to happen eventually... capacitor upgrade question for the Mainline

[Paul Birkeland]

From the instructions from the manufacturer:

"If using as a bypass cap to ground, connect green lead to ground."

[Audioraider]

I am going down the cap rabbithole 😜 first the red and gold Audio Research, they are really rich and big sounding but the base seems to be a little loose. I burned them in around 200 hrs, not enough to reach their full potential but enough to get a feel for them. then based on what Jamie has been doing with Duelund bypass caps I added some V-cap .1uf to bypass those. Didn’t really know what to expect but I have to say the highs are substantially better, I was rather shocked. Doc told me to watch out for smearing when I bypass those 10uf caps but I haven’t heard any smearing or ringing so far.
Next I have some Audyn tri-reference 15uf caps to try. These are monsters but if I move the boards forward I can fit them in. I’ve also ordered some Jantzen silver Z caps 15 UF. That I will try in a few weeks.
I’m also going to order a pair of the Duelund silver bypass caps that Jamie is using and try those in combination with his capacitors. I’ll report back my findings.
I tried to post photos but the bottlehead forum won’t let me do that. I posted them over on headfi

[mercury128]

Hey everyone, I got the urge for another cap upgrade recently when I found a well priced pair of 800V 15uF Jantzen Superior Z-Caps on eBay. Installed them tonight and I'm noticing some really nice improvements over the Auricaps I had in there before (regular Auricaps, not XO as far as I know). The Jantzens, even without burn-in time, have a really nice attack to them that is a bit faster than the Auricaps which were really nice, but the Jantzens sound more transparent so far and I expect they'll only improve over time.

I'll provide another update after some further listening, but I can recommend these as a very affordable significant upgrade (just over $100 USD for the pair) for the Mainline coupling caps.

Hi Lachlan

I purchased a pair of the Jantzen Superior 15 uf capacitors based on your recommendation. Any tips for how you installed and secured them, as they're much larger than the previous capacitors there!

Thanks
- Alex

[AllanMarcus]

Well, I'm thinking of getting new caps. So many to choose from. The first thing I want to try is 10uf vs 15uf (maybe 20, to really emphasize the difference). I was thinking of just getting the daytons, then I will be comparing as similar caps as possible, so the only difference would be the rating of the caps. Then, if I can hear a difference I like, move "up" to a "better" cap. Does that make sense?

I found myself contemplating getting and Eddie Current Aficianado for a really good price, but a cap upgrade for the Mainline might be a better way to fulfill my urge to do something.

My Mainline has Dayton MPT 10uF 250V 5% Audio Grade caps.

Seems like the options are DMPC and PMPC. Any idea which one was shipped with the Mainline?

[Paul Birkeland]

The first thing I want to try is 10uf vs 15uf (maybe 20, to really emphasize the difference). I was thinking of just getting the daytons, then I will be comparing as similar caps as possible, so the only difference would be the rating of the caps. Then, if I can hear a difference I like, move "up" to a "better" cap. Does that make sense?

Yes, this is a very good idea.

Seems like the options are DMPC and PMPC. Any idea which one was shipped with the Mainline?

It's quite likely that the factory takes a big lot of DMPC and measures them all and the ones that are very close to the nominal value get the PMPC wrapper.  I wouldn't spend the money on the 1% caps for this application.