Cyril Bateman Capacitor Sound Archive

[mediatechnology]

Cyril now has a site featuring his Wireless World Articles

http://uk.geocities.com/cyrilb2@btinter ... index.html

As ricardo has pointed out in the next post, the geocities link is inactive.

I've posted a new Cyril Bateman archive here.

[ricardo]

The geocities site is now defunct but you can find the articles at

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2610442/Capacitor-Sound

A readable summary, good in it's own right, is by Rod Elliot at

http://sound.westhost.com/articles/capacitors.htm

Cyril's stuff came out in the decade when I was a beach bum in Oz but I can comment on 2 items.

NPO/CG0 caps are what I would use unless exact values were required (eg in EQ circuits) In the early 80's at Calrec, when we realised how good they are compared to small polystyrenes, we replaced every single small poly from a 72 channel broadcast desk. This was on the first M-series desk; IMHO, the last of the great analogue desks.

Our philosophy on CMR & RFI changed from that point. Using good NPO caps from the same batch on mike balanced INs and some attention to PCB layout gave practical CMR & RFI performance to supersonic freqs without the trim caps we had used up to that point. No selection or matching necessary.

But I'm really a speaker man. I'll just say that the better Low Loss Non-Polarised Electrolytics for speaker xovers were "indistinguishable" from film caps on music & speech though you could always devise some signal where you could measure & sometimes hear a difference. You do need to find a good manufacturer & work with him though. Never tried Nichicons.

I'm a "Blind Listening Test" guru and have tested many Golden Pinnae. Most (all?) of them are deaf. Women are generally better than men and the "man in the street" is generally better than the average audio reviewer (with one or 2 notable exceptions).

[mediatechnology]

The Cyril Bateman Capacitor Sound articles featured in the July-December 2002 editions of Wireless World are below.
The jpg scans of the original articles were sent to me some time ago (thanks Peter) and I decided to clean them up and assemble pdfs. Thanks also to ricardo for lighting the fire under me to finish them. They look a little cleaner than the Scribd copies.

Cyril Bateman Capacitor Sound Series Parts 1-5:

Bateman, Wireless World, July 2002, Part 1:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... Part_1.pdf [6.23M]

Bateman, Wireless World, September 2002, Part 2:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... Part_2.pdf [6.13M]

Bateman, Wireless World, October 2002, Part 3:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... Part_3.pdf [5.35M]

Bateman, Wireless World, October 2002, Part 3, Large Figures Published in Part 4:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... igures.pdf [2.88M]

Bateman, Wireless World, November 2002, Part 4:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... Part_4.pdf [8.12M]

Bateman, Wireless World, December 2002, Part 5:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... Part_5.pdf [7.75M]

Notes to Capacitor Sound:

Bateman, Capacitor Sound, Notes Part 1:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... ound_1.pdf [1.00M]

Bateman, Capacitor Sound, Notes Part 2:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... ound_2.pdf [1.38M]

Bateman, Capacitor Sound, Notes Part 3:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... ound_3.pdf [681K]

Bateman, Capacitor Sound, Notes Part 4:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... ound_4.pdf [611K]

Bateman, Capacitor Sound, Notes Part 5:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... ound_5.pdf [619K]

Bateman, Capacitor Sound, Notes Part 6:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... ound_6.pdf [1.08M]

Understanding Capacitors Electronics World 1997/1998 Articles:
Added 4/17

Bateman, Electronics World, December 1997, Part 1:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com//Images/pd ... r_1997.pdf

Bateman, Electronics World, April 1998, Part 2:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com//Images/pd ... l_1998.pdf

Bateman, Electronics World, May 1998, Part 3:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com//Images/pd ... y_1998.pdf

Bateman, Electronics World, June 1998, Part 4:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com//Images/pd ... e_1998.pdf

Bateman, Electronics World, July 1998, Part 5:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com//Images/pd ... y_1998.pdf

Bateman, Electronics World, August 1998, Part 6:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com//Images/pd ... t_1998.pdf

Other Bateman Articles:

Bateman, Speaker Amp Interaction:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... action.pdf [1.38M]

Bateman, Simulating Inductor Networks:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... tworks.pdf

Bateman, Measuring Cables:
http://www.waynekirkwood.com/Images/pdf ... Cables.pdf

+1 on ricardo's Elliot Sound Products citation: http://sound.westhost.com/articles/capacitors.htm

[emrr]

great archive!

[JR.]

NPO/CG0 caps are what I would use unless exact values were required (eg in EQ circuits) In the early 80's at Calrec, when we realised how good they are compared to small polystyrenes, we replaced every single small poly from a 72 channel broadcast desk. This was on the first M-series desk; IMHO, the last of the great analogue desks.

I rather liked the polystyrene dielectric, while the parts weren't very compatible with modern manufacturing processes.

Was your preference for NPO/COG related to size and value accuracy, or something else?

JR

[JR.]

Wow, good stuff.. I only read a few, but it's nice to hear from a credible voice on the subject who backs up his words with data.

JR

PS: I was only guilty of one cap myth (that ESR is a single value).

[ricardo]

I rather liked the polystyrene dielectric, while the parts weren't very compatible with modern manufacturing processes. Was your preference for NPO/COG related to size and value accuracy, or something else? JR

Calrec desks were all made to order for broadcast orgs. at the time, so no flow soldering etc. But NE5534 poly 22pFs for were forever dying.

What really clinched it for us was doing distribution curves for batches of polys & NPOs (CGO's hadn't been invented 8>D)

If you do a single batch distribution of values on a good 1% resistor, you'll find the curve is well under 0.1% for 2 std. devs. though the mean would not be within 0.1% of nominal.

Similarly for good NPOs. Not quite 0.1% for 2 std. devs. but good enough to do Line Inputs like T2 in

http://www.ka-electronics.com/images/SSL/ssl_82E01.pdf

which easily met BBC & IBA specs for CMR up to supersonic frequencies WITHOUT TRIMS. And more importantly, better practical CMR & RFI performance too. I remember breadboarding the 1st one after heated discussions with Ken Farrar and seeing the CM drop through the floor as my solder joints cooled down.

Small polystyrenes don't have this nice distribution. 1% polys are usually selected so have a +/- 1% flat top distribution.

This is all early 80's. We bought most stuff from FEC & RS in the UK so no Golden Pinnae stuff.

And the other thing we threw out was DIP sockets for OPAs. Makes me wonder about Golden Pinnae pontificating on sound of OPAs. Hmmm.... mm. Maybe I should sell DIP sockets hand carved by virgins from solid BS ....

I do have strong views on electrolytics though. I LIKE nice normal electrolytics (eg Panasonics) with correct voltage across them.

[ricardo]

So more reliable, smaller, more accurate for the purpose, cheaper ... behave like capacitors should .... only thing missing is the "hand carved by virgins from Unobtainium" label.

[mediatechnology]

only thing missing is the "hand carved by virgins from Unobtainium" label.

I'll have the art department start on a logo.

[JR.]

So more reliable, smaller, more accurate for the purpose, cheaper ... behave like capacitors should .... only thing missing is the "hand carved by virgins from Unobtainium" label.

Thanks, that was my suspicion. Polystyrene manufacture always struck me as a low tech process. I toured one ceramic cap factory (in Mexico) and it was pretty highly automated (despite the low labor cost there) making very consistent parts. The Polystyrene's I've used over the decades always looked hand made.

For RF filters, assuming the poles are relatively high, and their use is mostly JIC, the dielectric shouldn't matter as much. Perhaps some audible IMD is possible from difficult interference.

Not very obvious but those 22pf compensation caps on 5534s are typically forming a pole in the open loop transfer function down at audible frequencies, but linearity of open loop transfer function "should" be of lesser impact unless running out of loop gain margin, which is not good practice.

JR