Audio Note oil filled mylar capacitors

Audio Note™
oil filled mylar capacitors

The Audio Note™ oil filled mylar caps have an immediacy, life, colour, lack of harshness and evenness of dynamic behaviour across the frequency range, which is guaranteed to brighten up your day! Recommended as replacements in old and new valve amplifiers alike (and even in the odd transistor amplifier), and essential for DIY projects.

In line with the best environmental standards, all Audio Note™ oil filled mylar capacitors contain only non-toxic, biodegradable vegetable oil, the mylar dielectric enhances longevity and sound quality, to ensure optimum performance all round.

Audio Note™ Tin Foil/Mylar Signal Capacitors (630V)
Value	Dimensions (D x L)	Price each ex.VAT	Price each incl .VAT
0,1uF	22 mm x 44 mm	22.32	27.00
0,22uF	22 mm x 44 mm	25.67	31.05
0,47uF	35 mm x 54 mm	29.80	36.05
1,0uF	35 mm x 60 mm	41.66	50.40

Audio Note™ Copper Foil/Mylar Signal Capacitors (630V)
Value	Dimensions (D x L)	Price each ex.VAT	Price each incl .VAT
0,1uF	20 mm x 40 mm	55.54	67.20
0,22uF	20 mm x 40 mm	55.54	67.20
0,47uF	35 mm x 53 mm	73.56	89.00
1,0uF	35 mm x 53 mm	92.07	111.40

Audio Note™ Silver Foil/Mylar Signal Capacitors (500VDC)
Value	Dimensions (D x L)	Price each. ex.VAT	Price each. incl .VAT
0,047uF	22 mm x 32 mm	286.78	347.00
0,1uF	22 mm x 40 mm	360.79	436.55
0,22uF	35 mm x 40 mm	416.29	503.70
0,47uF	35 mm x 53 mm	730.79	884.25
1,0uF	35 mm x 75 mm	999.10	1208.90

We don't keep stock of the silver foil capacitors, but they can be supplied.

Audio Note™ oil filled mylar capacitors
Peter Qvortrup

Our specially made mylar/oil caps have an immediacy, life, colour, lack of harshness and evenness of dynamic behaviour across the frequency range (or as I prefer to call it, the harmonic envelope!), which is guaranteed to brighten up your day! Recommended as replacements in old and new valve amplifiers alike (and even in the odd transistor amplifier), and essential for DIY projects.

When truth be told we have been experiencing increasing problems with the failure rate of our paper in oil capacitors over the past 3 to 4 years and despite a major research program into the causes of this increasing break down rate we have really come up with a blank, which makes me suspect that the cause has to do with subtle changes in the chemistry of the paper, the oil or some other key part of the caps, possibly due to new environmental requirements imposed on the production of the paper, who knows? Anyway, when it became obvious that we were unable to fully establishand rectify the cause, my engineers and I decided to give mylar a go again as the first experiments we did with oil imperegnated mylar was not sonically satisfactory, so this time we changed the construction to oil filled, the materials sealing the capacitor and the way we connect the foil ends to the wires and voila! After some running in, the new mylar/oil filled capacitors actually sound better in most respects than the old paper signal caps they replace, only real drawback in my view is that they take nearly twice as long to run in and sound quite a bit worse than the old paper/oil type when they are new, so there you are, you don’t get something for nothing!

Audio Note™ Tin Foil Signal Capacitors.

In all our Level One amplifiers, such as the OTO Phono Push Pull, we use the green ERO MKP metalized polyester capacitors, these cheap and cheerful industrial capacitors have been chosen through extensive listening tests against practically every commonly available polypropylene, polycarbonate, polystyrene and polyester capacitor on the market. They are far from perfect, but from a sonic standpoint they are purely detractive, meaning that they lose information rather than add it (which every polypropylene, Teflon etc. capacitor I have ever heard does to excess).

We used to use the Jensen made aluminium foil signal caps in our Level 2 and Level 3 products, and although I was never 100% happy with the sound of these (when am I ever?), they were less flawed and thus far better than any of the alternatives.

When we stopped using Tobias Jensen in Denmark to make our branded custom paper in oil capacitors about 8 years ago and started our own production of copper foil paper in oil (now mylar in oil) and silver/mylar signal capacitors, we decided against reinstating the aluminium foil type for reasons of sound and instead started exploring other materials, such as tin foil and various composite foils.

The resulting dry tin foil signal caps have now been on the market for a few years, and the move away from the copper paper in oil prompted us to introduce an oil filling in the tin foil caps as well, since this then makes the processes the same across the board for the tin and the copper foil signal caps, the oil filled tin caps do offer slightly improved sound compared to the dry versions.

The Audio Note™ Silver & Copper Foil Signal Capacitors.

The new copper and silver foil signal caps are available in a range that is specifically targetted at the single-ended triode amplifier market, although most values will also be usable in other types of valve amplification.

I think the fact that the new copper foil capacitors are considerably better sounding than anything, including the previous Jensen-made copper signal caps, makes them an excellent sonic value. The improvement is due to the use of greatly improved materials, better production methods and tighter production tolerances, plus the fact that the new caps are encased in copper instead of aluminium, glass or plastic.

The silver foil capacitors also use the fine mylar film instead of a paper in oil dielectric, we have found this to be the best compromise between sound and reliability, and those of you who have tried these copper encased silver foil signal capacitors can confirm the fact that the new Audio Note™ silver caps are better by miles than anything else, the only possible improvement over the Audio Note™ silver signal capacitor is an interstage transformer, which removes the need for a coupling cap altogether!

Audio Note™ Copper Foil