Smoke em if you got em

[chief mushroom cloud]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322500237463? ... EBIDX%3AIT

[RockinRocket]

I bought some of these.

Super shiny leads always scare me and that's what I received regardless of the photos. Wazzgrover located some of this value too so who knows if they all came from the same person. I prefer my NOS components to have patina all over the leads for my own peace of mind. No one would make and then wait till they rust over to sell fakes lol.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Six bucks apiece for caps I can buy the equivalent of for 10 cents on the dollar or less, seems a bit corksniffy but don't mind me, indulge yourself if you please. You can dip those shiny leads in top quality wine vinegar and let 'em dry for a day or two to develop the proper patina, then charge your customers 20 bucks apiece for "that authentic sound."

[RockinRocket]

Six bucks apiece for caps I can buy the equivalent of for 10 cents on the dollar or less, seems a bit corksniffy but don't mind me, indulge yourself if you please. You can dip those shiny leads in top quality wine vinegar and let 'em dry for a day or two to develop the proper patina, then charge your customers 20 bucks apiece for "that authentic sound."

Hadn't a clue how easy it is to patina the leads

Probably a waste of money on NOS but still I don't believe new production components have copper leads as pure as they used to be.

[chief mushroom cloud]

I posted these in case anyone was doing a resto or authentic repro
Obviously, you can use any cheep-assed cap you want (I've even used really old 3kV ceramics), and you'll be close enuf....unless you play by all by yourself in your bedroom and all your friends think you're kinda strange with all your guns and marshall stacks lining your walls........

[bluesbreaker62]

Hi, it’s actually me selling these caps, so I thought I’d chime in here.

I can confirm the leads have not been cleaned, this is how I got them.

In fact, none of the bigger Wima (with the thicker leads) I’ve had showed any signs of corrosion.
They were still in the original sealed packs, so that probably helps.

I’d be very surprised if anyone would go through the trouble of faking these, but I can assure you these are not.

These are rated 5% btw, not 10 or 20% like commonly found and came from a military surplus store.
At any rate, they’re nice caps and what $50,- when you’re restoring a 60’s AC30 right?

Hope that helps

[R.G.]

Probably a waste of money on NOS but still I don't believe new production components have copper leads as pure as they used to be.

That's almost certainly true. Many parts have plated steel leads, and have had for several decades. Some things have copper leads, but with copper on the way to being a semiprecious metal, it's going to phase out of component leads.

The problem is this: can you hear a difference, or do you just like knowing that you have old components?

I'm perfectly good with simply wanting everything to be old. There's a certain challenge to making things out of only old parts, just because you enjoy having done it. I've done that myself.

But rationalizing this by deciding that something must have been better way back when sets you up as a target for hucksters with quarts of white wine vinegar. [Note - I'm sure the seller who has identified himself is absolutely truthful and reliable that his parts really are old; but I wish we could somehow protect him from his dastardly competition who think that's what white wine vinegar is for.]

[bluesbreaker62]

Just for the record, I’m not claiming these to be any better than new production or vintage caps.
They’re just nice to have around for restauration work or when you’re going for that vintage look.

I have an LCR meter here, so I’d be happy do a comparison with say, some Mustards, Sozo’s and modern 6PS caps if anyone is interested?

Edit: A while back I found an old Wima data sheet from 1962 with loads of technical data on the TFF, TFM and electrolytic caps they made at the time. Interesting stuff.
It’s in German, but the quality of the scan should be high enough to copy/paste in google translate.
Is there any way to attach a PDF in a post?

[R.G.]

I got that, and it was one reason I was careful to distinguish you from some less scrupulous sellers. I meant it when I said that building from old parts simply because it is pleasing to do so. And letting people find and buy old parts just because they want to is perfectly ethical.

I make a strong distinction between things done for artistic reasons and things done for technical reasons. Artistic things are inherently non-measurable, because they depend on individual interpretation of how pleasing the thing is. And as we all know, there can be no disagreement on matters of taste. Technical things can be measured - and to be made sense of, must be measured.

Tech and artistry seem to clash the most when there is the need to use technical equipment to support artistic expression. The real crush between tech and art seems to be in the area of music. Music is fundamentally an artistic medium. There is no particular reason to make musical ANYTHING unless it serves to make pleasing sounds. But modern music needs a technical underpinning of amplifiers, transducers and reproduction equipment.

We (the general we, the listening public, and now musicians) got off the rails when we noted that certain technical defects were very UN-pleasant. The techies worked long and hard to correct the unpleasant defects, and over the last century did a bang up job. Music reproduction isn't perfect, but boy is it better than it was! Somewhere along the way, the same Golden Ears that helped the techies find and stamp out the technical unpleasantnesses got the idea that the technical side of music (re)production could be dealt with as an artistic medium. That led the music world down the rabbit hole of blathering on about the spaces between notes, sound stages, and whole lot of what in the wine world would be called cork-sniffing.

Again, no harm as long as everybody involved knows that buying objects because they sound crystal-ly clear with an overtone of rutabagas is gushing over the shades of red in a Renaissance painting.

But when people without the tech background are sold older and usually less tech-sophisticated things and told that they're better in the technical, measurable sense, they're being taken advantage of.

I appreciate the manner in which you approach this. G'don'ya mite.

[pompeiisneaks]

Is there any way to attach a PDF in a post?

Yes when you're making a new post, just below the 'submit' button area there's an 'options' tab and next to it an 'Attachments' tab, just click the attachments tab, click the 'add files' button and you can upload any file you want (within reason, I think certain types that can be malicious may be blocked, I can't remember).

~Phil

[RockinRocket]

Hi, sorry hope it sound like my post was making accusations against anyone.

In general if you can counterfit it and make money off it folks will do it. Caps probably would be super easy to fake. I would assume the Mustard .68uf 160v would be the "one".

All the Ebay venders have come into contact with Wimas TFF /TFM so it seems kind of unusual as these were nearly extinct for a year and many for the other values. Guess every one got a piece of the pie at a swap meet?

These tropicalized Wimas are excellent caps. I have a few 100 of them and they are all good and in pretty tight tolerance.

I like to build with old parts so I can rule out any factor of tone. I also use new production and sound just as good. Just like tubes though the metals are better. NOS tubes are night and day IMO

[bluesbreaker62]

I get what you’re saying, that’s exactly why I wanted to do some test, see if there’s actually any magic to them, or to any of the others for that matter.
Always nice to have some actual data to back it up (might be bit before I get around to testing those caps)

Not sure there’s actually that much more of them come available. With prices being what they are, people are probably just more motivated to let them go.

Anyway, here’s that data sheet I mentioned, if you’re having any trouble translating, let me know and I’ll see what I can do

Wima Data Sheet 1962 (1).compressed.pdf

[RockinRocket]

Sorry cant translate but am interested in what it says.
Any idea when Wima discontinued the TFF/TFM series?

[bluesbreaker62]

Sorry for the late reply.
Don’t know when they discontinued tropifol line but I don’t remember ever seeing any with 70’s codes

[bluesbreaker62]

Hi guys, sorry it took me so long to get back to this.

In the attachment below you'll find the test results I promised (can share the .xlsx file as well)
We tested 6 types of 47nF capacitors, 3 of each type (where available), at 3 different frequencies.

Test results include: Capacitance, dissipation factor (D), Q-factor, ESR and phase angle.

Hope you find it useful/interesting