Is Ceramic Capacitors Good I N Audio

In audio amplifiers this variation in the electrical value of a component results in a signal dependent gain change.

Is ceramic capacitors good i n audio. This may lead to the higher note becoming damped more strongly. They are attractive because of the size cost and low esr. I have read such quite good technical articles on ceramic capacitors and capacitors and capacitors generally and although ceramics are excellent in some circuit applications mainly supply rail bypassing they have well documented serious technical limitations when used elsewhere in audio non linearity michrophony etc and certainly having heard their sound for myself i will never use a ceramic capacitor in a straight audio circuit application ever again. A ceramic capacitor is a fixed value capacitor where the ceramic material acts as the dielectric it is constructed of two or more alternating layers of ceramic and a metal layer acting as the electrodes the composition of the ceramic material defines the electrical behavior and therefore applications.

There are two types of film capacitors film and foil as well as metallized film capacitors. Ceramic capacitors are generally not recommended for use as ac coupling in audio. Internal ceramic capacitor film capacitors the best choice for music. For audio applications you will often need large capacitor values.

In film dialectric capacitors the dialectric is some kind of plastic such as mylar or polypropylene. Ceramic capacitors have a poor series resistance esr and a low insulation resistance ir which impose additional resistance to the tuned circuit resulting in poor audio response. This nonlinear effect leads to audio distortion. Electrodes in film and foil capacitors are separate sheets of metal foil wound with.

The converse piezoelectric effect causes considerable audio signal distortion at lower frequencies and it is a main source of voltage coefficient in class ii ceramic capacitors. However when most ceramic capacitors are biased the capacitive rating can decrease by as much as 50. Your high pass filter has a higher cutoff frequency. There s a good reference to ceramic capacitor markings here.

This dialectric allows a high voltage and long life but at a downside of being relatively large and expensive. Basic ceramic capacitor construction figure 6. Ceramic capacitors provide a poor audio response. When the momentary voltage of your bass note is higher a bad ceramic capacitor has a lower value i e.

Standard capacitors are perfectly acceptable for audio and will rarely if ever compromise sound quality unless used beyond their ratings or a completely inappropriate type is selected for the application such as a high tempco high k multilayer ceramic in a filter circuit. The large physical sizes of film capacitors limit their applications in ac coupling. Here is why you should use polypropylene capacitors in audio coupling circuits.