JCA22H capacitor upgrade?

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ledvedder

ledvedder

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Hi everyone! Happy New Year! Let's hope 2021 is better than 2020.

Im considering upgrading the filter and coupling caps in my JCA22H. I've read that this can really help improve the tone. Does anyone have an preferences on which type of caps would be best?
 
Hi everyone! Happy New Year! Let's hope 2021 is better than 2020.

Im considering upgrading the filter and coupling caps in my JCA22H. I've read that this can really help improve the tone. Does anyone have an preferences on which type of caps would be best?
unless you’re changing the value, or they’re malfunctioning, I think tone change would be negligible. Coupling caps have the biggest affect on tone. I’d leave them
 
Agree. Unless the filter caps are malfuctioning, just leave them
Changing the coupling caps could theoreticaly change (improve) the tone, but in this case 1) the stock polyester film caps are decent & 2) the choices available with lead spacing that will fit the board are limited.
When I did my JCA22H, I used Orange Drop 225P's , which are also polyester film and fit the board, but I only changed them because I was changing the values.
OD 715P / 716P will fit, but they are polypropylene film, and are cleaner / brighter than polyester. Those will def change the sound of the amp, but it's impossible to know if it will necessarily be better or not. I've rarely encountered a scenario in a high gain build where swapping the caps to 715P / 716P has been an improvement, but YMMV. The only exception would be to use a pair of 715/716's for PI coupling caps to pass the preamp signal to the power tubes as cleanly as possible.

You could also look at WIMA, which are available in both polyester and polyprop, but getting all the lead spacings right could be tricky.

I think your best bet is to just leave it alone unless you want to change values. Swapping out all the caps for the same values of a different brand is probably not worth the effort in this case.
 
When you say specific, so you mean you only changed the ones where you were changing the values?
No, I changed out specific stock caps (not filter caps) for specific brands, but with the same stock value. Caps sound different. Just look at Bogner, Fortin, Cameron, etc. they all use specific brands of caps in specific areas of the amp. This is done for a tonal effect. Like I’ve mentioned before, in the depth circuit of a Jose mod, ceramic caps sound better then poly caps, etc
 

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