Is Ceramic Capacitors Good I N Audio

Basic ceramic capacitor construction figure 6.

Is ceramic capacitors good i n audio.

There are two types of film capacitors film and foil as well as metallized film capacitors. 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. For audio applications you will often need large capacitor values. Your high pass filter has a higher cutoff frequency.

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. The large physical sizes of film capacitors limit their applications in ac coupling. In audio amplifiers this variation in the electrical value of a component results in a signal dependent gain change. They are attractive because of the size cost and low esr.

In film dialectric capacitors the dialectric is some kind of plastic such as mylar or polypropylene. This may lead to the higher note becoming damped more strongly. This nonlinear effect leads to audio distortion. When the momentary voltage of your bass note is higher a bad ceramic capacitor has a lower value i e.

This dialectric allows a high voltage and long life but at a downside of being relatively large and expensive. Some very talented techs on this site will use a ceramic capacitor in audio coupling circuits. Ceramic capacitors are generally not recommended for use as ac coupling in audio. There s a good reference to ceramic capacitor markings here.

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. 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. Only non linear types of ceramics tend to have these. Internal ceramic capacitor film capacitors the best choice for music.

Here is why you should use polypropylene capacitors in audio coupling circuits. Electrodes in film and foil capacitors are separate sheets of metal foil wound with. 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.