Components material

S

SAM6007

New member
Hello everyone, new to this forums.
I have a question. Try to buy components for my new build. There are lots on options when it comes to same value resistor, capacitor, diode...material . Is it true that the more expensive/ better quality you buy your components the better the sound is? Trying to decide what type to buy. Thank you for your help
Cheers
 
How much better more expensive components are is about the same as how long pieces of string are.



There are several articles about sourcing/buying parts — read them.

PedalPCB Wiki

wiki.pedalpcb.com

Component Suppliers for DIY Pedals

This is a list of the major parts suppliers that you’ll want to know about, along with a short review of each of them based on experience and the experience of others. Website: https…
aionfx.com

Parts Sourcing: Where to Buy What

After giving a general overview of what stores are out there, it’s helpful to give an overview of parts sourcing from the component perspective—the best place to buy resistors, the best place to buy…
aionfx.com






Don't despair if you purchase the wrong part, because at some point you will.
You buy some 100nF capacitors for a boost circuit and discover you ordered 100F 2v7...
Some people will only buy Panasonic electrolytic caps or Nichicon — yet many get by with, and get/buy, Chang and Samxon...

Maybe you meant to get 470Ω resistors for a particular build but you wind up with 470k 1w (not to mention the 470Ω you needed were 1/8w) ;Maybe you get some brand of resistors that have super-thin leads, but they work; but you come to find you prefer another brand that has more robust leads.


So, yeah, there is a learning curve and it takes a while to really start to make sense of what you want/need vs what works/money-well-spent...


For example: I ordered some jacks that were a very good deal — what I received were jack-shaped-objects made out of such flimsy material that they wouldn't hold their shape beyond 2-3 x insertion of plugs. So, I had to re-order some jacks that were actual jacks and am stuck with some jack-shaped-objects ... want to buy some of my cool jack-shaped-earrings? I made them myself (caveat emptor, they may stretch your ear-lobes a little).

Jacks is often an area where people won't compromise on $$$/quality; but is that generic film-cap really inferior to the Wima-branded caps? Are you sure those are real Wima caps and not fakes?



So...
What are you planning to build?

Welcome to the forum.
 
Last edited:
Feral Feline said:
How much better more expensive components are is about the same as how long pieces of string are.



There are several articles about sourcing/buying parts — read them.

PedalPCB Wiki

wiki.pedalpcb.com

Component Suppliers for DIY Pedals

This is a list of the major parts suppliers that you’ll want to know about, along with a short review of each of them based on experience and the experience of others. Website: https…
aionfx.com

Parts Sourcing: Where to Buy What

After giving a general overview of what stores are out there, it’s helpful to give an overview of parts sourcing from the component perspective—the best place to buy resistors, the best place to buy…
aionfx.com






Don't despair if you purchase the wrong part, because at some point you will.
You buy some 100nF capacitors for a boost circuit and discover you ordered 100F 2v7...
Some people will only buy Panasonic electrolytic caps or Nichicon — yet many get by with, and get/buy, Chang and Samxon...

Maybe you meant to get 470Ω resistors for a particular build but you wind up with 470k 1w (not to mention the 470Ω you needed were 1/8w) ;Maybe you get some brand of resistors that have super-thin leads, but they work; but you come to find you prefer another brand that has more robust leads.


So, yeah, there is a learning curve and it takes a while to really start to make sense of what you want/need vs what works/money-well-spent...


For example: I ordered some jacks that were a very good deal — what I received were jack-shaped-objects made out of such flimsy material that they wouldn't hold their shape beyond 2-3 x insertion of plugs. So, I had to re-order some jacks that were actual jacks and am stuck with some jack-shaped-objects ... want to buy some of my cool jack-shaped-earrings? I made them myself (caveat emptor, they may stretch your ear-lobes a little).

Jacks is often an area where people won't compromise on $$$/quality; but is that generic film-cap really inferior to the Wima-branded caps? Are you sure those are real Wima caps and not fakes?



So...
What are you planning to build?

Welcome to the forum.
Click to expand...
Huge fan of Gilmour. Trying to build Cornish SS-2. Thank you for your advice.
 
Best way to compare and see if you hear a difference or not, because it doesn't matter what I think/hear (I'm just another disembodied opinion on the Internet), is to breadboard the SS2 and order the parts to compare. For example, compare the capacitors in the signal-path — swap out grey generic film caps for the Wima and see if you hear a difference.

OF course, maybe you only want to build a few pedals and that's the extent of your involvement in the hobby, or perhaps you get hooked and start building a LOT of pedals... if it's the latter, I strongly encourage you to get into breadboarding — I was intimidated by it when I started building pedals, but in hindsight wish I'd started breadboarding sooner.



One aspect of the more expensive parts is they generally have tighter tolerances. For instance carbon-composite resistors generally will have a +/-5% tolerance drift or as much as 10%, while metal-film resistors can be had that have a 1% tolerance drift. Same idea goes for capacitors and pots — the better ones will have tighter tolerances. Check the datasheets of whatever components you buy, see what the specs are.
 
I use mainly Metal Film Resistors because they're quieter than other materials.

When purchasing Electrolytic capacitors I compare 4 things, Size, Temperature rating, lifetime and to a degree price. To me most important is Size, it needs to physically fit the board. Next is Temperature rating, higher is better. Next is lifetime, again higher is better. Finally, price-some components cost a ridiculous amount, I'm not building a Space Shuttle so I dont need  that good of a cap.

Ceramic caps-I look for X5F, COG, or X7R, in that order.

Also I get a lot of my stuff from Mouser or Digikey. Both give price breaks typically at quantities of 10, sometimes substantial. Usually I'm needing more than 1 anyway so I get 10 or 25 for the price break. I've built up a pretty good stash of parts.
 
I agree, when there are price breaks, it makes sense to get 10 vs 1 for a couple reasons. I always order more, it is nice to have a stockpile for future orders and if you order the exact number you need you will break, scorch, bend or lose what you need and have to place another order.


GAStan said:
I use mainly Metal Film Resistors because they're quieter than other materials.

When purchasing Electrolytic capacitors I compare 4 things, Size, Temperature rating, lifetime and to a degree price. To me most important is Size, it needs to physically fit the board. Next is Temperature rating, higher is better. Next is lifetime, again higher is better. Finally, price-some components cost a ridiculous amount, I'm not building a Space Shuttle so I dont need  that good of a cap.

Ceramic caps-I look for X5F, COG, or X7R, in that order.

Also I get a lot of my stuff from Mouser or Digikey. Both give price breaks typically at quantities of 10, sometimes substantial. Usually I'm needing more than 1 anyway so I get 10 or 25 for the price break. I've built up a pretty good stash of parts.
Click to expand...
 
GAStan said:
...

Also I get a lot of my stuff from Mouser or Digikey. Both give price breaks typically at quantities of 10, sometimes substantial. Usually I'm needing more than 1 anyway so I get 10 or 25 for the price break. I've built up a pretty good stash of parts.
Click to expand...

Also should be noted that it is extremely unlikely to get a fake from Mouser or Digikey, @SAM6007.
BigStores sometimes have free-shipping at certain price-points.

If you're cheap frugal like me, you might roll the dice now and again on Alibaba/Temu/TaoBao etc (I've got some excellent Davies 1900 clone-knobs from TaoBao; but I remember when Tayda's 1900 copies weren't as good as what they sell now).

You CAN get cheaper parts from sources other than Mouser/Digikey, but the risk of getting inferior quality goes up (for example Jameco used to be reputedly good, but has slid downhill in the last few years in many builders' eyes).


Still, didn't save anything on those cheap jacks mentioned in my earlier post.

Another aspect to consider is — cheap-inexpensive product that has outrageous shipping charges/ hidden brokerage fees from shitpers such as OOUPS, Frederall Expense, DHeLL, Purelylater... etc.

At some point, you just go with Mouser/Digikey/Tadya... but then you find they don't have something you need and have to shop from reputed smaller stores such as StompBoxParts/Amplified-Parts/B****esLoveMySwitches/ etc.
 
Components.

I'm a big fan of spending too much on components. Getting the super special deluxe audio-rated high quality bullshit.

Paradoxically...I'm also a huge fan of spending too much on old, considerably less good, considerably more inconsistently constructed vintage components. For lots of money.

I say that, because every guitar player that you look up to is considerably richer than you are. So how did they get their toan? Because they had the *money* to put in their *pedal*.

Seriously. Try this out: shove a bunch of 100 dollar bills into an old ass DS-1. Pull out the old circuit board. Just cram that cash into the pedal case. Now, plug it in. Play. You hear that? You hear how much better it sounds now?

So if we take our elementary equation, Money times magic diodes divided by the square root of a chickens average ovulation cycle plus pi equals toan. It is obvious that the only variable that can be adjusted is money, as magic diodes don't exist, so that's how ya do it.

All the classics were built with an eye towards minimizing production costs. Cheap components are...were...preferred. Profits and such.

People got a long just fine with those pedals for quite some time. There's plenty to be said about the frequency range of a guitar, how "hifi" isn't really the goal when it comes to guitar equipment...especially seeing how objectively *bad* amplifiers (from an audio reproduction standpoint) defined the sound of guitar music for generations.

But...that's not to say that things can't be done better. There's a bunch of qualities inherent to specific components that impact how they perform in a circuit that go outside of their stated value.

There's plenty to be argued about how audible those differences actually are. In truth, the audiophile community is full of folks that are easily separated from their money based on rumors and marketing. Its basically a weaponiztion of the sunk cost fallacy.

But!!!! There are times when...like...especially if you're just building *A* pedal...you don't *have* to slum it. The super cheap resistors on Amazon have skinny leads that don't lay nicely on circuit boards: at the very least, grab some tayda royal ohms, or if you're feeling fancy get some Koa Speers with the thick leads that bend real nice.

Or, if you don't want to bother with reading color codes, you can spend like 10x as much for Vishay RN55'S or CMF55s. Just don't expect em to sound better. They're there for *you*.

Caps...that all depends. I'm a big fan of Panasonic and nichicon caps for electrolytics, though for anything that isn't sensitive to leakage I'll use solid polymer kemets. Avoid tantalums unless you have no choice due to ethical issues: tantalum is a conflict mineral and high demand from smartphone and computer makers has led to a whole industry of human rights abuses in tantalum mines.

Ceramics: C0G is king. Seriously. I'll use those *anywhere*. They're small, they're excellent caps, and they're typically fairly cheap. X7Rs are second banana, but still quite useful, especially in the higher values where they can displace tantalums.

Film caps: in general terms it goes Teflon, Polystyrene, Polypropylene, PPS, Polycarbonate, Polyester. In terms of "most like an ideal capacitor" to "least". But tradeoffs need to be made: Teflon, PS, PP tend to be quite large for their stated value in comparison to polyester. Use what fits, don't worry about it too much.

Use whatcha like. That's part of the fun.
 
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