# home audio gurus



## s4turn (Jun 17, 2009)

Im looking at having a Troels Ellam XT or ZD5 built
im not sure which design to go with

I now have the drivers and need to sort the x-over out next.

some background info:
these speakers are going to powered off a cheaper denon receiver (AVR-1709) and a nice little 8" sub to help with the lower end

the source is my PC, and is connected via an optical cable, mainly used for gaming and music



I have a few questions below in regards to the Ellam XT:
are the Jantzen superior Z caps worth the premium over the standard Z caps?

are there any other brands/models/types that offer the same performance for a lesser price?


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## s4turn (Jun 17, 2009)

bump?

surely someone knows about the different brands/types of caps here?


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## Moon Track (Mar 10, 2011)

Exists a bunch of different cap’s tests. There is only two of them.
Humble Homemade Hifi
The Great Capacitor Shoot-Out

I’m a technically inclined man and their ability to give such precise assessment for capacitors
makes me to envy to their ears, their gear and their room.
For me it sounds like soldering the RCA by silver. When all signal path is soldered by tin there are people
who notice a difference from soldered by silver RCAs .
If you want a compromise you can use superior caps for twitter and standard caps for mid.
As for me, I use standard caps without a doubt. I just tune it for my ears how I like it.
I usually pay attention for fastening and interconnections than for ephemeral sound difference.
There are used SCR caps.


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## s4turn (Jun 17, 2009)

cheers for the reply

I had some standard Z caps priced up, but was seeing if it was worth paying the extra for

I did post on some other forums a while back on this, but didnt get many replies and im very close to getting these started


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## Moon Track (Mar 10, 2011)

You are building those speakers for your living room. Small rooms change the sound so strongly that there is no sense in super expensive capacitors. Plus, this difference becomes obvious with complete tube amplifiers. Capacitors give the odd harmonics Tube amps have the level of odd harmonics much lower than level of even harmonics. In semiconductor amp those harmonics are just summarizing under square root with amp's harmonics.


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## s4turn (Jun 17, 2009)

yeah my amp is only a cheaper solid state, later on id like to try some different amps

they are going into a smaller room as well


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