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Luxe PIO bumblebee capacitors

PaulD

Active member
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
675
I've tested these 0.022MDF capacitors. Many of them by A/B comparsion with a small toggle switch. All measured to be sure they are in the specified tolerance.

Gibson Bumble Bee (non PIO)
TubeAmpDoctor PIO
Russian PIO K40Y-9
Luxe PIO
Emmerson PIO
Sprague Bumble Bee PIO (real old ones)

I'd never buy Luxe again. The DC resistance is lower then 20MOhm. All the brightness of the tone is missing. Vintage is not equal to sounding dull. Guitar volume is more quite.

Here are two sound samples taken directly from a Marshall 2203 into Rivera Rock*Crusher. Sorry for the hights ;-) Bridge PU tone 10-5-0, Neck PU Tone 10-5-0. Gibson Les Paul Collectors Choice #2 Goldie.

http://www.morauf.com/gibson/Gibson_Les_Paul_CC2-Original.mp3
http://www.morauf.com/gibson/Gibson_Les_Paul_CC2-LuxePIO.mp3

It's difficult to name a favorite besides the old Sprague Bumble Bee which sound totaly different to the others. The high mids (2k-3k) are turned down but the top hights are still full present. The TubeAmpDoctor are closest to them. And I'd place the Emmerson on 3rd.

Measuring or attempting to measure the DC resistance of a capacitor is a completely pointless and meaningless exercise. A perfect capacitor would have infinite resistance and pass no DC but there is no such thing as a perfect capacitor and they will all have some DC leakage. This may or may not show up as a high resistance reading on a multimeter but tells you nothing about whether the capacitor is good or not. The only way to test for DC leakage in a meaningful way is to apply a DC voltage equal to the rating of the capacitor (which is likely to be 400 - 600v) and measure the current that flows with a micro-ammeter. Paper in oil capacitors are inherently leaky and will always leak more than a plastic film capacitor as paper in oil is actually a very poor dielectric. In the context of a guitar capacitor all of this is completely irrelevant as there is no DC current there anyway!

You say that you have measured the capacitors to ensure they are in tolerance - This makes any comparison meaningless, capacitor tolerances are +/- 20% and any differences you hear WILL be due to differences in value within this range. To be in any way meaningful the capacitors being compared would have to have EXACTLY the same values as measured on an accurate LCR meter.
 

Gold Tone

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 2, 2002
Messages
6,825
LOL

ECHO OOOOOOoooooooo

But, yes, as I stated...caps need to be exact values, not just within stated tolerance

Can you rerun your experiment with caps of equal value?
 

PaulD

Active member
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
675
LOL

ECHO OOOOOOoooooooo

Whoops, yes sorry, didn't notice your post :) Anyhow it doesn't seem to matter how many times it is said, some people seem determined to believe the snake oil marketing hype over the facts!
 

randall

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 21, 2002
Messages
1,310
Good move in 2019 for Gibson Custom.

I installed these Luxe (paper-in-oil) capacitors in my Pearly ! Difference in the tone ? Oh yeah :note

Here's a little recording of "before and after" :

The first & third riff was done with the 2009 Gibson bumblebee capacitors, the one in the middle is with the Luxe capacitors.
http://dicitte.com/images/4LPforum_bumblebee_ggTest.mp3

My conclusion (my 2 cents...) is that the tone with the pre 2019 bumblebee sounds "wrapped" or kind of a trap-tone...
With the Luxe caps, I found that I get a more open-tone (a more vintage tone).

Gaston :salude

p.s. this test is not perfect science... but it's guitar player science... (as Elwood Francis once said)


Hey Gaston,

I just got my luxe caps and switched them out for the Gibson stock/Fake caps. All i can say is i hear a difference and i know that it's a small difference but when it comes to tone every little bit counts. Thanks for making these clips and reminding me that i needed to wank those fake bumble bees out.

Thinking about switching the custombuckers for SD custom shop pearly gates pickups. Those pickups are killer.

Cheers!
 

one

New member
Joined
Jun 21, 2019
Messages
10
Unless the caps are tested and shown to be exactly the same value, comparisons are worthless. Even slight differences in value will be far more audible than differences in materials and construction. Almost no one meters their caps, and people just put 'em in as though the printed value is exactly what they have, when the +/- range, at 20%, is huge. Even 10% is a whole lot for this purpose. And, of course, the replaced cap might have been equally off by whatever tolerance it was made to meet. It's amazing to me that people just disregard exact cap value and forge ahead to make judgments that are thus fundamentally worthless. I've used Bees and Luxe Bees and have found that pot value and exact cap value trump whatever effect PIO composition is supposed to provide. I use PIO mostly so I don't have to listen to people telling me I have to; in truth, it's getting the exact best value cap for the guitar that is my main concern, because that makes the real difference.
 

El Gringo

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 8, 2015
Messages
5,666
I am going to guess no they are not and I would think they would brag if they were Paper In Oil Caps . If I were you I would go to www.throbak.com and for less than the price listed you can get the whole complete harness with 500K pots and the Paper In Oil Caps and I just purchased and had one installed on one of my Les Paul's and oh my goodness the difference was night and day - I mean massive .
 

wulfthar

New member
Joined
Jan 16, 2020
Messages
36
Interesting discussion...I also installed a set of Luxe capacitors in my R0. I chose the 0.15/0.22 mF set for the woman´s as I play a lot of Guns´n´roses songs that require a woman´s tone from the neck pickup (Sweet child o´mine, Estranged etc...).

I noticed the tone pots are behaving more linearly and of course the neck tone now filters less high end, but they are a tad more sensitive.

Overpriced? Of course...but the Luxe sticker looks great on my case.
 
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