Is SMD lowering our standards?

[alparent]

I remember all the discussions about what kind of caps sounded better. How ceramic caps have horrible audio qualities and tantalum caps to. How a good PCB designs will isolate the power or the digital signal from the audio path.

But now, with the influx of SMD boards, all of that seams not to matter any more? Parts just placed any ware as long as they "fit" on the board. Most use all ceramic and tantalum caps.

Were all these discussions in vain? Was is all BS$@#$ or are we just lowering our standards?

[Muadzin]

What's wrong with tantalum caps? I always thought they were better then electrolytics as they tended to degrade fast over time. And if ceramic caps are that bad, why do all those old Muffs sound so good?

[john_p_wi]

No one says that you can't use a mix of SMT and through hole, especially IF you want to use a film cap in the signal path.  It doesn't matter IF it is a through hole or SMT pcb, proper circuit layout should be observed.  Both could be layed out equally horrid depending on the skills of the person who designed the pcb.

[pickdropper]

No one says that you can't use a mix of SMT and through hole, especially IF you want to use a film cap in the signal path.  It doesn't matter IF it is a through hole or SMT pcb, proper circuit layout should be observed.  Both could be layed out equally horrid depending on the skills of the person who designed the pcb.

Yep, this is quite common.  SMT for the resistors and for the caps that aren't in the signal path and then through-hole film caps for the parts in the audio path.

The other thing to keep in mind is that there are SMT film caps.  The downside is that they are quite expensive and not available in very large values.

As far as caps outside of the signal path, I am not sure that folks could tell the difference unless the value was way off.

[pickdropper]

And if ceramic caps are that bad, why do all those old Muffs sound so good?

That's sort of the funny thing about vintage pedals.  The ceramic disc caps they used were generally the lowest of the low grade.  They drift all over the place with temperature, voltage and time.  Perhaps that's why people refer to one vintage pedal sounding significantly better than the other. 

Not all ceramic caps are junk, though.  It really depends on the dielectric of the particular ones that were used.

[midwayfair]

Muadzin: Tantalum caps fail as a short whereas aluminum caps typically fail as an open circuit. Since you can get low-ESR ('audio grade') alumnimum caps, most of the time a tantalum cap isn't necessary. There are some places where you need low ESR in a smaller package at a higher voltage than can be had from aluminum caps, but that's a real corner case.

I remember all the discussions about what kind of caps sounded better. How ceramic caps have horrible audio qualities and tantalum caps to. How a good PCB designs will isolate the power or the digital signal from the audio path.

But now, with the influx of SMD boards, all of that seams not to matter any more? Parts just placed any ware as long as they "fit" on the board. Most use all ceramic and tantalum caps.

Were all these discussions in vain? Was is all BS$@#$ or are we just lowering our standards?

It was almost entirely BS the whole time; you can go back to discussions archived from 15 or 20 years ago and find knowledgable people occasionally pop into threads where there's a discussion about caps and say "seriously it doesn't matter most of the time" and they'll be ignored. There are some problems caps can experience with age, temperature, and higher voltage; almost every we use in pedals, at pedal voltages, and pedal current draws will never be stressed under conditions where any of their shortcomings matter. Our amps don't produce frequencies outside a certain range, and we intentionally create distortion before and after the amplification.

There are a million better things to worry about when building a pedal, starting with what color wire you want to use from the in jack to the switch.

[culturejam]

But now, with the influx of SMD boards, all of that seams not to matter any more? Parts just placed any ware as long as they "fit" on the board.

Most of the PCB layouts I see that are done by hobbyists have the parts placed anywhere as long as they fit. And the vast majority are through-hole. People like the component layout to look "pretty" and symmetric. So you get pretty layouts that violate some fairly basic design practices.

And you know what? Most of the time it doesn't matter. Just like capacitor dielectric type. 

[Willybomb]

There are a million better things to worry about when building a pedal, starting with what color wire you want to use from the in jack to the switch

Well, see, I try to keep it uniform in the pedal at least, if not between builds... One colour for the in/out jack tips, one for ground (black if I've got it), one for power (red if I've got that), one colour for all the pots...

[dan.schumaker]

There are a million better things to worry about when building a pedal, starting with what color wire you want to use from the in jack to the switch

Well, see, I try to keep it uniform in the pedal at least, if not between builds... One colour for the in/out jack tips, one for ground (black if I've got it), one for power (red if I've got that), one colour for all the pots...

I've always found that green for ground adds more tone to the pedal...

[Muadzin]

There are a million better things to worry about when building a pedal, starting with what color wire you want to use from the in jack to the switch

Well, see, I try to keep it uniform in the pedal at least, if not between builds... One colour for the in/out jack tips, one for ground (black if I've got it), one for power (red if I've got that), one colour for all the pots...

I go even further, for pots yellow for lug 1, white for lug 2, green for lug 3. It might seem anal but it helps me keep track of what goes where even better.

[Aristatertotle]

I go even further, for pots yellow for lug 1, white for lug 2, green for lug 3. It might seem anal but it helps me keep track of what goes where even better.

I do that for wired pots as well. For my Sagan Delay build I even used a different color of heatshrink around each set of wires to keep track of each cluster.

I've always found that green for ground adds more tone to the pedal...

Try brown. It'll blow your mind. 

[wgc]

Pedals. Standards. That's funny!

[Willybomb]

If anything, I think the standards are too high. In order to get a response in the build reports anymore, the pedal has to have been etched with unicorn urine, smd built by a small army of worker ants, solid core wire bent to the .0001mm by robot, and hand polished on the toga of a Victoria Secrets model...

[alanp]

This is why my builds are so fabulous -- the most effort I ever go to as far as presentation goes is countersunk LED holes. Labelling is either a vivid marker, dymo, or india ink.

[Muadzin]

If anything, I think the standards are too high. In order to get a response in the build reports anymore, the pedal has to have been etched with unicorn urine, smd built by a small army of worker ants, solid core wire bent to the .0001mm by robot, and hand polished on the toga of a Victoria Secrets model...

Well, what do you expect, of course you're going to get a bigger reaction if a Victoria Secrets model is involved.