Audio Research – Caps writes: “Got caps? We take our capacitors very seriously at Audio Research. Those big white caps are BIG. They were created for our 40th Anniversary Reference preamp in 2010, and there was nothing like them.
10mfd, 310V, each one weighs 1 lb. 14.7 oz. (870g), which is why they are strapped into cradles. The primary material is Teflon®. They were custom made for us and were chosen after a lot of listening in-house. Expensive? Yes, but worth every penny.
Most people, even those in our industry, do not know that we custom design critical caps, working primarily with two American capacitor manufacturers.
Different materials like copper, styrene, Teflon®, and different metalized materials are compared, blended, and auditioned. There are also other customizations, like end cap materials, different leads, and even different soldering techniques for the leads. Look closely at the two gold caps in the corner photo to see two different techniques and cap materials.
There are many fine off-the-shelf caps available, we listen to as many as we can, but with our custom designs we get the highest performance attainable.
And we pay attention to a lot of other details, too.”