What was new in 2003!
After listening to these phenomenal caps for a while, I just had to add the following to our components page, repeated below.
FK series has a different sound quality as compared to the N and NX series, but with it's own powerful rewards. It's very natural with awesome bass, great inner detail and still it is smooth as silk. Yes, reduction of noise, distortion and improvement of ESR is quite beneficial in 'digital' power supplies. They have a special excellence in switching power supplies which are getting ubiquitous in most digital equipment. These are polarized capacitors unlike any you've ever heard.
SIZE DOESN'T MATTER, performance does - Abandon your concern with how large your present power supply caps 'should be'. These will outperform them. Do you have an outboard capacitance supply with an entire farad in it? Forget it! The BlackGate FK 10,000uF/100V parts easily outperform our own 39,000uF/100V LC-500 caps we use in the Hafler DH-500. This is a new paradigm. It rewrites the old thinking about power supply caps needing to be large as possible. They need to be as good as possible first. These large computer-grade filter caps for the main power supply of your solid state amp are simply in a different league than standard type filter caps. These large can types used as the power reservoir for a solid-state power amp present, for us, the clearest indication of the superiority of the BlackGate technology. The sonic improvement over 'computer-grade' caps is truly shocking. It is sort of like comparing a bicycle to a car. What's to compare? Incredibly tight bass totally in a class by itself, wide dynamics and totally effortless reproduction -ultra-fast, ultra-clean, ultra-everything, comparable to high performance film caps. Truly astonishing - one of the few very expensive items in the audio world that are worth every penny! The FK is available in smaller radial lead parts for the front-end of a power amp, preamp power supply, DAC/CD player power supply. Sweet, sweet, sweet!!!! See a Hafler DH-500 with our PA-3B Platinum Ultra dual-mono amp. (1-19-03)
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Update: These tubes are selling well and eliciting extremely high praise from buyers!!!!!!!!!!!! Check some of the reviews here. (04-21-03)
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Don't lose faith........ we continue to work toward our new, affordable tube preamp kit that will be unlike anything ever available. We will give you more info on a unique twist of the product as introduction comes nearer.
Shortly after the introduction of the unit, an excellent two-tube phono stage will be made available for internal installation into the preamp. Then shortly after that a stand-alone tubed phono stage will appear.
Our prototypes have been playing for months now and the reliability is impeccable. We have not released the final pricing of these new components, but you will smile when you see them and celebrate when you hear the sound. (03-30-03)
Update: We are getting the final prototype circuit boards in this week, so we are moving forward with the final design soon. (04-21-03)
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The BlackGate praise just keeps on comin'! We spoke to an audiophile this morning who had just put the BlackGate (BG) FK 10000uF/100V caps in his Phase Linear 400, an old but well liked amp. He also put BG caps in feedback loop and power supply areas. He has also put some BGs into his pair of classic tubed Marantz 8B amps which drive the electrostatic top end of his system. He was so impressed after installing the BGs in the 400 that he decide to listen to the amp on the system in full-range mode. He was blown away by how great the amp sounded. Since the Marantz 8B sets such a high bar, that was quite a compliment.
A few days earlier we had sold some of the BG FK 100uF/100V caps to a customer who already had installed the Platinum mod into this DH-500. He was extremely impressed by the improvement in an amp that had already blown his mind. These fit on the PA-3B or stock Hafler boards where the front-end power supply caps are installed, two per channel. If you haven't thought about it, I remind you that the standard caps in that position, in the Platinum mod, are 2700uF/100V, they're pretty good caps and 27 TIMES larger!!!!!!!!!!!! Hard to grasp isn't it!!!! This cap, the BG FK 100uF/100V, has garnered about the highest praise in improvement per dollar of any we have sold. It is only $19.95, so your set of four for any Hafler amp and many other amps is less than $80. They offer a towering improvement, almost unimaginable for the bucks until you hear it. This is now our fastest selling BlackGate!!!!!! (04-21-03)
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Want to nearly triple the power supply capacitance of your Hafler DH-200/DH-220? Hot off the assembly line, arrived today!!!!!!!! We have upgraded the LC-200 capacitors. They are now rated at 27,000uF/80V, i.e. 2000uf more capacitance and 5 volts higher rating for more potent and conservatively rated operation. Now a dual-mono power supply is 108,000uF, yes huge. New too is the return of the screw mount terminals which is exactly like the original Hafler DH-200 and DH-220 terminal hardware. Same great part is even better now and easier to install - home run in all aspects. The best news is that the price stays put at $89/pair in kit form. See them here! (04-22-03)
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Many new photos of BlackGate caps are linked to our "Electrolytics" page in our Musical Concepts component listings. Click on the links in the table of values to see the individual close-up pictures. See them here: www.musicaldesign.com/electrolytics.htm . (04-28-03)
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New tubes, new NOS 6922, 6H30Pi and others have been added to the tube page. (04-29-03)
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Well, it's about time that we could bring a more affordable "universal" audio player to our customers. Pioneer has introduced the new DV-563 which plays all formats: SACD, DVD-Audio, etc. In my first sample the video is adequate, but the sound quality in stock form is very good. It sounds much better when modified to even our most basic level. Now we can offer you a universal player for $499-up. Yes, the player with the mods for $499! Here is a picture for your approval. My comment is that in the flesh, when you can see the finish details, it looks very nice, quite handsome indeed.(8-14-03)
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Latest Pricing on complete universal audio players are at www.musicalconcepts.com/MC_NEWCD.htm. Latest transport models are at www.musicalconcepts.com/mc_transpor.htm (12-19-03)