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Permalink Reply by JL on October 4, 2016 at 2:18am

the different materials affect how much total power they can take without blowing and letting out the magic smoke, hopefully no one has a CBG pickup THAT hot, lol.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on October 4, 2016 at 9:58am

This has been a debate on several guitar forums. Really the only difference is in the tolerances of the different types. The ceramic disc types have a larger tolerance in value than the other types and I try to avoid them as much as possible, but have used them before.

When I say tolerance, I'm talking about the value(such as .022). All caps can be a + or - a couple of numbers, but the cheaper ceramic disc types can be greater in number for value differences. That accounts for the different tones that some hear. 

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on October 4, 2016 at 12:20pm

ceramic caps are usually 2 plates separated by a ceramic dielectric. greencaps type are usually a sandwich of 2 foil plates separated by an insulating plastic and rolled up. i have read where people think the inductance from the roll makes a difference but i seriously doubt it in our application.
electrolytics and tantalium capacitors are polarised i.e they have a positive and a negative lead. these would not be good for a tone cap soldered to a pot.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on October 5, 2016 at 8:17am

If I was building or rebuilding an expensive amp, I would use the orange ones. All my gits have the green poly film caps and work fine.

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on October 6, 2016 at 12:51am

yes wayfinder i think the only real difference is tolerance as someone said before in this thread. basic greencaps are all you need for a git. you only need the more expensive smaller tolerance ones in RC and LC timing circuits or a circuit where the charge and discharge time of the cap is critical.  from memory i think greencap tolerance is 10% considering they are paired with a variable resistor (pot) its not an issue...

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on October 6, 2016 at 2:19am

sweet... i pulled out a box of my old electronics stuff and found some greencaps to use myself. heres hoping they are still ok. should be they were never used.

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