Feaner one does not need to be an electrical engineer to read what electrical engineers have to say about the matter.

"RGA

As a non Audio Note owner I have often been one of your strongest defenders. I have tested many capacitors myself and AN not being one of them and can not believe the difference in sound from one to another. AN said all along high quality foil sound the best and this is being proven time and time again. I have found AN to be unique as a company, no other audio company talks at extensive detail my language and the only one the should matter parts quality.

On the McIntosh website I seen tons of pretty pictures of blue lights but can find very little about quality of parts? On the AN site Peter will go into great (and maybe boring to some) detail of parts quality and how everything is made. I have never seen such detail of quality of parts.

On the tempo Electric website

http://www.laventure.net/tourist/caps.htm

"Formerly made by Jensen in Denmark and relabeled for Audio Note, current production is fabricated in England by another firm. In 2008, their dielectric was changed from paper-in-oil to mylar-in-oil. The silvers were out of our price range and we just overlooked the coppers. Peter Qvortrup of AN (UK) has been kind enough to offer loaners for the next round".

Peter will also allow his capacitors to be tested against the very best money no object caps in the world. He either makes or buys some of the best. This is not normal and I can not understand how the new Mac owner (corporate Clarion) could ever do something like this? As a corporation they must have much more focus on the bottom line. There is also no proof that using the best parts improves the bottom line in fact no doubt does the opposite drives up cost while reducing sales because of that cost.

So in my mind ONLY a private company like AN could even build high quality sound. This is much of what was the vintage by the way meaning Saul Marantz, Avery Fisher (and McIntosh) etc when they owned their companies they could (shoud they want to) go crazy on quality with little financial gain. As a public company one can not do this as a CEO or one gets fired!

I can not afford any new AN gear but am very glad their is someone doing this. I reference the AN site all the time about what matters and to try and understand audio."

And from an electrical engineer and audio review expert http://www.partsconnexion.com/t/blac...te_Feb2003.pdf

And another engineer http://www.vhaudio.com/21capacitorshootout.pdf

And that's just the capacitors - of course Audio Note actually bothers to listen to them all try them all and use the best ones. Most companies have a purchasing agent select "whatever" capacitor meets a spec sheet value - because after all "it all sounds the same" - stick a nice blue light on the front and put 70lbs of sheet metal around the blue light and the people will line-up. They take no interest in the parts quality - and interestingly if all the parts all sound the same and they can buy based off the spec sheet - you as a consumer may as well do the same.