Wilson Audio can now manufacture its own capacitors thanks to the acquisition of Reliable Capacitors, always convenient of course.
Wilson Audio (who can be found here) and Reliable Capacitors have been working together for about 30 years. The high quality that Reliable delivered must have clearly been to his liking. So good apparently, that Wilson Audio has bought the manufacturer. That’s quiete special. Also because the company can now create the hand made capacitors – with a tolerance of + / – 0.2% – completely in house. Meanwhile, the technicians of Wilson even further optimized the production process of the capacitors . And so, from now on, the AudioCapX capacitors for Wilson Audio will be used exclusively.
What is a capacitor?
Incidentally, a capacitor is an electronic component that retains electrical charge. The basic construction of a capacitor is surprisingly simple: two conductors separated by insulation material. You can even make a capacitor by simply twisting two (insulated) wires together. This results in very small capacities, which are sometimes needed in HF applications.
In this way, you can quickly make a ‘custom-made’ capacitor, for example as a transmitter amateur. Electrolytic capacitors (or electrolytic capacitors) consist of a strip of rolled-up paper (see picture of Reliable Capacitors – now part of Wilson Audio – above) with a conductive foil on one side. That rolled whole is immersed in an electrolytic liquid and put in a sealed housing. The advantage of this type of capacitors is that – depending on the length and width of the coiled paper-conductor medium – they can have a large capacity. This makes them ideal, for example, for flattening a power supply voltage.
They also have a disadvantage: wrongly polarized connections often result in a nice explosion. That is why the housing is constructed in such a way that the pressure can never be too high. Unless it happens very quickly, there is no escape from a bang. In short: pay attention to the polarity of an electrolytic capacitor to avoid all too exciting surprises. Moreover, the fluids used in such an electrolytic capacitor are not too healthy, an extra reason to be careful with these things.