Orange Drops in old Marshalls

[Tread]

For you guys that have worked on older marshalls Pre '73...how regularly do you see Orange drops in them...it seems I have Yellow "Chickletts", Mustards and 3 Orange Drops in mine. ...50w
Thanks

[billdurham]

Orange drops were bread and butter caps, sold at just about every electronics parts house since the 50s. It wouldn't surprise me to see orange drops in any amp that has been repaired since then.

BD

[ekp]

Some years ago, I did a test on a variety of caps to determine if they would contribute to the tone. I tested the expensive mylars, the old papers, the newer polyesters, ceramic, and aluminum electrolytics. These were run with a series resistor at a frequency that would maximize their voltage and current. I checked out the resistor voltage for harmonics with a spectrum analyzer which has a 80 dB range. The only one to show harmonics was the ceramic. That is probably why you only see small ones -- the substantial harmonics are then quite high.

I hope this might help....

[Geetarpicker]

In my experience most of the time orange drops do not sound much like the original caps. Usually brighter and cleaner, with some added harshness.

Many like the chicklet caps that are most likely original if your amp is and early 70s. Some say the amps with those caps are very HOT sounding.

All that said I have a few new Sozo caps in my original '68 Plexi 100 Superbass that had once been modded to superlead specs and they sound fine.