polarized vs non-polarized caps

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noingwhat

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I am building a RC filter, and the capacitor I need I can wire it in two ways.

I can either use 4 polarized caps wired in series and parallel to add up to what I need,
or
I can use a single non-polarized cap.

I know that if I wire up the polar-caps, it won't be quite as high of fidelity, but I am using a 50 year old amp, so I am not terribly concerned with fidelity.

The non-polar-caps are twice as expensive though, so I am not sure which one to go with. How much will I hear the difference if I had used the non-polar vs polar?
 
How about give us the types of capacitors you're looking at? Non-polar vs polar does give us generalizations on frequency response of the capacitor, but nothing definite.
 
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I use metalized plastic film capacitors for coupling and filtering audio. They come in values up to 1uF in small packages and are available with 5% tolerance. They cause absolutely no distortion.

I try to avoid electrolytic capacitors for audio but I have used non-polar ones sometimes. Their tolerance can be as low as 20%.

Over 30 years ago I used tantalum capacitors but most of them blew up.
 
Film caps are best, eltrolytics tend to degrade over time, causing big problems.

Speaking of polarization, an electrolytic capacitor can explode if put in backwards, or fed to high of a voltage.
 

Use film capacitors. They are THE BEST choice.

The fidelity also depends on how good your amp amplifies!

Oh yeah, non-polar caps are twice as expensive, and twice as big!
 
AUDIOGURU...You would probiibly know better than I about this, but cant NPO Electrlytics be simply and inexpensively be made by simply connecting 2 electros in series, positive to posive, thereby creating a 3 legged lectro cap??
 
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You can make your own non-polar electrolytic capacitors or you can buy them.
 
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