Mylar vs Ceramic vs ?

[aziltz]

It's pretty obvious to me when to use an electrolytic cap, power filtering, etc... The schematics usually have it indicated.

But what about Mylar/Ceramic and others?  Is it a quality issue?  I was going to stock up on some caps, so I can build at home.  Do different types have different value ranges?

Bottom line, should I have an assortment of Mylar and and Ceramic?

[aziltz]

to clarify, i'm looking at the capacitor packs on this site: http://www.futurlec.com/ValuePacks.shtml

Should I just get one each? or are the Mylar/Multi-Layer Ceramic redundant?  Are the orange old school ceramics any good?

[John Lyons]

In general film/poly/mylar caps are the best to have on hand.
Ceramic caps are fine for small values like anything in the pf range.
Silver mica is good for pf caps as well. Some say better...

Film/poly/mylar caps are said to bee "smooth".
Ceramics are more "open" sounding but can be "gritty" in some applications.
As mentioned above, using film/poly/mylar is a good general cap to use.

john

[carrejans]

Here is a table with all the kinds of caps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_(component)

[jacobyjd]

Here is a thread that weighs in on some of your thoughts on those exact value-packs:

http://experimentalistsanonymous.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=89