I lump these caps in the same category as bumblebee, black beauty and Astron caps (along with some other parts). Maybe I'm unfair with placing them all in the same category.
In my opinion, their fame is due to inflated statements of their "toneful impact". As I see it, these statements most often came from either those without any technical knowledge, who might attribute a given amp's sound to what little difference they could observe (different color/brand caps), or from a seller trying to overhype an amp to a buyer who doesn't know the difference.
These things get repeated enough they become conventional wisdom. Then, well-meaning folks might think they have to copy every detail, including brand/type of parts, to get "the tone".
Example: if you can find 0.022µF bumblebee caps, you can probably sell them for a bunch of money to people who think that's part of the magic of a '58-'60 Les Paul Standard. They're certainly cheaper to obtain than original PAF pickups, or a '59 Les Paul Standard. But bumblebees were a fairly common cap at the time. Radio restorers (who don't generally ascribe to cap/resistor hype) routinely remove all bumblebee caps without testing from any radio they restore. The reason? The bumblebee caps are notorious for passing leakage current after some age, which throws circuit operation out of whack. Replacing them all often fixes a malfunctioning radio.
So one group of people fixing radios (and vacuum tube o'scopes and other test gear) think a bumblebee cap is garbage, while another group pays a lot of money for something that's supposedly magic. Good thing leakage current is not a huge deal in the tone control of a guitar.
Maybe I'm missing out on the tropical fish caps. I dunno, because I only know that term from older hype, so I've never even tried them.
Topic: Mullurd chicklets and tropical fish caps (Read 3006 times)