why a recap makes no difference

You are not 'coming across' the way you think you are, maybe you are just trying to be 'devil's advocate' - but it isn't working.

I won't be posting again in this thread.

I really don't know what you're trying to say with that accusation cum character analysis, I'm not trying to 'be' anything. Honestly, no game playing from me, just my views on the subject of recapping.
 
First I mean not disrespect to anyone and I am echoing what others have posted.

Remember that when it comes to gear that it 20 to 40 years old, in general we do not know the full history of the gear. It may have been stored for years in an attic and subjected to extremes in temperature. It may have been used in a manner that restricted ventilation, causing it to run very hot.

There is not any first hand definitive data regarding the remaining life span of the capacitors. We do know from information posted not only on AK that capacitors do fail. And some of the failures cause catastrophic damage to the rest of the device.

It is all about risk management and cost/benefit ratio. The final valuation is likely to vary from person to person, especially when applied to a hobby. Some of us like to work on equipment. Some of us favor a once and done approach, in as much as that can be done for any piece of gear in terms of reliability and possible sound quality.

Below is a picture showing some capacitors that have failed. This example shows major failure, but there was a time in the life of these capacitors where they were just beginning to fail, when it would not have been possible to see the failure without removing the capacitor. Remember that in the early stages of failure a capacitor may test okay in circuit, for capacitors that can be checked in circuit and the piece of gear may work okay.

The only way to know for sure it to remove the capacitor.

upload_2018-2-14_10-33-16.png

How much additional life can we be sure of for a 20 plus year old capacitor with an unknown history?

It is about comfort level. Is a person more comfortable just replacing obviously bad parts and cleaning controls/switches or is a person more comfortable with the additional exertion/cost involved with a full recap in terms of reliability and possibly improved sound quality.

Improvement in sound quality is one thing, improvement in reliability, especially with older (20 to 40 years old) capacitors with unknown histories is another thing.

Of course it may take more effort to recap, so what if a person is willing/wants to do it?
 
To be fair, the capacitors depicted immediately above are Chinese, low quality, and part of the 'stolen electrolyte generation'. They failed prematurely and regularly and were produced long after the vintage capacitors we are discussing in this thread.

Japanese manufactured vintage (70s-90s) capacitors have proved to be extremely reliable when one considers the sheer number of them in circulation. That said, they are the weak point in reliability, particularly as time, the elements and foreign contaminants are concerned.

I have no problem testing and publishing before and after test results when doing restorations involving full capacitor replacements. I also have no problem in being honest if the gear performs no better after a full replacement of capacitors. I do however know, that I have done my job and replaced the most vulnerable components in vintage gear to ensure the owners get as many years of audio enjoyment from their restored gear as they are likely to get.

Some people want complete originality (I like that on certain pieces of gear), some people want reliability, some want performance improvements but you can't have them all on vintage gear.

Judicious component selection and replacement is what many of us practice here.
 
Last edited:
I'm no tech, but I've had 4 amps completely recapped, and the difference was substantial.


I’ve had the same results/experience. Well worth the effort if you plan on keeping it to enjoy for years to come, or if you just want to hear how 45 y/o components are supposed to sound.
I should also echo what everyone else has stated, it makes them more reliable as well.
 
Steve I swear Im not trying to rib you too hard with this but I had to chuckle inside today when reading this thread.

I just had to touch up the solder connections on an RCA jack in a Arcam Delta integrated amp I sold a friend today. At first I wasnt worried about the time to get it done. Then I discovered to do this required me to COMPLETELY disassemble the unit. And man I mean completely. Front face off, back panel, power transformer removal so on. Thank god it was a smaller unit so this wasnt too terrible.

And you better believe I reflowed and solder dabbed ALL of the RCA jack solder points. Not just the troubled one. Quite frankly Arcam seemed to go a little light in their solder use efforts IMO.

It immediately reminded me of when I had to take apart my Hill amplifier for work. EXACT same build approach what needed to be done for board work.

I cant help but find it funny the 2 UK made pieces I needed to work on recently REALLY reinforced my desire to get whatever preventive work out of the way to avoid having to open it up again.

In the defense of both companies wanting to use a solid one piece bottom approach, I imagine it makes for a solid foundation to build onto. But wow, not a service friendly design.

Again just some personal irony hit while reading this whole thread.

And I get what your saying. But I would say its easier to stomach that approach when your perfectly capable of doing the needed work yourself. If someone is paying someone else to do said work it may well be cheaper for them to have the tech go the extra mile to possibly avoid a future repair need.

To expand on this, I know ALLOT of AK members ship their gear to one of the many talented techs who frequent this site. Id venture to guess these owners would love to avoid paying shipping both ways a second or third time given the chance. Never mind the risk added to it.

In the end its all a personal take and preference. Plus the folks desiring such work make the ultimate call overall. No worries one way or the other.

All the best
 
...To expand on this, I know ALLOT of AK members ship their gear to one of the many talented techs who frequent this site. Id venture to guess these owners would love to avoid paying shipping both ways a second or third time given the chance. Never mind the risk added to it...

No technician likes a repair/restoration to 'bounce' (come back) and shipping costs to Australia aren't cheap. :)
 
I will borrow images from my own thread and my quest for answers - to replace THEM or not. Some of AKers have seen this before but the subject pops up over and over again.
This was my 100% non-scientific test of vintage electrolytic capacitors. Which are paper soaked in electrolyte fluid. Just look at old capacitors quick "footprint"
vs brand new Panasonic FC. Some aged well, some so-so and few are near dead. Epoxy sealed low-leakage orange caps, almost exclusively used in the signal path, (second picture) do not look much better than the regular ones. After seeing this I am not ready to take any chances with the gear I am going to keep, or even give someone as a present.
 

Attachments

  • Copy of Caps 2_5934 RAW copy.jpg
    Copy of Caps 2_5934 RAW copy.jpg
    46.3 KB · Views: 118
  • Copy of Caps 3_6619 RAW copy.jpg
    Copy of Caps 3_6619 RAW copy.jpg
    42.5 KB · Views: 109
Last edited:
Steve I swear Im not trying to rib you too hard with this but I had to chuckle inside today when reading this thread.

I just had to touch up the solder connections on an RCA jack in a Arcam Delta integrated amp I sold a friend today. At first I wasnt worried about the time to get it done. Then I discovered to do this required me to COMPLETELY disassemble the unit. And man I mean completely. Front face off, back panel, power transformer removal so on. Thank god it was a smaller unit so this wasnt too terrible.

And you better believe I reflowed and solder dabbed ALL of the RCA jack solder points. Not just the troubled one. Quite frankly Arcam seemed to go a little light in their solder use efforts IMO.

It immediately reminded me of when I had to take apart my Hill amplifier for work. EXACT same build approach what needed to be done for board work.

I cant help but find it funny the 2 UK made pieces I needed to work on recently REALLY reinforced my desire to get whatever preventive work out of the way to avoid having to open it up again.

In the defense of both companies wanting to use a solid one piece bottom approach, I imagine it makes for a solid foundation to build onto. But wow, not a service friendly design.

Again just some personal irony hit while reading this whole thread.

And I get what your saying. But I would say its easier to stomach that approach when your perfectly capable of doing the needed work yourself. If someone is paying someone else to do said work it may well be cheaper for them to have the tech go the extra mile to possibly avoid a future repair need.

To expand on this, I know ALLOT of AK members ship their gear to one of the many talented techs who frequent this site. Id venture to guess these owners would love to avoid paying shipping both ways a second or third time given the chance. Never mind the risk added to it.

In the end its all a personal take and preference. Plus the folks desiring such work make the ultimate call overall. No worries one way or the other.

All the best
Oh I'm not here to protect the reputation of British hifi! The industry disappeared up its own exit hole in the late 70s when the media driven audiophile thing kicked in, and manufacturers saw it as an opportunity to create cheaper to make, minimalist components housed in utilitarian drab grey tin boxes. I have a Quad amplifier (currently not being used), but otherwise I love the design, looks and performance of Japanese hifi components.
 
I do total recaps while I'm in a unit and restoring it. New Transistors (when needed and known to be failure prone), tear down switches and clean the contacts with Q-tips and DeOxit, resistors, diodes, zeners, lights, etc. replaced if more than 5% out of spec, etc. I do it once and get the hell out of the thing. The main reason is for longevity and reliability as a good portion are going to my grand-kids and I don't want them haunting my grave with dead units. Some units sound better, some don't. But now they are all up to spec, and my grand-kids are enjoying the smaller basic units now. As they get older, they'll get higher ended units, and eventually the tube gear.
 
I do total recaps while I'm in a unit and restoring it. New Transistors (when needed and known to be failure prone), tear down switches and clean the contacts with Q-tips and DeOxit, resistors, diodes, zeners, lights, etc. replaced if more than 5% out of spec, etc. I do it once and get the hell out of the thing. The main reason is for longevity and reliability as a good portion are going to my grand-kids and I don't want them haunting my grave with dead units. Some units sound better, some don't. But now they are all up to spec, and my grand-kids are enjoying the smaller basic units now. As they get older, they'll get higher ended units, and eventually the tube gear.

You sound a great guy Larry, I hope your grand-kids appreciate what you're doing for them!
 
Oh I'm not here to protect the reputation of British hifi! The industry disappeared up its own exit hole in the late 70s when the media driven audiophile thing kicked in, and manufacturers saw it as an opportunity to create cheaper to make, minimalist components housed in utilitarian drab grey tin boxes. I have a Quad amplifier (currently not being used), but otherwise I love the design, looks and performance of Japanese hifi components.

Agreed. And happy you get my point. Yeah clearly I dont see you as the UK arbitrator of design. Again simple irony.

Quad is one brand amp Ive not been lucky enough to stumble on in my travels. If I werent swimming in different amps as it is Id buy one on the net to satisfy my curiosity.

My overall impression of UK build and sound is that of a utilitarian, no frills and flat overall sound. In all honesty I appreciate that over bells whistles smoke and mirrors. But the neutral and or flat sound can be an acquired taste.

I do appreciate the UK pressings / masterings of some of the vintage vinyl Ive bought over the years. Its always a crap shoot how a pressing / mastering goes and never mind when and or what issue. But I feel they did a fine job and in many cases I preferred em.

That looks like a Tandberg in your avatar. May I ask, what is your personal goto system?

Again all the best
 
The OP, yotems, asks what parts the seasoned vets noticed to contribute to sound deterioration with age. As a seasoned vet, I am 69, US Army 1968-1972, I would like to make a few comments about this thread. For someone like me who is currently trying to make some decisions about all the vintage stereo gear I own, and is not a tech, I find these conversations from everyone involved to be very informative, and I wish to thank everyone for their contribution. I have been listening to music every since my first transistor radio in junior high, on to 4 and then 8 track in my car as a senior in high school, to Pioneer amps and speakers and Teac reel to reel when we were overseas in 69-70, to cassettes and records and big receivers of the 70's when I was attending Oregon State on the GI bill, and collecting more stuff every now and then from then on. It's been a great ride, and still is. Even though most of my gear is all original, with the exception of some bulb replacements, great condition, and most still sound good to me, it is getting quite old. Most of it is 40+ years and some of the tube stuff is 50+ years. (I have two Scott 299B's). For the past three years I've been looking at many threads on this site to see what I should do to maintain / repair / restore / sell / buy new. Many choices available to me, and I have been considering the advise of many of you, as there are a lot of excellent opinions and advise. All opinions are meaningful to me. Not being a tech, I will be paying others to do the work, and have found some pretty good repair people in the Eugene(Oregon) area, about 40 miles away. This debate about full recap vs only repair what's wrong, has merit to both sides. Because for someone like me, I feel that it is now OK to have some of my better pieces totally rebuilt, such as my Marantz 2270 and 1060, Pioneer SX-1050. For others like the Sansui 8080db and 5000A, since I don't want to spend a lot of money on them, it will be OK to just have them serviced and repaired as needed. Mr. Hyperion, restorer-john, and many others give great advise that suits what I want to do with some pieces, while steveUK and others give great advise on what I can have done with other pieces. Mr pusteiniake said something in Post #199 that I think was right on, which was "you may choose to risk, or not to risk, but do so with an informed decision. Brilliant statement, and applies exactly with the choices I'm having to make. Mr I LIKE MUSIC states its about comfort level. Also right on for me, as I want some of my better amps and receivers to be as good as they can get, but others I just care about working but don't have to be perfect. With any decision we make about older (or any) stereo gear, there will always be many and sometimes personal "variables" involved. Some decisions will never be black or white. The variables are different from person to person. It occurred to me that I haven't purchased any new stuff since 1992, and since I have never really had great speakers, I want to get a pair of Salk Veracity HT2-TL's and a Parasound Halo Integrated 2.1 to drive them. Should sound pretty good with the Lenco L-75 or the Garrard 301 that I have. Some mornings I get up and can't wait, and other mornings I think I've lost my mind. First I need to sell off a bunch of my excess baggage to actually have some room for a new system. Anyway, enough of my rambling. One last note to Mr hyperion....you were upset about some comments and said you were no longer posting on this thread. Just so you know, I did not think anyones comments were meant to be a real put down, and I valued your input very much, and hope that you and everyone continue to have input in future conversations. I need to hear both sides. Thanks again to ALL..... Steve B
 
In case my input here can be considered as anti-recap I would like to say that I am a recap enthusiast. And I felt a difference sometimes to the better after recap. Once hissing in one channel disappeared in Yamaha CR-1000 after recap, in Marantz 2270 relay kicked in faster, in many other cases there was no difference I could sense but it gave me peace of mind.

But I had bad experience with techs. Once they put polarized caps in place of bipolar and made sound of a unit blurred/soft. This is when I started doing it myself.

Now I use only ultra-low esr caps, Panasonic FR is the yardstick for me at the moment. Otherwise I wouldn't be sure if I was changing to better components.
 
Because for someone like me, I feel that it is now OK to have some of my better pieces totally rebuilt, such as my Marantz 2270 and 1060, Pioneer SX-1050. For others like the Sansui 8080db and 5000A, since I don't want to spend a lot of money on them,

You have two very fine Sansui's there, you sure they are lower down the food chain than the Marantz's?
BTW, thank you for your service, my dad was over there in 69 also.
 
o be fair, the capacitors depicted immediately above are Chinese, low quality, and part of the 'stolen electrolyte generation'. They failed prematurely and regularly and were produced long after the vintage capacitors we are discussing in this thread.

This is true, it was just the first picture that I came to. There was a time in the life of these capacitors when they were in the early stages of failure that may have not been visible without removing the capacitor.

In my decades of professional electronics I have seen examples of capacitors that were just beginning to show physical signs of failure. This was not always visible without removing the capacitor. And the piece of equipment worked okay after repair for the current failure without replacing the capacitor.

Again, how can we predict the remaining life of capacitors that are 20 to 40 years old? It is not necessarily about how they test at the time of a repair, it can be about how they will test in one year or 5 years. Of course it one considers the piece of gear disposable or is not worried about a possible future failure, possibly catastrophic due to capacitor failure then bet on the 20 to 40 year old capacitors.

In my lab I have tested capacitors that I removed from working equipment. They were tested at their typical working voltage and typical working temperature. I tested them for extended periods of time. It was not totally uncommon to find capacitors that tested with in spec at the being of the test and tested out of spec after several hours of continuous testing. And there are any number of AKers that leave their gear for extended periods of time, some even 24/7. Of course not all failed the test, but some capacitors did. I take this as possible indication of approaching end of life or at least a change in the operation of the piece of gear. How much longer these capacitors might have lasted is anybody's guess.

Again, this is just risk management. It becomes about a persons perception of the cost/benefit ratio of doing the work as I mentioned in my previous post. Is there more risk of failure over time with the old capacitors with unknown histories, even if they were reasonably reliable?

To be clear, I am not saying my way or the highway, but to say that there is no advantage to replacing old capacitors with an unknown history is not necessarily always correct. And for those that have limited limited experience with the ins and outs of this, recapping may not be a bad idea.

For example a person may have the skills to replace parts such as capacitors, resistors and so on, but not have the skills to perform in depth trouble shooting in case of a failure. For this person a shot gun approach to maintenance may not be a bad idea.

Each person should make there own informed decision.
 
Back
Top Bottom