Harman Kardon Citation 11

Well another revelation. I shouldn't be surprised. I brought out a used Technics 1200 and connected it up. The motorboating I was speaking of earlier was absent. Hmmm I now have a Kenwood TT in phone 1 and it also is absent, whatever signal is coming from my Dual. Next I have to connect two tables and see whats up. The Citation is getting better all on it's own. FM
 
I just started getting a little hum from my citation 11 after almost a year of use (purchased from eBay from a non-technical seller). It has all the original capacitors. I run it with a citation 12 and made my own version of the funky cable to run the amp back to the pre for speaker switching. I shipped it off today to Patrick on eBay, who regularly advertises a rebuild of the Citation 11. I took the cover off the other day and I could press down on the top of the filter cap, I think it's bulging a bit. I'll let you guys know how the rebuild goes! Hoping the hum goes away and the sound is slightly improved. I like this pre for the versatility. Where else can you find a vintage preamp with so many inputs/outputs? I've had a hard time finding a system I prefer to the H/K citations with a few large Advent speakers.
 
Got the 11 back from Patrick the other day, and I am impressed. Sounds great, looks great. He was able to answer any questions I had during the repair process and I actually learned a lot about this preamp and the Citation 12 as well. Highly recommend sending him your Citation equipment if you don't feel too confident about soldering and/or purchasing the right components.
 
Oops. I subbed 63v caps for 100v. These need to stay 100v. The schematic shows a max of 50v, but the caps in the power supply are at higher voltages before the dropping resistors. Here are some measured voltages
C6: 81v
C802/4: 71v
C803/5: 61v
C810/11: 57v
C801: 48v
C806/8: 57v
C807/9: 33v

So here is the revised cap list for the power supply.

Chassis,,,,,,,,,
C6,1000uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A102MHD,1000uf,100,,,
,,,,,,,,,
Power,,,,,,,,,
C801,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,
C802,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,
C803,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,
C804,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,
C805,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,
C806,47uf,63,electrolytic,TVX1J101MAD,100uf,63,axial,,
C807,500uf,50,electrolytic,UPW1H102MHD,1000uf,50,,,
C808,47uf,63,electrolytic,TVX1J101MAD,100uf,63,axial,,
C809,500uf,50,electrolytic,UPW1H102MHD,1000uf,50,,,
C810,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,
C811,50uf,100,electrolytic,UPW2A101MHD,100uf,100,,,

John
 
Thanks John. managed to fill the order. Can you tell me what is the rubbery adhesive holding the caps to the board??
 
Actually, it's a very good preamp; one of the few ss pre's I've kept (along with a NAD 1155 and a Yamaha C70).
Here's a Stereophile review from '79 that talks about the issues with the pre and still ends with:

"we recommend (with practically no reservations) the Citation Eleven as ths first choice of any audio perfectionist who values sound quality above all else but can't Justify or afford an Audio Research SP-3"
https://www.stereophile.com/solidpreamps/473hk/index.html

If you could find a Citation 12 to pair with it, you could do much, much worse.

Never trust Stereophile reviews. Their endorsements are for sale to the highest advertiser's bidding. Watch - when the new model comes out, the old one is junk and you MUST upgrade.
 
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