Anyone know the story with Marcon capacitors?
- Thread starter Robisme
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Wile this is an old thread now I thought I would add my 2 cents worth...
Marcon was indeed originally owned by Toshiba and in 1995 was acquired by Nippon Chemi-con https://www.procureinc.com/manufacturer/Marcon_-_United_Chemi-Con/
I have recently acquired a mid 70s AMI Jorgen A-555 stereo amplifier for a small outlay. The owner said it was dead on the left channel but when I got it home and tested it I found nothing wrong with the left channel. It seems he wasn't aware that with the balance control hard over on RIGHT the left channel receives no input signal - duh!
Anyway I thought I would check out the power supply which used a couple of 2200uF Marcon axial caps and one 470uF Marcon axial cap. I Removed these caps to test for both capacitance and Tan-Delta quality (more indicative than simple ESR). I was surpised to find that the 2200u caps measured at least 2500u and the 470u measured over 600u - very good. The Tan-Delta test for all 3 caps was equally surprising showing a low value of around 0.08, where anything under 0.1 for these values and voltage rating is very good - the lower the reading the better the performance as a filter cap. I suspect that when properly run in during operation this figure would drop even lower. The very good Tan-Delta reading indicates that these Marcon caps are very good quality indeed and still with near new indicative measurements. Not bad for caps around 50 years old.
Marcon was indeed originally owned by Toshiba and in 1995 was acquired by Nippon Chemi-con https://www.procureinc.com/manufacturer/Marcon_-_United_Chemi-Con/
I have recently acquired a mid 70s AMI Jorgen A-555 stereo amplifier for a small outlay. The owner said it was dead on the left channel but when I got it home and tested it I found nothing wrong with the left channel. It seems he wasn't aware that with the balance control hard over on RIGHT the left channel receives no input signal - duh!
Anyway I thought I would check out the power supply which used a couple of 2200uF Marcon axial caps and one 470uF Marcon axial cap. I Removed these caps to test for both capacitance and Tan-Delta quality (more indicative than simple ESR). I was surpised to find that the 2200u caps measured at least 2500u and the 470u measured over 600u - very good. The Tan-Delta test for all 3 caps was equally surprising showing a low value of around 0.08, where anything under 0.1 for these values and voltage rating is very good - the lower the reading the better the performance as a filter cap. I suspect that when properly run in during operation this figure would drop even lower. The very good Tan-Delta reading indicates that these Marcon caps are very good quality indeed and still with near new indicative measurements. Not bad for caps around 50 years old.
I am rebuilding a TEAC V-530X tape deck from the early 80s. Mostly has Marcon caps, and though I am going to refresh the power supply, all of the caps I have pulled test good. Haven't pulled any low voltage caps yet, so can't say how they faired with age, but I won't be pulling and testing many others.
EDIT: Some of the low voltage caps are showing signs of age, as are some of the caps near heat sinks. They are 105C rated, however, which has probably helped them hold on as well as they have for so long. Will come up with a rebuild thread at some point. Only have a scat to go by, but it does have a nicely marked audio path. Bought it new the summe after my freshman year in college, and it still sounds good, but some quirky things have cropped up like no LEDs for the R channel meter (which is probably bad solder joints, but I digress...
EDIT: Some of the low voltage caps are showing signs of age, as are some of the caps near heat sinks. They are 105C rated, however, which has probably helped them hold on as well as they have for so long. Will come up with a rebuild thread at some point. Only have a scat to go by, but it does have a nicely marked audio path. Bought it new the summe after my freshman year in college, and it still sounds good, but some quirky things have cropped up like no LEDs for the R channel meter (which is probably bad solder joints, but I digress...
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AudioAvarice
Super Member
My Stax DA-80 is full of them, I really need to get around to replacing them as they are getting on for 50 years old, but they still look, and sound good to me.
philster
Active Member
A lot of the older Nikko stuff has the Marcon caps expecially the large filter caps. They probably got a large discount from buying in bulk. I have a couple of mid 90's Nikko preamps the Beta 400 series which used nothing but Nichicon Muse caps which looks pretty cool with all the dark green caps populated thru out.
I have 2 Alpha II and Alpha III amps and all of them have Marcon caps with the 10000uf 70vdc filter caps. The light grey caps they used were of the cheaper variety as almost everyone I pulled was way out of spec but being 40-50 years old what would you expect
I have 2 Alpha II and Alpha III amps and all of them have Marcon caps with the 10000uf 70vdc filter caps. The light grey caps they used were of the cheaper variety as almost everyone I pulled was way out of spec but being 40-50 years old what would you expect
