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Capacitors for recap, anyone used these?

Paul-H said:
Should we trust a company that claims an Amplifiers output wattage is what's written on the the power consumption label on the back, that's screams that they don't know what they are doing
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Mfr. Consumption wattage labels are (legally required) how many watts the unit consumes. same as any appliance. It has nothing to do with an amplifier's rated output to speaker wattage. :D
 
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In your thread we're trying to help you not make a mistake. I'm not being superior!!! Consumer labels has come up before thinking it has something to do with output.
 
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I was close to pulling the trigger on a recap kit for my Sansui AU-D5 currently in service. Figured why not recap it and renew it's life. Then when I read the part they don't include the big power caps for the price, I backed away and didn't order.
I didn't realize that shelf life play a critical role in the age of the caps as well. I've seen alot of NOS on flebay and think: Hey, those are original parts that my unit needs, but I don't know how long those parts have been in storage in a hot warehouse or
a musty ass basement. Not to mention the quality of the parts.

I ordered Nichicon power caps for my Fisher CA880 from a flebay site that showed the picture of the actual ones I needed with the 4 legs. When i finally get them in, they're the 2 legged ones. I emailed them several times for an exchange to no avail. So with some inginuity I made them work.


Hopefully Paul-H, you'll find the ones you need and get your unit fixed. Good luck brother!
 
A lot of us may understand the Power consumption label on the back of an amp is total power consumed,
and not watts output of the amp sections, but its possible at one time we did see it that way.
All your comments sounded helpful! Take care.
 
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When I was a kid I will admit I've been guilty of that, until a radio/tv repair tech explained it to me.
 
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Reverb.com is just a collection of classifieds, a bit like Gumtree/craigslist (caveat emptor) for music/audio stuff. Different people selling different stuff. Mr. Parts Kits probably has nuffin' to do with Mr Power Output.

The main caps are a bit expensive so I can understand why they are an option. It would be nice to know what he is supplying to replace the LL caps and the more troublesome transistors e.g. 2SC1451

If/when I get around to repairing this amp I'll have a closer look. Now that I'm retired I thought I would have plenty of spare time to do these jobs - hasn't worked out like that :(
 
Paul-H said:
Pioneer A-70 Upgrade Kit Audio Capacitors
https://www.audio-high-store.com/product/pioneer-a-70-upgrade-kit-audio-capacitors/

€30 for 32 Nichicon audio capacitors sounds quite reasonable to me, is it too reasonable to be true.
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Hi Paul.

The confusion over choosing replacement capacitors does appear to raise a lot of eyebrows and comes up a lot. I agree with others here in that it is usually the PSU that should be the first port-of-call, and leaving those caps out isn't a good move. I too found that 'audio high store' company while looking for a way of recapping my Sansui AU-222. I haven't had any experience with them, but their kit prices do look fairly reasonable. But in the end I used a tiny little shop in Solihull, near Birmingham called BitsBox who ordered me some ELNA Silmic II's and some Panasonic FC caps and they were very reasonable- they prefer to work online and via email, because their 'shop' is only really a trade counter, and it's absolutely tiny. Unlike Mouser or RS they won't charge silly money for postage or caps in minimum amounts of 5, 10 or even 200 even though you may only need one, and if they think there is a demand for audio caps, they'll get them in for you- which they will as I found out. It seems the guitar FX pedal building community love using high quality audio caps- especially Panasonics and ELNA Silmics. So audio amp supplies, no problem.

Do spend a lot of time researching what you need though, because it seems not all e-caps are the same. Some will work for longer at higher temperatures (not always needed in the actual audio circuit, but most probably in the power circuits) and some are just for the extremely paranoid, or more to the point, Nichicons which appear to come in so many different versions, yet some engineers out there think that this could be excessive unless you are repairing really high-end equipment, and nothing less will do. And even then...

Hi-Fi Collective in High Wycombe seem like a good place too, although somewhat pricey, and more aimed at constructors of valve-based equipment. But they do sell Nichicons and ELNA's.

Also it really helps having a copy of the service manual too, so you can make a BOM from that. Some of the caps in my Sansui are no longer available- like 500µF. 470µF should work fine as a substitute, but just make sure the voltage rating is either the same or higher. Never lower! And modern caps are also way smaller than they were 30-50 years ago. This really threw me at first. So did 'radial' types vs 'plug in' types. The latter being bigger than the radial types, and even then the spacing between pins/legs on the caps can be different to what they were 30 years ago. All very annoying!

I watched this excellent video recently on YT, which really helped if and when choosing Nichicons (although Panasonic FC's or ELNA's look like they'll do just fine too)


I hope this helps alleviate some of the confusion!

Tom (Birmingham)
 
If it is of any relevance for the OP and anyone who might be interested: With no intention to label anything or anyone, Bulgaria was and might still be the uncrowned kingdom of counter fake goods. At least at that part of the world. How do I know - first hand, as I still own about 40-50 music CDs which I bought in my country (neighbor to Bulgaria) for around 2$ each when the full price was ~20$. You could buy them at any corner and they were very good. In fact so good than once I got in Canada I managed to buy the originals and compared the sound.
It was hard to tell them apart, if at all.
The scale of different operations was so huge that European Union and Interpol had to intervene. To be fair I am talking mid to late 90s but from what I have heard things did not change much.
Just out of curiosity I looked at their compilation parts lists for many amps and receivers, and none of them was complete. I compared only what I had handwritten from my own lists, and most of the time big filter caps and PS capacitors are missing. All in all, I would not buy any electronic components from there, on a blind date or in person.
 
www.audio-high-store.com
I ordered from them a set for Sony TA-F870 ES,after 1,5 month waiting I claimed that had not received yet.They promised to send it again,but when after another week I asked for any confirmation of delivery they kept silence.This time I claimed to PayPal and surprisingly they very quickly accepted .
So ,from my experience I would not recomend audio-high-store,waste of time and money
 
Stevebindu said:
www.audio-high-store.com
I ordered from them a set for Sony TA-F870 ES,after 1,5 month waiting I claimed that had not received yet.They promised to send it again,but when after another week I asked for any confirmation of delivery they kept silence.This time I claimed to PayPal and surprisingly they very quickly accepted .
So ,from my experience I would not recommend audio-high-store,waste of time and money
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I had a similar experience with Audio-High-store .
 
I was thinking of getting a recap kit from Audio High Store for my Philips FA960 II amp- this has stopped me in my tracks. I haven't found an online source for a cap list so it seems I am back to square one.

Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences in this thread.
 
Mind_Drive said:
I was thinking of getting a recap kit from Audio High Store for my Philips FA960 II amp- this has stopped me in my tracks. I haven't found an online source for a cap list so it seems I am back to square one.

Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences in this thread.
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The best thing to do is to go in your own amp and make a list. Going by the service manual can net you some errors and even going off of someone elses BOM might get you in trouble as there are often production changes, sometimes many of them, which will have values differ between units.

I go through my projects, write down the values of what I need and make a mark on the components with a Sharpie so I know it's been counted. Make sure you aren't mistaking any bi-polar caps for polar as they are sometimes easy to miss. After I make a list, I recheck as you're bound to miss something. Check once more for good measure and place your order.
 
Thanks Binkman and OMGCat!- as I said the experiences on here made me go right back to searching Mouser/RS Components/Farnell (I'm in the UK).

Thanks for the link- I am being a bit dumb here, and am new to this- I had already downloaded this service manual, but wasn't aware that a full component list is in each one! I probably didn't scrutinise it carefully, being largely after the idle current adjustment info.
 
Mind_Drive said:
Thanks for the link- I am being a bit dumb here, and am new to this- I had already downloaded this service manual, but wasn't aware that a full component list is in each one! I probably didn't scrutinise it carefully, being largely after the idle current adjustment info.
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You can use the service manual list as a start, often better to do an accounting of each board. Often changes were made between what the SM has in it and what was produced. Different transistors can be used, cap values and voltages can change, some may have been removed or were missed in the SM list. Over time they may have found issues and made changes during the production run.

Recently restored the crackling fix and repair SX-636 Binkman had put on Craigslist as cheap fix and repair. Replacing transistors known to be troublesome and new electrolytic capacitors can make a lot of difference. It's back to being a nice sounding lower end Pioneer.
 
I have used them in the past and would say if you are not in a rush go for it but be prepared to raise a case with PayPal asking for a refund and then they will send them to you! I would not use them again tbh but the components they send out are legit. Good luck. Cheers.
 
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