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Do IC Chips in amplifiers deteriorate with time.

T

theokalat

Active Member
I was wondering if the IC chips or mosfets in amplifiers as old as late 70's and into the 80's vintage go bad or deteriorate with time.

If not, how bulletproof are they, can they suddenly just stop working.

Reason why I am asking is I am looking at a pair of accuphase pre and power amps, the c200X/L/V series and P300X/L/V series made in the 80's.

These amps are quite expensive to buy second hand, so I want to be a bit cautious.

This thread could be of some help to anyone looking into any brand amplifier (vintage or not) with IC chips.

These Accuphase amps, in particular the v series preamps have 28 IC chips, and was thinking being that old, what are the chances of replacing any chip with an exact type or suitable substitute if it went bad.

Any advise from the knowledgeable AK members would be greatly apreciated.
 
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Well, as with anything, it depends. \:^)

It depends on what chips they used as to whether you could find replacements. If fairly common op-amps were used, most of them are still available. If they were proprietary (unlikely but possible), however, who knows?

As far as reliability, it is very rare for a well designed chip to fail under normal operating conditions. Lightening or extreme surge circumstances are a different story but, usually, chips mounted to boards will be OK if they presently are.

If you can try the units out and everything works, I wouldn't be too hesitant to buy them.

Doug
 
Many thanks for your valuable advise and input Doug G.

This puts my mind at ease, I will go ahead and purchase these accuphase units and put them up against my cx1/ mx1 and see which one sounds better.

Will be going into my second system though, unless the P300V and C200V comprehensively beat the Yammies.

Must be one of Yamaha's best but most underrated component sets ever. Possibly due to their bland appearance.
 
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the answer is yes...if an amp is very old sometimes when you play it for the first time after 10 years of storage once you put up the volume it can overloud and burn out the ic.
 
Failing would be one thing- what about being behind the times? My old BGW amp has ancient metal can LM318's as front ends. Maybe there's a replacement that could update it a bit?
 
sfox52 said:
Failing would be one thing- what about being behind the times? My old BGW amp has ancient metal can LM318's as front ends. Maybe there's a replacement that could update it a bit?
Click to expand...

Possibly.But the front end was designed around that opamp.Replacing with a faster one could very well cause problems ie. oscillation.Other modifications would most probably be required.
 
Basically, IC's are supposed to last 100 years. On paper. In practice they rarely do. Especially stuff from the 70's. The encapsulation process was not as good then, and some IC's were known to get noisy, staticy and fail. This was mostly due to impurities.

Still, I wouldn't worry about it. Most of these can be replaced with better modern equivalents. Like the noisy op-amps in the Revox A700 for example. These IC's no longer exist (even though I have a batch of them ) and are usually replaced with much quieter one's anyway.

IC's can last a day or 100 years. There is no telling for certain.

EVERYTHING deteriorates. Only pure gold seems to withstand atrophy. Enjoy it while it lasts. :thmbsp:
 
It would be an interesting study to find out the percentage of solid state devices ever made which are still serviceable if they haven't been destroyed.

No, I am NOT about to launch such a study. It would just be interesting.

Any estimates?

I estimate 90%

Doug
 
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