I have a number of Hafler products. The IRIS PREAMP, TUNER and CD, equalizer, SE240 power amp. I have had to replace a number of diptant caps on these. And it's pretty easy for the IRIS products.
The caps are usually orange blobs and will load the +/- supply rail down. If you have a low ohmeter you can get closer to where the shorted one is. Removing the IRIS board can help isolate where it is and gets better access to the board below. All 3 IRIS units will run manually without remote cards. If after removal of the IRIS power is still shorted check the main board. And yes there are diptants on the display boards (hardest to get to). I have unplugged the unit and jumpered an external, variable, Current limited supply (good to 5 amps 15Volts ) to the offending supply rail. In one case the bad cap got hot and reveiled itself. Another spiked current for a second and opened back up. Diptants with small shorts can self heal. Leave the unit on for 24 hours to seal the heal. That unit is still running 3 years later. OR just replace all the diptants (about a dozen) and upgrade from 25V to 35V
The volume control/remote on the preamp is very unique. Volume is NOT adjusted by a pot in the signal path.. a Clarex is a photo diode coupled to a photo transistor. No rubbing contact. Digital circuitry sets the DC level to the photo diode controlling the volume. That DC signal can come from from panel setting or from the signal sent to the IRIS board via the remote. No up arrow, down arrow on the remote volume and balance knobs that follow the rotation quickly. If you have a volume imbalance left to right channel you will have to go through a lot to figure it out. There is DAC and a log circuit to set those levels. In my case the clarex has aged so I use balance to correct imbalance at low levels.
I do have some schematics for the IRIS units.
