[Dan Banquer]

I have a set of pre production LNPA 150 monoblocks in the living room that are used for the "entertainment center" that are now 15 years old, so this summer I decided to re-cap them as the electrolytic caps are now closing in on the end of their life cycle. Both monoblocks were working just fine before the project started.
After a thorough cleaning out of assorted dust , dirt and cobwebs, I replaced all of the electrolytic caps with Sprague electrolytics and updated the units to the my last set of changes. (these are very minor changes) I observed that as I brought them back up the amps had maintained the pre set voltages and currents I set close to 15 years ago. There was damn little, if any, drift over time. Try that with a 15 year old tube amp!
For those if you with aging solid state units, You may wish to consider doing what I have done because the price to replace the caps in both monoblocks was about $150.00 including shipping. The price of the Windex cleaner, Isopropyl Alcohol, and paper towels used is really marginal so I will not consider that as part of the overall expense.
I hope that 15 years from now I will be alive and able to post something like this again, because no one really knows just how long transistors last if you keep them inside of their specified ranges.
               d.b.

[nathanm]

Hey Dan, here's a scholarly question that I have about caps and the like: what's a good way to identify the type of replacement part you should get (for a layman)?  How would I learn the different names of the parts by looking at them?  Usually there's a value number on the side, so that much I can figure out, but I'm still stumped on the shapes\types\sizes etc.  Soldering I can handle, but I just don't know what to shop for amongst the 350 billion different caps in the world!  Is there like a Capacitors For Dummies book or something?

[Dan Banquer]

Hi Nathan;
   I don't know of any capacitor book for dummies, but the way I learned was to look at the capacitor and note the capacitance, voltage, diameter, length, and lead spacing. Then go to the data sheets from capacitor manufacturers and find the part that matches. Fortunately, many capacitor makers make the same or similar caps that are the exact same size. This does make life easy.  Good luck.
                d.b.

[BobM]

Funny, I have an NAD3155 integrated amp that has been sitting idle in my basement for about 15 years. It was in use for the prior 5 years or so before that. I have been toying with the idea of recapping it and putting it to use in my sitting room, and also powering the outdoor speakers. No critical listening in either location.

I'll have to open it up and dig around a bit to identify the cap values I'll need. I bet there's no surface mount anything in there though. I'll probably try to get Nichicon's KG/KZ's for the power supply. Not sure about the signal path caps though. Maybe KZ's there as well. It all depends on how many and how available the replacements are.

Then again, there's always the Panny's available from Digikey.

Definitely a project for the upcoming winter months.

Enjoy,
Bob

[ctviggen]

You can also take whatever data is on the cap and plug it into Google.  With some luck, you'll find the correct capacitance value and even type of cap.  When I fixed my broken Creek amp, this is what I did.  Some of the smaller caps don't have a lot on them.