Recapping = massive improvement & a great fun!

I had a nice day yesterday. Did a test on a clients D&R 8000 series channel strip, changed every damn cap from it. Almost 20 years old, never been recapped. There's a little bit over 45 capacitors there and about 95% of them on the signal path. :? I just changed them all, would take more time to figure out what are on the signal path and what are not.

Anyway, the owner was complaining about bass problems. I put in some leftover Panasonic FC's (120uF's in place of 47uF's) and boy, you should've heard the improvement when we hooked up a bass and compared it with two channels. More bass, more dynamic, more resolution.

Needless to say, the owner got thrilled and also got an explanation why he felt like he's been having trouble getting the low end in order.

I'm recapping the whole console. 32 channels and all the master section. Probably going to stick with FC caps, sounded good and are cost effective. I'm about to change some 1500-1600 capacitors, so talk about great fun after that. :green:

[quote author="Viitalahde"]20 years old, never been recapped[/quote]

This would be a nice sig for someone. :green:

alo jaako
if the client wouldn`t complaint,you could use other brands and hear the diference against the fc`s.it should be a good lesson about cap`s sound in a circuit.
well,just a tought.
best regards(soldering)
pedro

Yeah, I probably could but this thing is in a hurry.. needs to be done before x-mas and there's only one week of free time before it.

Any chance for some audio clips through old/new channel?

Samuel

Hmm, that'd get a little tricky, especially since the studio is pretty booked until I go and recap the thing.

Hmm.

I'll try to look into that, would be interesting. Maybe we could do a quick recording before the console is taken apart. Three weeks from now.

But I tell you, this was not a small improvent but a night & day difference.

I've also thought of removing some of the caps from the signal path, but so far I've really found 2-3 caps that I would take away. When you have some ~40 caps there anyway, I wouldn't expect much improvement.

I'm about to change some 1500-1600 capacitors

Click to expand...

....now you are trapped!! :green: :green:
....hope he´s gonna pay you well...;-)

Try Nichicon HE too.. very open and neutral, the FC is kinda bright. The Nichicon PW is smoother than the HE but still over the FC in my opinion..

:thumb:

A while ago I got a tele v372d and a v372dig.
They sounded quite good and were working fine... but were all original.
On recommendations here & elsewhere I recapped all the electrolytics in both units-
Wow! They both really opened up on both ends

(BTW Jaakko, in the 80's we had a Harrison 4032 console- they ran 24-volt rails, and each channelstrip had maybe 20 caps rated at 25 volts, They were ALL failing- I singlehandedly replaced EVERY cap in the console- I didn't count, but we bought a thousand caps & I used most of them-
If this is your idea of fun... :roll:

Hi to all,
I am new here with posting, but I read in this great Forum for a while now and WOW. It´s reaaaly great. I learned a realy lot and want to learn even more!!!
Some month ago I got me some Siemens V272 and allready racked them.
All of them are quite old..... the date on the "checkt" sticker says 1968 to 1970. All the Caps seems to be original and never changed. This is also what one can heare. Every one of the V272 sounds a little bit different and infact "very old". It did a good job for some very overbright Key´s and stuff.
So now last weekend I decided to try to recapp at least one of them with any caps I am able to get ..... (not very expensive special ons)..... see how it does and than maybe try anotherone with some better quality caps. On the one hand this will give me the expirience of hearing different types of caps and on the other hand I thought it would be easyer for me to get cheaper caps first.
So I got myselfe a "Bürklin" Cataloge - a big Elektronik Parts supplyer in Munich (Germany).

Btw. maybe someone can explain me what the difference is between an Elektrolyt with "rough electrons" (rauhe Elektronen) and Elektrolyts without that.

So far so good...... first one C1 10uF 35V elektrolyt -allright found one measured lengh ...... fits in!!!
Secound one: 25uF ...... not in the list... only 22uF.... searched at other supplyer (conrad) no 25uF.
Same problem with oher C´s like 250uF.
Now one question is: If I will use an 22uf and an 2.2uf in parallel what kind of problems will I force soundwise. This will lead to a bigger Voltage leak, right? I will also not reach the 25 exact, but due to tollerances, maybe even the orginal one should not be (have been) 25uF exact....
Am I right so far?
Or maybe I sould just buy a lot of 22uF elektrolyts and due to tollerances (bürklin one´s have -10/+30 is for sure not good) I should be able to find via measurement some 25uF.
Maybe this is all stupid.
So how is it done? For sure one of my personal big problems is to find out, where in my area can I get a big assort of Caps..... Maybe there are some other German guys in this forum, who are able to help me in this case.

greetings to all of you....... great forum!!!!!

Stephan

Hi all. Slightly OT but...Do you all think I could benefit having the caps replaced in my Tascam M-2600mkII console? It's from around '98 or '99 or is it to soon? Or...does it matter, just as long as the caps are better quality? Thanks.

Depends. If the 'lytics see dc bias, they will last longer if they are just used to block dc offset, and only see millivolts of working voltage instead of volts; what happens is they dry out prematurely and lose their capacitance quicker when not biased with a voltage near the working voltage spec'd on the cap.

So, if they are not biased with dc voltage, I would say you should look to replace them within the year (6-8 years total use). If they are biased (as in a unipolar supply circuit), then they could last for 10 years or so without appreciable degredation. Of course you could always upgrade to a higher quality cap, and that could give you improved sonics as well.

Hey there guys,
I'm installing a studio in about 1 month or 2 and the console is an Amek Mozart. The console has been off (completely disconnected) for about 2 years. :shock: . I'm debating a serious recapping, since I think the last time it was done, it was about 8 years ago.
What do you think?
The cool thing is that I'll have a chance of trying different brands and series (within reason). What would you guys recomend? Pana FCs?? Nichicon HE, or PW?? what else would be a good choice?
thanks
Gil

Interesting read. It brings up some questions that have been in my head for a while.

1. When looking at a schematic, how do you determine what is in the signal path or not. I'm really new reading schematics. I can locate the parts on the schem and on the board, but don't understand the flow. Any resources for learning about this?

2. When looking at µf values, how do you know that they can be altered? You mentioned you changed the value in one spot and it made a difference, but how did you determine the replacement value?

Thanks

Matt

[quote author="Viitalahde"]I'm recapping the whole console. 32 channels and all the master section. Probably going to stick with FC caps, sounded good and are cost effective. I'm about to change some 1500-1600 capacitors, so talk about great fun after that. :green:[/quote]

I did my Neotek Series II about a year ago and was damn happy I had a Plato desoldering tool! I used the Nichicon mentioned in an earlier post and am very happy with the results.

BTW, you've probably have already sussed this out, but if the power supply hasn't been recapped you might want to do that as well.

Cheers and happy soldering,
--
Don

[quote author="DerEber"]Hi to all,
I am new here with posting, but I read in this great Forum for a while now and WOW. It´s reaaaly great. I learned a realy lot and want to learn even more!!!
Some month ago I got me some Siemens V272 and allready racked them.
All of them are quite old..... the date on the "checkt" sticker says 1968 to 1970. All the Caps seems to be original and never changed. This is also what one can heare. Every one of the V272 sounds a little bit different and infact "very old". It did a good job for some very overbright Key´s and stuff.
So now last weekend I decided to try to recapp at least one of them with any caps I am able to get ..... (not very expensive special ons)..... see how it does and than maybe try anotherone with some better quality caps. On the one hand this will give me the expirience of hearing different types of caps and on the other hand I thought it would be easyer for me to get cheaper caps first.
So I got myselfe a "Bürklin" Cataloge - a big Elektronik Parts supplyer in Munich (Germany).

Btw. maybe someone can explain me what the difference is between an Elektrolyt with "rough electrons" (rauhe Elektronen) and Elektrolyts without that.

So far so good...... first one C1 10uF 35V elektrolyt -allright found one measured lengh ...... fits in!!!
Secound one: 25uF ...... not in the list... only 22uF.... searched at other supplyer (conrad) no 25uF.
Same problem with oher C´s like 250uF.
Now one question is: If I will use an 22uf and an 2.2uf in parallel what kind of problems will I force soundwise. This will lead to a bigger Voltage leak, right? I will also not reach the 25 exact, but due to tollerances, maybe even the orginal one should not be (have been) 25uF exact....
Am I right so far?
Or maybe I sould just buy a lot of 22uF elektrolyts and due to tollerances (bürklin one´s have -10/+30 is for sure not good) I should be able to find via measurement some 25uF.
Maybe this is all stupid.
Stephan[/quote]

I don't think that the difference batween 22uf and 25uf caps will be audible- I wouldn't worry about it, and just use the 25's...

[quote author="idylldon"]if the power supply hasn't been recapped you might want to do that as well.[/quote]

Actually I haven't yet thought of it. I'll have to ask what has been done with it. I know it blew some time ago and was fixed.. maybe it's already recapped.

Hi again. Hopefully I'm not hi-jacking this thread, but I have another question about my Tascam M-2600mkII. Well...not really a question but an after thought.
The M-2600mkII is a decent sounding console for what it is, (IMHO). It's laid out ok and has good features. The thing that puzzles me is that in the manual it says" TheM-2600mkII has different level conversions happening at certain stages to lower noise in the console". It converges from input, +4 then as it travels down the signal path it goes to -10. Then back to +4 to -10, out the master at +4..! ( I know I'm simplifying this but....)

Even to a "un-technical" guy as myself.. ..this seems to go against the rule of "gain staging"! ( someone crrect me if I'm wrong) It seems more logical, though not as cost effective, to just put in better components and leave the signal path at +4 all the way thru.! I know a resistor cost less than a good op-amp ( I think) but sheeesh..! I think if Tascam had paid attention to these details when they made this console instead of putting "band-aids" to give good specs on paper, they would have had a well designed,"sleeper" of a board! As it is, iI think it still outperforms the Mackie (IMHO,as well as others)

I'm looking at the Toft console that's soon to be released and maybe getting it. But..call me crazy.. :evil: ..if I could get these issues corrected in my Tascam, better op-amps, caps, etc. I'll think I'll rather keep my Tascam..! Anyone up to some "reverse engineering" or what ever yawl do to fix stuff right..! Thanks....... :green:

I don't think your Tascam issues can be made better with simple component replacements. It's really a matter of design, and running the innards at lower level keeps the headroom in order.

I think Steffen has a Tascam 2600 too?

Hey, thanks for the reply Viitalahde. Maybe Steffen will chime in and give his thoughts on the M-2600, maybe tell whether he has modded his or not!
Thanks again.