Amp repair cost — is this right?

Audiogon is a very strange place. I’m simply asking if this price is in the right range and getting some really strange responses that don’t answer that question.

I don’t see that as unreasonable. If one cap has already failed and it has 18 caps in it, its reasonable to assume that if they are all the same part that they will have similar reliability. Electrolytic caps have a sort of ’half life’ which is to say that after a certain amount of time about half of them have failed. The thing is, they go downhill after a while and even though they might appear to be working and the amp seems to sound alright, if you change out the caps the amp sounds better.


IME the typical ’half life’ of caps in a tube amp is about 20 years. Its a little longer in solid state stuff because there is less heat but that might mean only 5 extra years. But some caps have known problems and may not last so long... So changing out all the caps is a good idea if you like the amp. Otherwise you put the power transformer at risk and sometimes that part can be really hard to find and really expensive- at that point you may well find that its not worth repair. So if you like the amp get the caps changed and you can keep liking it.


It takes time to remove parts and replace them without making a mess of the project. My shop is cheap- about $90.00/hour; expect to pay about the same as a good mechanic charges.


Just the 8 ’large filter caps’ might cost about $800.00-$1200.00 if they are large computer grade parts often seen in many amps; that does not leave a lot of room for the rest of the caps and the labor.

Hi everyone. Thanks to @jafant for the suggestion I reached out to Music Technology in Virginia and spoke to a very helpful tech. He said they charge $120/hr for labor, plus a flat $25 fee for little stuff like diodes, resistors, and disposal cost. When I told him I was guessing $200 for caps he said that was probably a high estimate. I asked, without knowing what's wrong, if you are recapping an old amp how many hours would you spend? He said it depends on many things like point to point wiring, schematics of the amp, etcetera but figure on about average 3 hours, so $360, plus parts and return shipping. When I asked if $600-$800 was a reasonable guess he said that sounded too high...

they are snap mount medium sized garden variety 63-80v capacitors. 15kuf-20kuf each. 8 of them. About $15US each at digikey.

something like this:https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/united-chemi-con/ESMH800VRT223MB80T/4002961

They are not high grade Nichicon non magnetic specialized ’found only at Parts connexion or Micheal Percy’ (or other specialty high end audio suppliers) ’super audio grade’ $50-60 each capacitors.

The given shop should attach a cost, maybe 25-30% extra for the parts (some go as high as 50%), than the total cost of procuring the ’common’ parts. Money out, all of it - needs to be compensated for. But things should stay in some form/shape of reason...
this concerns a repair shop, cars, electronics, etc.
manufacturing is a different beast altogether. One that requires much greater ratios, in order to survive the long lists of costs and financial extensions that take place - when attempting to manufacture in such a crazy world as high end audio. Overhead is insane.

@ atmasphere (Ralph) you say the replacement cost for the large multiple filter caps is 800 to 1200.00. Then teo_audio says 15.00 max cost per cap. Also roberjerman says these caps are quite inexpensive. Are you all referring to the ’same’ capacitors? Such a vast cost spectrum being cited. Ralph you build and repair audio electronics and would know. Just curious as to the wide variance of price.
Charles

Ralph uses  far more expensive capacitors in his gear. Inescapably so.

Much higher voltages, much lower manufacturing levels of those capacitors, thus per unit costs are much higher for a plethora of reasons., so his costs are a totally different beast.

And I'll get no deeper into it than that - not my purview.