The death of an amplifier

Actually religion is run by people who couldn't find God in their limited perspective which was the reason Jesus was so unhappy with religion. To give 'will' the benefit of the doubt though, I guess one persons pasttime can be anothers pointless religion.

Hi Nate, I agree with Tom that it is very difficalt to prevent a component going bad on you. Just keep the unit well aerated to avoid heat build up and try no to abuse it with too many parties! Other than that I persoanlly like to air blast the dust that accumulates in the unit once in a while, I clean the contacts (for better sound not reliability) and I like to spray the switches with some type of NON RESIDUE contact cleaner. Of course, ONLY do these things with the unit DISCONNECTED from electricity and ONLY if you are comfortable opening up the unit yourself. Otherwise DON'T do it! Aragon equipment are famous for reliability. Enjoy your amp and do not stress yourself over equipment failure.

Actually, religion is finite man's (homemade) attempts to reach an infinite God. Not real practical when you think about it.

Generally in electronics circuits, the capacitors are the first to go - but are generally replacable. Transistors should be the last to go if they are not overloaded or have very high bias current (heat is bad). Arthur

Keep the amp cool as possible. Only power on when you are listening. Blow out the dust now and then. Heatsinks must be sparkly clean, dust reduces cooling. 

I have severeal receivers that are 35 years old, Used daily, no repairs. no recaps. I find transistors fail as often as caps, again not too often. They are affected by temperature too.

Do not recap an amp just because someone tells you to. Im telling you not to. Caps are likely to go bad first though overheated resistors are close. Caps lose their moisture over time and when its gone its over.
Someone should look into replacing the moisture via a syrenge through the rubber end. Maybe 1 CC per cubic inch and wait a day roll it around to distribute.

 I have 30 year old caps in MR equipment 3000 tube units. less than 20 caps replaced except for a bad batch from Illinois. Bad chemistry they actually loose connection, then leak and end up open. 

Cap life is doubled for 10 degrees C you can cool it.