Does equipment get old?

T-Bone: I figure that anything more than 8-10 years old is going to require some refurbishing to sound right (I'm talking tube gear).

I used to have my old Dynaco, Eico and McIntosh gear recapped every 8 years, or so, and my tube guitar amps @ least every 5 years (they always sounded better afterwards).

The only thing is that I am not familar with "modern" caps and resistors as the ones that I used were the same and/or close to the original parts (the last recap that I had done was in the mid 80's).

I need to recap a couple of 40 year old amps (that I have owned for aprrox. one year) and am concerned that modern caps may change the sound too much, though I don't see the point in placing 20 year old (plus) Illinois caps in them (which would sound similar to the originals).

Not much help, am I?

I've heard that the older, paper caps (used in mcintosh for one) can leak over time and need to be replaced.

From my memory of the Last Whole Earth catalog: The flow of energy through a system tends to organize it.

I put a 1970 Dynaco Stereo 120 in the attic that worked fine when I stashed it. Years later, the moment I fired it up it lost a channel. The offending part cost 60 cents. The labor was $60. Over the course of 30 years the only non-abuse, solid state casualty I've experienced in daily use was to a $200 Japanese receiver on KP duty. Ok, I admit I only connected one channel and ran it in mono for a coupla years until it died. But hey, I had just one extra speaker. The clear plastic tuning indicator made a nice staight edge.

Buzzing tubed components require a good whap every now and then to show them who's boss. But seriously, quality high-end products are worth restoring. So no worries. Leave em plugged in!