Amplifier Longevity Question
When I got started with quality two-channel equipment, after my first pair of decent speakers (B&W CDM-7NTs), I bought a Magnum Dynalab MD208 receiver. This was in approx. 2001; a leap of faith, based mostly on a Stereophile review. About a year later, after upgrading speakers, I bought a McIntosh MC402 power amp, and used the Magnum Dynalab only as a preamp and tuner.
Although I've since changed sources, speakers, and cabling, the MD208 and MC402 are still in use today. (For about 7 years, they weren't used much; before and since they've been played daily, or close to daily.) I have no complaints about sound quality. I have noticed zero SQ degradation, despite two household moves, and placement in living rooms for the entire period. My system (with Sonus Faber speakers) sounds good to me, and to my wife, a retired classical musician. I wish the MC402 didn't weigh about 115 lbs, and would rather that our last movers hadn't lost the MD208's remote, and somehow caused the volume knob to decrease its immediate responsiveness (a very minor issue), but otherwise, I have nothing to complain about.
But nothing last forever. And at this point, a decent audiophile system is important to us. I'm not itching to make a change, but I am curious to get some sense from my fellow A'goners about the remaining useful life of these two components, which have served me well. What should I reasonably expect?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Assuming one maintains amps with periodic replacement of parts and keeping in spec they may have great life expectancy, especially those with point to point wiring.
@blisshifi You mention 20-30 years plus the extra 5-10 years with proper maintenance. What would be cause of failure past this time? Are you thinking of things like circuit boards, transformers? |
The two big components that are at risk of ending a piece of gear are output transistors or tubes and capacitors. Power supply / bypass capacitors may leak over time and need to be replaced. I put the longevity of newer caps around 30-40 years. Sometimes those fail catastrophically and take out mulitple parts at once making it financially difficult to fix. The other part to this is whether the output components are available if they fail. Many a great receiver and amp have died from using parts that were no longer manufactured. |
And I would say not just output transistors but any transistors. If an amp drifts out of spec, or if it is a Class A or AB amp and that constantly generates a lot of heat, the transistors can get exhausted and not perform their switching duties, fail and cause leakages or shortages that can send the amp to protection more or fry them. Tantalum capacitors almost easily fail and can melt or bubble up with too much heat over time. Electrolytic capacitors typically don’t leak, but they just don’t store and deliver to their spec as they dry up, which starts to introduce distortion and/or thinness to the sound. Transformers are generally incredibly durable and very difficult to ruin unless too much excess current fries a fuse that is built into it. And circuit boards are generally fine unless something causes a short to fry it, typically from one of the electrical components as described above. |
You aren’t wrong, it has just been my experience that the output transistors are the one’s that are most likely to go out of fashion and impossible to find replacements for. The small power transistors tend to be interchangeable or remain in production forever. To answer the OP's question I was answering the question of"when will my gear die and not be fixable?" vs. how often will it need to be serviced. |
@erik_squires Absolutely agree that the output transistors are typically the first to go of any transistors in the unit. |
