2. amps-preamps
  3. 193492-141444

Duelund cap break in time

I just made some changes to my single ended kt150 amplifier that I was pretty excited about, having had great success with similar mods to my preamp.

Unfortunately, when I set it all back up...it sounded worse. Not terrible, but worse.

It sounds extremely bass heavy. Overwhelming. Less detail, zero "sparkle". Dull.

I run this amp on my wideband driver - 500hz and up so that's extra confusing, it must be super bassy in the 500-1000 region I guess.

Now, I've only got about 6 hours on them so obviously there's a lot of break in needed, but every piece of equipment I've ever had (including cap changes)the initial impression was grainy, a bit harsh and shrill. This is the opposite, it's so smooth it's boring. So that's why I'm sorta baffled and feeling like I messed up, or messed something up in there, it's just far from what I would expect.

Is this level of dullness... reasonable? Happy to hear any thoughts on this, if it's entirely reasonable I'll just settle in and give it hours and try not to focus on it too much.

 

Changes made were:

Kle perfect harmony RCA jacks

Neotech silver gold hook up wire to RCA

Audio Note input coupling caps

Duelund cast pio hybrid coupling caps.

 

Focusing on the duelund because it's the biggest change but...

superchunk
arion's avatar
arion
163 posts
 

My experience with Duelund cast caps is that they take a long time to burn-in and sound how you described.

grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,571 posts
 

Were all of the parts installed at the same time? Please let us know. All the parts you chose do not have that type of sound signature after minimal burn in - 48 hours. One exception are the AN caps. If they are the copper foil ones they can be a tad dark and thick sounding relative to your other parts.

I suggest you give the upgrade at least 48 hours of play before getting too critical. 80% full run in time is around 200 hours, but big changes happen in just 48 hours.

I assume you used the same part values in terms of uf values?

 

sns
3,493 posts
 

Give it some time. You made a number of changes at one time so there are many variables here. I generally try to make one change at a time. I've never heard this exact issue you speak of with the Cast caps, don't recall tonal balance being an issue.

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