Old SS amps

Pretty easy, degradation of non-mechanical electronics is caused by degree of heat multiplied by time.

@roxy1927  If I was ever looking to purchase a piece of older equipment, I would start the conversation with "so, are you in the always on camp?"  Cheers.

@bigtwin Excellent point there. Also ask about caps being replaced, or at least being checked out and deemed acceptable at some point recently. If all goes well an older amp can be a great buy but it can also be an expensive project if you don't do your homework.

Well-intentioned but misbegotten advice on the urgent need to recap vintage gear yesterday is all too common.

In the real world, electrolytic caps don’t fail that often. Other cap types don’t fail hardly at all (film, ceramic). Wima caps will probably outlive the cockroaches.

The thing is, in order to properly test a cap you have to desolder it. And if it’s a small cap, once it’s desoldered it’s just as easy to drop a new one in, because a) small value caps tend to go bad more often than large ones, b) they only cost 10 or 20 cents, and c) you’ve already done the labor in order to test the cap anyway.

So you do end up doing a lot of systematic recapping whether you like it or not (I don’t). Old caps being replaced almost invariably test fine. A dead cap will make its presence known.

Anyway, my point was that in my experience I’ve probably seen as many failed ICs and semiconductors as I’ve seen failed electrolytic caps, yet I’ve replaced 10 times as many of the latter vs the former.

Buying old things is seldom a good idea unless you are certain it is still in good operating order.  
 

Like people, after a certain age, it’s usually all downhill from there.