Old SS amps

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. 

A more apt comparison would be, which one is easier to fix, a 69 Chevelle or a 92 Cadillac? Exactly. Same for audio gear

I have been to Audio Events as a Entry Paying Visitor where the Enthusiast / Hobbyist owner of Audio Equipment are sharing the Event with the Commercial Sector as an Exhibition.

For the Hobbyist Enthusiast there is to my knowledge nothing for sale on the day unless entered into a Charity Auction.

There might be a service offered by a few of the Hobbyist / Enthusiast attendees that is available to further investigated outside of the show.

The Commercial Sector are what they are, Exhibiting Items from a recent design and production as a clear purchasable item.

At Events like this, there are the Commercial Exhibits that raise to the occasion, and will insert into a System being exhibited a Source produced from a Vintage era, a Japanese DD TT or British ID TT are to be seen in place of an alternative recent design model as a Analogue Source.

The Hobbyist / Enthusiast are usually with a System that is made up of devices bordering on Vintage or actually Vintage.  Their Sources used are ranging from Quite Old Tech, Recent Tech, Current Tech.

At such Events the Enthusiast / Hobbyist Exhibiting Rooms are constantly visited and able to hold visitors who are receiving demo's of the system with their own music brought along or the System owners selection.

Commercial Rooms are getting similar volume of footfall, but rarely are seen able to hold a captive audience for a period of time, as does the Hobbyist / Enthusiast. There is not really personalities involved, but the lesson quickly grasped is that a Audio System built using a range of products from different eras, is able to be extremely impressive as a system when assessing the End Sound. It is also quickly learnt if an inquiry is made or a little further investigation is carried out, that a system need not extend to much more than £5K to be an obvious competitor to systems costing in current New Purchase Markets £60K and ascending.

Getting out and doing footwork, having experiences of Audio Systems is the only way to have a really good lesson in a short time line. Reading about a device or system is only that, "Reading about a device or system". Reading is not experiencing End Sound.    

Here are some solid state amps with cult followings:

- Bedini 25/25

- BEL 1001 Mk.IV

- Electron Kinetics Eagle 2