Are we over exhaggerating the problem of old capacitors ?

Personally I dont have the  history to make judgements.

This weekend, I payed a visit to a guy, in Göteborg that hold a huge collection of vintage Hifi 

It mostly japanese, partsenglish, part american, part B&O, some Tandberg

He has been collecting for 30 years. and his living space consitst of something 1000 vintage hifi units.
Not one of them was lowe end, all of them best lines.
All the dream vintage units are there....have no clue ? maybe the biggest high end vintage collection in the world.

He buys  and sells.

He works with  a reapair unit technichan, and he told me during these 30 years, he had never, and he pointed out NEVER,had one single unit problem with a realtated to capacitor.

So, is this problem exhaggerated by refurb people ? or is this a exahggerad problem to Bang & Olufsen chosen capacitors ?

The visit was very interesting. 

If you visit Sweden, and our second biggest captial, Göteborg,I truelly can recommend a visit to this guy. and I can connect you to him
He holds a low profile,, but his collections is un.-*cking-belivable.

So...isnt this an interesting question ?

Most of the "others" are big rectangular boxes with plenty of air space, while B&O kit is typically anything but. Also, B&O used electronic switching, tone control and microcontrollers while the rest were mechanical switches and potentiometers. I believe therein lies part of the answer.

I will not go as far as calling the guy a liar, I think he is pulling your leg.

In nearly all of my BMs I have found one or more bad caps, small caps, big caps and all in between. If I find one bad electrolytic cap in a unit, I change all of them, this is maybe overkill, but it give me a good feeling, and dont have to worry about, when the next one will fail. I do admit that most caps are within limits, when checked with an ESR meter, but also most of these are at the upper limit, when compared to new ones.

I have been following your threads, and I know you have had the same experience.

It is a debate that comes up a lot. I usually measure all of the capacitors I take out and put back in with an ESR meter.  The majority of the old capacitors usually measure good.  However, recently I recapped an old Sansui AU9500 integrated amplifier I own from around 1973.  I used it without recapping for a long time.  Then, it started sounding bad so I decided it was time.  To my surprise, all of the old capacitors measured in spec.  I still replaced them all with new ones.  When I finished, the amplifier sounded beautifully again.  So was it the capacitors or was it just the re-soldering of all the capacitor connections?  I'm not going to put the old ones back in to try and find out.  My intent is to keep my vintage collection sounding good so I am pleased with the outcome in this case. To answer your question though, I think it is a misconception that new electrolytic capacitors are some sort of magic bullet.  So many times there are loose connections and solder joints that need fixing.  The environment the piece has been in plays a big part too I believe.  I just approach them one at a time, clean them up, make sure power is good, then evaluate how they work before changing parts.  The Beomaster 4400 that I use in my workshop has never been recapped.  I keep waiting for it to start sounding off but it doesn't.  It still sounds great and its FM tuner is one of the best sounding of all my tuners.  If someone wants to recap their audio equipment before it starts sound bad, I don't fault them.  There are good arguments for that.  I have gone ahead and recapped some of my equipment because I had them apart and didn't want to go back in later. 

sonavor

 

A can of worm this, or is it?

My perspective is that for peace of mind, replace the old little suckers. 

Seriously, they do age and can be shorted, dried out, cracked, bumped, show amazing ESR while doubling capacitance value... I've seen and measured anything!

If you never turn one of these units on to actually listen to it/use it, then no, it will not need recapping.  It's just an ornament on a shelf that looks good. Many collectors are like this.  If he's saying that not a single capacitor has needed to be replaced in a receiver, amp, speaker etc then I 'm affraid I don't believe it either - unless his hearing is shot and they still sound good to him.

If you look at any Forum related to this kind of equipment you will no doubt always find multiple threads related to capacitors and replacements so it's difficult to believe out of his 1000+ units none of them have had any capacitor related problem in over 30 years.

It would be interesting to actually get to look at some of his units and test them.

Dave.

Yes, some people are "over-" exaggerating the replacement of caps, in my opinion but it's a
fact that electrolytic caps dry out and go bad.
If this guy never had to replace a cap it's because he doesn't care or never uses the things.
I'm not saying that all caps are bad after a certain amount of time - and I'm not saying
that every single unit in his collection will need caps but it's my experience that dead
caps are found in almost anything I get in for repairs. And that's primarily pre-1990 units.
Not a lot of units would leave my repairshop as functioning if I wasn't allowed to replace caps.

In the repairshop I replace all the dead caps - plus usually a couple others in
known trouble-prone positions. I rarely replace all caps - practically only if
specifically asked to.
The cap kits typically contain lots of caps, if not all, for a given unit but they are
put together to effect a "wide attack" at potential faults and to make succesful repairs
possible for people without the technical skills to diagnose in detail and sort the
good caps from the bad in something they never opened before.
It's a fact that recap'ing solves many problems, typically also some that the owner hadn't
noticed yet.

Some brands and types of caps age better than others. There may be better types
than the cylindrical Roederstein capacitors that were so heavily used by B&O during
decades found in other brands units but they will all die at some point.
They will either deteriorate slowly and unnoticed until they stop working altogether
or go off suddenly with a bang.

Martin

Personally, I dont believe he can have knowledge of that many units like he has, the daily helath of each units.

To be reasonable, there must be some dead caps inside his 1000 units.

But I sat down and listened to unit after unit after unit.
They sounded fantastic.

Maybe he over exaggerated, his statement....

But maybe he he would like to point out that the repairs to regain functionaly of the units have never included, capacitor exchange. that dead capacitors are way more seldom happening that people think ?

That the Roedstrom are bad nowadays, is more or less verified by many users here, even though, to be honest. I have done ESR measure on all Roedström caps in about 5-6 B&O unikts and not one single of them have had anything else but normal values.  

But  have started to more or less exchange all Roedestrom anyway...after excersiing my pracitcal  technique it doesnt that that long time.  :)