I had the same thing happen to me from a shop out of Southern CA. $1400 to replace a total of 53 capacitors. I didn't think my old Krell amp had 53 caps! To add insult to injury, and after the hard sell to get me to pay for it rather than buy a new amp like Pass Labs or Ayre, he told me my amp would be better after they rebuilt it. Riiight. When I still refused he offered me $200 for it. Such snakes. So I would up buying an Ayre VX-5 Twenty instead. Cost to do the same work from Ayre? $300 including shipping it back! This coming from Ryan Berry (the CEO). Talk about a company who wants to keep their clients happy even when amps are out of warranty, etc. So my Krell KAV-250a is just collecting dust because I don't trust anyone to do the cap work honestly.
Amp repair cost — is this right?
I recently sent my Musical Fidelity a308cr power amp off to be recapped. This amp is somewhere around 16-18 years old and one of the power caps failed. I contacted Musical Fidelity and sent it to a repair shop they recommended. Today I received an estimate to replace 18 caps, 8 of which are large power caps, resolder the boards, and re-bias the transistors. Basically a full overhaul. The quote I received, including return shipping (prob around $100) Is over $1,300 which possibly exceeds the value of the amp. That doesn’t include the $115 it cost me to ship it out. Having never had an overhaul done on a power amp like this, I’m wondering if anyone with experience can tell me if this sounds right. I guess I was expecting something more like $600-$800 but I don’t know why since I really don’t have a frame of reference. Perhaps it was the assumption it might be 4 hours labor (say $400) plus max $200 for caps. Is $1,300+ on track? Either way I’m going to be out the shipping cost plus a $160 fee paid for the estimate.