2. tech-talk
  3. 1220121880

burning in capacitors for phono stages

I'm in the process of auditioning various capacitors within my phono preamp. It seems burn in is a 'real' issue with caps. In exploring various means to burn in these caps I found the KAB PreconLP, this device converts line level signals to phono level signals. This allows one to use a cd player and burn in disc to burn in phono stages.

I only need substitute various caps in circuit I want to audition. This seems like a huge advantage over any other cap burn in method I've encountered. You are getting the actual signal your cap will see playing lps. Other burn in methods I've seen may or may not have sufficient voltage and/or combo of AC and DC.
sns

Showing 2 responses by johnss

johnss
600 posts
 
Sns,To break in all the caps, solder your caps together in series. Put an RCA on on end, and a 10K ohm resistor on the other end. Run a ground wire from the RCA shell to the other end of the resistor to form a complete circuit. plug this assembly into your pre amp out put. Turn on the Tuner, turn up the volume a third of the way, and go to bed. When you get up in the morning all your caps you soldered together will be broken in and you should be ready to try your experiments.

Don't waste your money on Audio salon caps. all you will need are available from Mouser or Digikey.

As long as you are working on the phono stage, why don't you replace the loading resistors with Vishay S102's? as well as any shunt resistors that are usually located at the output of hte phono stage. They will make as big or bigger difference than the caps.

Happy listening.
johnss
600 posts
 
Yes, Bob has a good point, The main thing you want to do is get some time on the new caps, before you install them if your wish is to avoid in system break in.
More to discover