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Don't Neglect to check your Caps!

Lately, my system has been sounding oddly dark.

At first, I wondered whether my recently acquired VooDoo Dynasty ac cords were still settling in, then it occured to me that it might be worthwhile having my 18 year old Silverline monitors checked out. 

I found a local tech (Mike at Neal’s Speaker Service in Colfax, CA) who told me the tweeters were fine but the caps were on their way out. I gave him the go ahead to replace them and wow, what a difference!  One advantage to waiting as long as I did is that the contrast is dramatic and immediately apparent, not that I’d advocate this as a deliberate strategy.

I guess it’s like the slowly-cooking frog analogy. Our ears can adjust to slowly degrading sound and we won’t necessarily notice it until it reaches a tipping point. 

 

 

 

 

stuartk

Showing 1 response by waytoomuchstuff

waytoomuchstuff's avatar
waytoomuchstuff
1,228 posts
 

Chances are that you got a "twofer" here.

- replaced a cap that was approaching end of life

- upgraded the cap to something better than the OEM. 

The second statement is an assumption, but being involved in speaker service and performance upgrades, I can't imagine going thought the motions of replacing an OEM cap with a similar quality piece.  Especially when "much better performance than OEM" can be achieved at a reasonable cost.

So, what you are hearing is most likely a repair/replacement of aging part AND and upgrade simultaneously?  And, yes, the sonic improvement would be immediate and dramatic.

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