Electrolytic Capacitor Shoot-Out

As an old tube hand who works on and listens primarily to vintage Fishers, I stumbled upon this very long running thread and found it enjoyable to read.

Especially after discovering the main filter in my Marantz 2230 had finally taken an electrolyte dump all over my garage counter. (I now know why I had been tapping the loudness button more often lately).

Reading this thread, that parts rolling is like cooking is something us tube people also know well. The old tubes from the classic era all have varying house sounds. Too much of any house sound is generally undesirable, and the best results are with balancing off the strengths of several different items. A Mullard or RCA or Raytheon here, a Tele or Sylvania or Amperex there, and occasionally the magic ingredient of a rarity such as a CBS somewhere else typically voices out the the best, and can allow fine tuning with other system parts and components. We do the same to a lesser degree with coupling caps as well. It's all about the recipe. And I also agree that at the end of the day, one is ultimately listening to the modulated power supply of any audio instrument. So supply topology and filtering (including the rectifier choice and even certain resistor choices) is more important than most realize. But I digress.

My question is to the OP, Patfont.

Some Background. When acquiring my 2230 many years ago, I only did a quick and dirty amp board recap, but popped in a couple of BGs gifted to me for the main couplers (lucky me). The BGs sound terrific and are staying put. But the rest of the instrument is now ready for a full re-cap, with some parts already on hand. All parts will be at original capacitance values. And I prefer to not substitute films for electrolytics or take other deviations from design unless absolutely necessary (I have seen and had to undo too many high-end 'Dr. Stereo' mods by others over the years. The original designers usually had it right).

Power Supplies: I already have a Powerlytic 36D on hand for the main filter. I am intrigued by Patfont's use of Silmics for the regulated supply board and will order and use them there. This is not a highly stressed supply, so I disagree with techs who insist on high temp/high ripple filters in this supply and think Silmics will hold up fine. The 2230 is a very conservative design, which is why the old 85c caps have gotten along for over 40 years in so many of them.

Tuner Sections: I've already recapped both tuner sections (P150, 300, 500 & 550) with Nichicon PWs and HEs up to their audio outputs. These Nichicons are excellent in RF applications. But I will probably slap a couple Nichicon FG 1uf/100s on the MPX audio outputs to replace the original Elnas (I have a couple dozen of these FG 1uf/100s left over from another job and would like to use them up). If I can find a better grade 10uf for C171 so the morning AM news channel sounds better with coffee, I may do that too.

The heart of the question pertains to the tone and amp boards.

While the originals in the signal path were Elnas throughout, I have concern with overdoing it with Silmics in the audio stages (see my comment above), and was planning to use them primarily in the tone board and amp boards, intermixed with a few FGs for balance. As I mentioned, I have plenty of 1uf/100s and also some 47uf FGs that will fit the amp boards. I also have plenty of UHEs on hand for local filtering, but see no problem in adding another $2 to an order for extra Silmics for places such as C409.

Films. I will not be using Wimas or other film or designer caps where lyrics were originally used, and will likely not jumper C751. But I will replace the green yamato polyesters at C401/402 with CDE DMEs, as they have a smooth relaxed timbre with improved detail, sound very nice wherever I use them -- and I have them on hand by the hundreds.

My sense was to use the Silmics earlier in circuit, throughout C403/404/407/408/414/415, and place some FGs downstream, such as at C754/755. But if 1uf FGs at C403/404 and/or 414/415 or at C751 will get me to the same balance, with Silmics at C754/755 that's fine. Again, this amp does not run all that warm, so I am fine running 85c audio grade caps on the driver boards.

What combination of Silmics and FGs do you suggest across boards P400 and 700? Or is an all-Silmic circuit path really the best ticket for an old tube guy? I'm all about the mid-range and tone. Voices are my thing. Even in the garage.

You seem to have done a lot of rolling in these early 70s Marantz receivers. I would rather not extensively roll on these old PCBs, so would appreciate your experience to save some trial and error. I do not want to lose the original Marantz voicing, but am always delighted with anything mimicking the presence and tone of my tube gear.

TIA.
 
I noticed that some rebuilders are experimenting with designer caps on the front end of the tone boards of these receivers.

I forgot to add, for those rolling fancier caps, another worth a try is the Soviet military K40y9. This is a true PIO, as well-made as any cap you will ever find (frankly, it's bullet-proof tough), has a rich velvety vintage sound with air, presence and nice detail, and is well-respected among tubers. A .22 uf/200v is small -- smaller than some of the plastic Mundorfs folks are stuffing into these. And the very best part is they are usually available on Ebay for only a buck or two each. They have relatively thick leads, and may need to be underwired to the PCB. And it is probably a good idea to shrink wrap their metal cases. But that is small potatoes.

I'm sure it would sound lovely in a 22xx and would be a big improvement over the green chiclets while keeping the tone correct.

Like some others, they take about 100 hours to settle in. Then the magic starts.

Just some food for thought.
 
Hi Pat. Do you have a sourc
patfont said:
My new best friend

As I was pulling caps and installing caps this became my go to set up for checking Power Supply voltage. I like this better then mini gators.

They screw to your probes:



And the spring loaded clip pops out and locks onto the jumpers perfectly, and easy to sneak in tight places, and J811 on the 2220B Power Supply board is tight!

Click to expand...
e and part # for these extra long meter probe clips?
 
I was getting them from Handmade Electronics, I believe they were Velleman brand, but I do not see them on his site anymore. I have been using some Mil Spec mini grabbers I found on "that auction site" and they are awesome, I wish I had bought all he had. I bought enough for my "Super Cricket" and a couple extras.
 
Hello - great threat, I've enjoyed reading it.

Hopefully this isn't too off-topic, and contributes a bit. If not, let me know and I'll move it.

I'm getting ready to recap a Harman/Kardon 430. Currently it has original ELNAs. Initially I had done up a cap list with Nichicon FG's, but just re-did it with ELNA SILMIC II's, and it looks like it would be a bit cheaper to boot. Any opinions on the best way to go? The only non-ELNA's will be the 4 filter caps, and I'll be replacing 2 0.47uf tantalum caps with ELNA electrolytics too, or WIMA MKS2's.

Opinions appreciated!
 
One of the characteristics of tantalum caps is "low leakage". So, when replacing them I use Nichicon's UKL series of low leakage caps. HOWEVER, in this instance, the value is low, so film is a better choice. polypropylene (MKP) is a little better than polyester/mylar (MKS), but typically ANY film will be better than 'lytic. Kemet's R82 series is also nice and affordable. There's a Wima series of film caps (might be the MKS) that up to 10uF may fit as a replacement for electrolytics depending on board layout, however, I find it's a point of diminishing returns from a cost perspective. Since you wanted opinions, I'm not in the SILMIC II or bust camp. For power supplies, I use low ESR, high temp, high ripple handling caps like Panasonic FM, FR, FC or Nichicon PW, HE, PM etc. To each his own though.
 
jheu02 said:
One of the characteristics of tantalum caps is "low leakage". So, when replacing them I use Nichicon's UKL series of low leakage caps. HOWEVER, in this instance, the value is low, so film is a better choice. polypropylene (MKP) is a little better than polyester/mylar (MKS), but typically ANY film will be better than 'lytic. Kemet's R82 series is also nice and affordable. There's a Wima series of film caps (might be the MKS) that up to 10uF may fit as a replacement for electrolytics depending on board layout, however, I find it's a point of diminishing returns from a cost perspective. Since you wanted opinions, I'm not in the SILMIC II or bust camp. For power supplies, I use low ESR, high temp, high ripple handling caps like Panasonic FM, FR, FC or Nichicon PW, HE, PM etc. To each his own though.
Click to expand...

Thanks, thats really helpful. Makes sense that they would be the low-leakage caps, as I couldn't identify any low-leakage electrolytics in the whole thing. When I recapped my Pioneer SX-780, I used Nichicon UPW, and UKL's for the low leakage caps. There were a few ceramics that folks suggested changing for films, so I went with WIMAs. I don't think I even paid attention to the MKS/MKP difference, but looking at Mouser now, it looks like MKP is only stocked in 100v caps for the most part. That seems like super high voltage for such a small capacitance. Is that just the way she goes?
 
I guess so. I kind of wondered why my searches never turned any up with 50/63V as the criteria.
 
Films have very high punch-thru voltage, so the cap voltage rating comes pretty much for free. Purely a guess, but using thinner films to make smaller caps is probably difficult. IMO, higher voltage ratings, within reason, are a good thing because the lower the volts/mil the more well behaved and linear the material.

As for searching, it took me longer than I care to admit to learn you can usually select a whole range of voltages from the columns. IMO they'd probably sell more stuff if my searches didn't return so many "zero parts found".
 
jheu02 said:
...I'm not in the SILMIC II or bust camp. For power supplies, I use low ESR, high temp, high ripple handling caps like Panasonic FM, FR, FC or Nichicon PW, HE, PM etc. To each his own though.
Click to expand...

I'm firmly in this camp and stick with Nichicon. The rest of the info is great too!
 
As ConradH mentioned, you can select multiple voltages, which I knew. It just didn't occur to me to look at 100+ V caps to find polypro. I guess I figured they also had stopped making them. Perhaps the better way to search in the future is by "capacitance, lead style (radial), and polypropylene" and let it give me the voltage options.
 
Hmm, still having trouble finding a good choice finding the right cap for C711 and C712 on the HK 430, which as far as I can tell are signal path caps. I was going to go with MKS2, but found a bunch of folks saying to stay away from them in the signal path. I can't find a polypropylene that will fit, any suggestions? The value is 0.47uf, 35v, and the stock cap is a tantalum.
 
I'd go with a 1 uF, 50 volt aluminum electrolytic with decently low leakage if the FUD factor of MKS is a problem. I've used Mylar in similar locations without trouble and if it were my unit, I'd go with the MKS2. I've also had good luck with the older Panasonic ECQ parts, which measure a bit better than typical polyester, if you have any. There are also some new sized reduced polypropylene parts, but probably not small enough. How much space do you have in there?
 
I'll take a look when I get home, at a ball game right now lol. I'm still trying to learn how to read a schematic to know when a cap is a coupling call or filter or whatever.
 
There's a decent bit of space, aside from that resistor. Since its an easy spot to access, I may experiment with a few options.

IMG_20160807_124458_zpsoo8d6veu.jpg
 
Pat, first of all. Have you downloaded your HK439 service manual? If you did not, you can get it here:

http://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/harman-kardon/430.shtml

Second, I think I see other parts on that board that might need immediate upgrading, particularly the green thin caps and the blue tantalums at the input.

C713 to C716 should be replaced with 1% film precision caps, preferably polystyrene. R717 to R720 replaced for 1% metal film resistors.

C703/704, C707/708 and C711/712 for 5% film types. All other resistors also for 1% MFs.

Use Panasonic FCs for the four electrolytic types.

If possible do not do all these changes at the same type. Replace the capacitors and listen, and so on.

I did those changes on my first amp, a thousand years ago :) , and the results were astounding.
 

Attachments

  • HK430 equalizer.jpg
    HK430 equalizer.jpg
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Iam in the process of replacing electrolytic capacitors in my Power amps (monoblocks). I've purchased ES II from Handmade Electronics who is a reputable vendor in the states.

I was hoping you'll image.jpeg could guide me in the right direction.

I consider replacing all the caps marked in the attached picture, the corner ones (top/bottom) are Panasonic FC bypassing powersupply caps. Planning to replace them with ES II 1000uf/50vdc.

The ones in the center I want to use ES II 220uf/35vdc x 4 replacing the existing 8 caps as seen in the pic.
 
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