KA 5500 restoration

Sir.Byrd

Lunatic Member
I'll get some before pictures up soon, but here are the afters:
Most caps were Nichicon Fine Gold or MUSE KZ.
This was a very rewarding project, the KA 5500 now sings sweetly again, this little guy came to me filled with dog hair and dirt and corrosion. The filter caps were leaking goop and the poor guy was just in sorry shape, not so anymore!
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Looks good :thmbsp:

Did you use glue to secure any of the larger caps? If so what kind?

Thanks

I glued the two filter caps but that's it. The rest of the caps did not need it, the glue is only for transportation and wave soldering, this unit isn't going anywhere except for in the car back to its owner.
 
Very nice work Will. You are really showing the amount of time and effort you have put into doing things right. Thanks for sharing. :thmbsp:
 
Now I'm listening to a stock 5500 in really nice shape... where is my bass? Where is the attack, the punch?

Time to get out the soldering iron again ;)
 
Always, with the kenwoods and with anything else when they seem to lack bass you know the caps are going bad and fast!

They one amp you don't want to tackle is the KA-9100 and KA-907, lol!

Nice work Will!
 
Here is KA-5500 number two, so far the only things replaced are the filter caps with new Nichicon Gold Tunes!
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I've noticed that bass has improved by deepening and becoming more authoritative, but the rest of the unit needs a recapping. I also have some polyester film 1uF 100V bypass caps to install on the filters and I'll do that prior to the rest of the recapping to see if I can hear a difference.
 
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