Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems The Ubiquitous Recap Thread (I did my 6k's)

Well here are a few snaps of my adventures. Many of the old Rubycons tested up to 50% off spec. None were completely shot. I've replaced everything with new Nichicon, including the huge 10000uf's.

The caps on the subwoofer amp board were the furthest off. I had been experiencing a definite lack of bass compared to before. But as the mid and treble amp board ones were also off a bit......

Report on sound to come later today.


[img]https://photos.app.goo.gl/waBXWAnkSMTpbToP6[/img]
[img]https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bxo6YkTy6bA6uyWT7[/img]

Sorry that took all weekend - life stuff happened.

So, in both speakers the bass amp boards had the worst-out-of-spec caps on them. The mid/treble boards were generally in good shape. Power supply caps all in perfect shape and res caps also good. Changed them all anyway.

So - these things are absurd.

Before there was a slight edge to treble and a definite lack of longevity to bass.

Now... I am not able to describe the sound other than *expensive*. If I were to recap another set I'd likely leave the res caps - those things are a pain in the neck.

I'm still planning to get my DSP3200's & DSP33's all re-capped, as soon as I'm able to get around to it !

What Nichicon series did you use? A lot seem discontinued.

UFW and UES series - based on availabiliy really.

Res caps what is that?

Reservoir capacitors - the 10000uF 63V caps that sit at the top of the panel. There are 4 of them and they are a pain to desolder and resolder. If I had time I'd re-engineer them to be screw-top because the way the wires are connected and routed from the factory is... frustrating.

The rest of the caps are REALLY easy to change - though I recommend pictures or a good drawing to help you keep track of everything. I still have to do my 5k5 but it is considerably newer than my 6k's:

*An aside*: My 6k's were 24/96 converted in '99 so the amp boards are older than that - and the only caps that were off by a large margin were those on the bass amp board. The power supply caps tested perfectly in spec and the res caps were also perfectly in spec. I mention this as those old Rubycons were clearly REALLY good to begin with and took 25+ years for a few of them to go out of spec. I'm tempted to keep all the ones that tested good, in fact.

And maybe someday tackle my 5k's and 33's. And the 2500. And someday LPS the 861. And find the unicorn 6kC. And recap all my Revox stuff (Google Revox Frako for capacitor nightmares). I'll stop typing now.

i Recently recapped a 557, which was working and to my surprise, many of the 10uf caps didn't even register on a component tester,
safe to say they were all very well past their best,
the post regulator 1000uf audio grade were also past it.
the main reservoir capacitors still seemed ok, but were replaced so I know it'll be good for another 25 years.

biggest near failure, was the resitor for the power LED, this had got so hot it had blackened the PCB and burnt off all the colour from the resistor, duly replaced with a 2x power rated component.