seamonkey said:
You might actually want to look at new amps.
That's a great suggestion. The Traynor YBA200 is right in line with his power and price range.
If you ask a few technical people they'll point out that capacitor
technology has vastly improved in the last 30 years.
Yup. An electrolytic capacitor is generally 30-50% smaller and the more expensive ones can tolerate prolonged excessive heat. And that means absolutely nothing. ANY electronic device in its third decade of service is going to probably (but not definitely) need new caps. That goes for tubes, transistors, and the BS amps that don't exist yet that Seamonkey is so fond of.
Where as tube amp design hasn't really changed.
Linear supply, class AB is the standard, is the most stable, and easiest to service. Not surprisingly, it also happens to work. And gee, one of the selling points of an old amp is that it IS an old design that isn't going to sound like a modern amp. Seamonkey would have you believe that an old design won't be as authentic as a "modelled" simulation of one.
Let me highlight some of his more misleading statements and appropriately clarify what it is that he's actually saying:
You could take an old amp, and put in new caps, and end up with essentially what you're going to get if you bought a new amp.
So if you put new caps in an old amp it's going to sound like a new one of a completely different design? According to Seamonkey, that's the case. This notion is ridiculous and just an extension of his vehement anti-tube crusade. While he throws around impressive sounding words like "capacitor" and "transformer," you shouldn't take what he says at face value because he's speaking in very broad generalized terms that don't apply in MOST cases and he really knows next to nothing about electronics.
And I hear people do this - they put an old amp for service and get new tubes and caps. Sometimes transformers. Essentially a new amp.
And this is a lie as presented, a complete and total lie. An amp needing repairs, whether it be tubes or capacitors or even a transformer is not "normal." An amp that needs those things is one that is malfunctioning. He's trying to scare you about things that are a normal part of maintenance for ANY kind of amp, tube, s/s analog, s/s digital... etc. To accurately paraphrase his mumbo-jumbo into real English: ' A broken amp may need new parts.' Doesn't sound so ominous now, does it?
And while tuning up an old amp, typically, you'd want stiffer caps in the power supply, but the old transformer may not be able to handle it well.
And here he reveals exactly how limited his knowledge of electronics is. Higher capacitance power supplies (what he alludes to) do not stress a power transformer any more. In fact, they lessen the draw through the transformer and actually make it run cooler because they are supplying the additional current. The ONLY caveat to this is for really old amps that use tube rectifiers. With higher capacitance, the rectifier tube can be run into an overcurrent condition and burn out. None of the amps you mentioned use rectifier tubes, so you don't need to worry about it.
Probably best to leave old amps for collectors, and pick up a new amp for actual playing.
..or ignore the troll posting false and misleading information because he hates tubes.
Now 30 years from now, maybe today's caps/resistors/transformers will be considered junk, but I doubt it.
Modern electrolytic caps are longer lived, but will eventually require replacement. The resistors made today will be just as good as the ones made 50 years ago, but they will be electrically less noisy. Modern transformers are no different from "vintage" ones.
