Capacitor replacement on my Linn equipment?

[felix]

Tants like that can be *much* longer lived, because the bead type is dry internally - no electrolyte to leak once formed. And since they usually have significant ESR in the first place - an ohm or two - they only got used where that aspect was negigible or useful in the first place (such as around 3pin voltage regs, or as coupling caps); so aging doesn't really make things go badly awry.

Replace them if you like but it's optional imo. And when tants fail, they usu. go with a very obvious pop I think it unilkely you have a few unknown dead ones in there.

('Wet' tants are far bulkier and if they leaked, you'd know about it from pcb damage - they are in brass cases because the electrolyte is sulphuric acid... nice low esr while they last - which is decades - but expensive and frankly, do nothing a film cap cannot do better)

 

[mjp200581]

Many thanks for the advice.

It sounds like I certainly don't need to be in rush to replace those Tant beads then. If I have the Kairn apart again I might take the opportunity to replace them but I'm not going to dismantle it again just for that.

I haven't replaced the three big smoothing caps either. I did take the 22,000uF cap of the board to measure the ESR and capacitance and all seemed fine. I didn't remove the two 33,000uF caps as my capacitor tester doesn't go that high. (I don't think it does but I'm doubting myself as I write this).

The other factor is that I couldn't find any decent replacements. The 5 pole termination combined with the size restriction limits the choice somewhat. I can find Panasonic caps which would fit but they don't look anything special so I'm reluctant the ditch the BHC caps for replacements which may not be as good.