What do old capacitors sound like ?

RE: What do old capacitors sound like ? , posted on September 1, 2021 at 13:10:52
walkstoslow Audiophile Posts: 277 Joined: November 18, 2012	mine seemed to be shriekey....grainey? Wife was complaining..of too much treble... seems to hve fixed, FWIW I tested all components, all value swere fine, held voltage, and all that. I used the dats woofer tester v2 to check all caps, coils and resistors...

Film caps can survive indefinitely. , posted on September 1, 2021 at 14:45:20
viridian	Electrolytics and oil caps should be checked for ESR and capacitance as well as being visually inspected. If in doubt, change it out.

In my Heresy IIs, a loss of sparkle, posted on September 2, 2021 at 17:55:42
JoshT Audiophile Posts: 6622 Location: Eastern Massachusetts Joined: July 4, 2000	They lost high end definition and sounded a bit flat. Recapping the crossover networks brought them back to life. ___ "If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."

Interesting, posted on September 2, 2021 at 17:58:10
JoshT Audiophile Posts: 6622 Location: Eastern Massachusetts Joined: July 4, 2000	I had the opposite happen. My Heresy IIs became a bit flat and lifeless. Not horrible, but noticeably so. The recap woke them up. ___ "If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."

Replace them now, posted on September 4, 2021 at 12:03:46
Ozzie Audiophile Posts: 3817 Joined: August 1, 2002	Any speaker considered "vintage," that has not had the capacitors replaced, now is the time.

RE: What do old capacitors sound like ? , posted on September 5, 2021 at 00:58:15
KanedaK Audiophile Posts: 2519 Location: Brussels Joined: April 27, 2010	Symptoms can vary. It can be muffled, rough, shrieky, lacking treble extension / lacking bass punch... it all depends on the crossover. Any lytic capacitor that's more than 20 years old should be replaced in my opinion.

RE: What do old capacitors sound like ? , posted on September 27, 2021 at 13:51:23

Schurkey
Audiophile

Posts: 121
Location: The Seasonally Frozen Wastelands
Joined: May 14, 2015

YES. "Film" caps apparently have no set service life, but electrolytics tend to need replacement at 20--25 years. Sooner if you're picky, or they were cheap/defective caps to begin with.

I'm told that Tantalum caps also have a service life, prone to outright failure when they get old. I don't know that from experience; but I replace them when I'm doing the electrolytics.

I don't know about ceramic-disc caps. I replaced a bunch because they were cheap and readily available, but I didn't test the ones I took out. The new ceramic caps were half the physical size of the originals.

Speaker Asylum

What do old capacitors sound like ?

72.36.1.26