is this glue or leakage?

[bobbyrae]

see photo. It looks pretty sloppy, so my first guess was NOT glue, but I saw another post which said it had to be glue.

This is my Tuner. I have an amp where the goo looks much thinner and wetter. Now THAT is probably leakage! Sorry, no pic for that.

I'm just curious, since I plan on replacing this guy anyway.

[Mixon1]

It's glue!

[kevinkr]

Seconded! (Glue!)

How old is that tuner? The cap you propose to replace is one of the higher quality nichicon types, but if it is 20yrs old it is probably time for a refresh.. My experience with many modern electrolytics is that they are inferior in sound quality and often electrical performance to older types still in good shape. I've stopped wholesale replacement except in tube gear, and in locations where a component failure would cause a destructive malfunction. I completely recapped a Mitsubishi DA-F10 a few years ago, only to totally loose the pleasing sound quality it had had up to that point. (I used high quality commercial grade nichicon, panasonic, and rubycons in the recap. Should have used blackgates in the audio path...) I've been a bit more careful since. PSU caps are usually a good candidate for replacement under all circumstances, audio coupling caps in particular possibly much less so.

[bobbyrae]

Originally Posted by kevinkr

Seconded! (Glue!)

How old is that tuner? The cap you propose to replace is one of the higher quality nichicon types, but if it is 20yrs old it is probably time for a refresh.. My experience with many modern electrolytics is that they are inferior in sound quality and often electrical performance to older types still in good shape. I've stopped wholesale replacement except in tube gear, and in locations where a component failure would cause a destructive malfunction. I completely recapped a Mitsubishi DA-F10 a few years ago, only to totally loose the pleasing sound quality it had had up to that point. (I used high quality commercial grade nichicon, panasonic, and rubycons in the recap. Should have used blackgates in the audio path...) I've been a bit more careful since. PSU caps are usually a good candidate for replacement under all circumstances, audio coupling caps in particular possibly much less so.

I'm glad for your feedback on this, but it certainly does raise more questions for me. The tuner is a Yamaha T-85, probabaly made around '83. So yes, 27 years, that's why I am thinking about it. And this tuner is so EASY to work on! Every cap in it could be replaced by just removing the top and bottom covers.

There's a guy on eBay (the guides area) who is saying Blackgates were a huge mistake for him because it made the highs too bright.

Then there is another guy who has a website and seems to spend all his time recapping old Marantz receivers and supposedly all his customers love the results. Of course, if someone said "what a waste of money" he isn't going to post THAT comment for everyone to see!

I also have receivers and an amp from the late 70's. Some people are saying recap with high end Nichicon or other, some, like you, are saying it may change things for the worse. I ran into one guy here in this forum who bought some Elan high end filter caps, but said there was no audible difference. And he has the exact same model amp I do! A Yamaha CA-810.

I am pretty sure that the bass has gotten muddy on these old units and everyone seems certain that electrolytic caps DO wear out. What to do... I wonder if that tuner really needs anything, but then it DOES process the FM signal.

[Cal Weldon]

Have a read here about certain Nichicon caps:

Tale of bad capacitors taking a company down

[bobbyrae]

Originally Posted by Cal Weldon

Have a read here about certain Nichicon caps:

Tale of bad capacitors taking a company down

Dell really screwed up. It would be nice to know, however, just how Nichicon responded to the situation. And was the problem specific to just a particular series, one production run, or throughout their entire lineup? I was using Silicon Graphics computers at one point, and they had a huge problem with memory chips that wouldn't work right. They would replace them, and the problem would occur again, over and over. SG has gone out of business, but I bet that chip maker is still around!

[Pano]

Right on, man! Nowhere have I read what Nichicon has to say about all this. Isn't Dell suing them?