Capacitors for 5150 (?)

[bridrive55]

Hey guys,

Anyone who has modded their own 5150, I did OT, bias circuit, footswitchable crunch on my 5150, but I'm interested in capacitor swaps.

 

Has anyone had any luck? What capacitances/brands did you go with?

[Slaymoar]

I would think about adding a choke before the capacitors. The caps used are defenitely high enough in capacitance. If anything, replacing the caps would be about getting a better brand more reliable. No tonal improvements here. But if you replace that 470ohm(?) resistor with a choke, your gonna defenitely see some improvement here. I think about 5 Henry's is more than enough. Hammond makes a nice 200mA one that I've use for a build before. They sell for about $35 and will give you a much better improvement than caps. You may have to adjust your filter resistors to compensate for the increased level in voltage though.

-D

[bridrive55]

I would think about adding a choke before the capacitors. The caps used are defenitely high enough in capacitance. If anything, replacing the caps would be about getting a better brand more reliable. No tonal improvements here. But if you replace that 470ohm(?) resistor with a choke, your gonna defenitely see some improvement here. I think about 5 Henry's is more than enough. Hammond makes a nice 200mA one that I've use for a build before. They sell for about $35 and will give you a much better improvement than caps. You may have to adjust your filter resistors to compensate for the increased level in voltage though. -D

 

 

Yeah, Mercury Magnetics has a choke too. I'm just not sure I want to drill in the chassis... Thanks for the input though. I just heard that when you send your amp off to FJA Mods or Voodoo, it comes back with different caps.

[bridrive55]

And no I don't believe that's your wife.

[Slaymoar]

Yeah, Mercury Magnetics has a choke too. I'm just not sure I want to drill in the chassis... Thanks for the input though. I just heard that when you send your amp off to FJA Mods or Voodoo, it comes back with different caps.

 

 

They probably just swap them because caps degrade over time. Sometimes just changing a leaky cap can really tighten your sound.

 

Good capacitor brands: Sprague Atom, JJ, Illinois. I go for JJ's because they offer values that work with my builds. Sprague is a little over-priced, but basically one of the top. Illinois is tough and reliable, and cheap.

 

There are other better and cheaper brands out there, but with those, you cannot go wrong.

 

-D

[Slaymoar]

And no I don't believe that's your wife.

Well, I just know there is a woman that would be extremely pissed off if I would tell her that.

-D

[bridrive55]

They probably just swap them because caps degrade over time. Sometimes just changing a leaky cap can really tighten your sound. Good capacitor brands: Sprague Atom, JJ, Illinois. I go for JJ's because they offer values that work with my builds. Sprague is a little over-priced, but basically one of the top. Illinois is tough and reliable, and cheap. There are other better and cheaper brands out there, but with those, you cannot go wrong. -D

 

 

By leaky, you mean the capacitor doesn't hold a charge? With the printed values, I'd think I could measure this by doing a slow discarge with an RC circuit and computing time constants. This would just be several resistors in series and an ammeter.

 

With a leaky cap, the voltage across the charged cap could just be measured, no? I imagine a really good voltmeter would supply the necessary resistance to not discharge the cap immediately.

 

Would you recommend changing any of the values of the resistors to alter the tone stack?

 

Also, sorry to impose so much. When you clip out a cap, do you desolder the cap legs from the opposite side of the PCB and run the new cap legs through the bottom, or do you solder the new cap to the legs of the old capacitor?

 

Thanks so much man. BTW, my avatar is my wife as well.