Sick Cyrus 2

Lazarus Short

Lazarus Short

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Mar 10, 2012
Messages
14,293
Location
Independence, MO
Tagline
I'm the Red Knight, by grant of the Black
As I said in my amp shootout thread, I opened the bonnet on my Cyrus 2 amp and had a good look around. It has two bakelite caps which show cracking, and one electrolytic with a burned spot. I'm handy with a soldering iron, but can anyone tell me a good place to buy caps? What should I replace the bakelite caps with?
 

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Lazarus Short said:
As I said in my amp shootout thread, I opened the bonnet on my Cyrus 2 amp and had a good look around. It has two bakelite caps which show cracking, and one electrolytic with a burned spot. I'm handy with a soldering iron, but can anyone tell me a good place to buy caps? What should I replace the bakelite caps with?
Click to expand...

Hey Laz,
I buy my caps from Mouser (http://www.mouser.com/). You can buy any amount you need if they are a stock item.
You may need a schematic and parts list to determine the values of those. Any good audio grade cap should be fine.
Its hard to tell sometimes if caps are bad just by looking without pulling them and testing.
 
The markings on those brown things make me think they may be an electrolytic. Looks like 470uf 6v. They may be a non-polar though, I don't see markings to indicate direction. If you can make out a brand and/or a series number or something that may help identify them for sure.


but yeah, visual inspection may or may not tell you anything useful.
 
The two bakelite caps and the two non-polar caps (one has the burnt spot) are Roederstein.
 
Thanks, Mike, Mouser has the Elna Simlic caps I'm leaning toward. Do you know if they take PayPal?
 
Well, after all these months, I've finally gotten started at recapping the Cyrus. First off were the two bakelite caps - desoldered, removed, soldered in green Nichicon Muse caps. I put it all back together, except the top and front covers, connected the PSX, connected the Charlie for a source, and plugged in headphones. WOW! It never sounded quite right after it was fixed by the shop, but it did play music. Now it really sounds like music! Nothing blew up!!

I took the old caps over to the vice and cracked off the tops. Not surprisingly, they were bone-dry.
 

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Finished!

All the caps I ordered from Mouser are in place, nothing blew up, plus the amp works right and sounds right. It's taking its place in the main system as soon as I get the cabinet back together. Since it's going to be doing line-level duty only, I left the phono/RIAA sections alone - I'm very glad there were printed borders on the circuit board itself. The Arcam does a good job for vinyl, so their respective roles are set. The 46-pound Yamaha goes to Twangfest.
 
Well, I've eyeballed the circuit board long enough to be familiar with the layout, and the dotted lines separating preamp, MC, MM, and RIAA are a big help. I can see the big pair of caps and four diodes for the power amp section, not now used (the PSX does the job), and the two small caps and their four smaller diodes for the preamp section. One of those small power-supply caps has a burned spot on the side, and though the amp sounds great, I want to replace those eventually. Do those need to be audio-grade, or will any kind of cap do? Anyone??
 
Lazarus Short said:
Well, I've eyeballed the circuit board long enough to be familiar with the layout, and the dotted lines separating preamp, MC, MM, and RIAA are a big help. I can see the big pair of caps and four diodes for the power amp section, not now used (the PSX does the job), and the two small caps and their four smaller diodes for the preamp section. One of those small power-supply caps has a burned spot on the side, and though the amp sounds great, I want to replace those eventually. Do those need to be audio-grade, or will any kind of cap do? Anyone??
Click to expand...

Not audio grade for PS caps Laz. You should find low ESR caps for those applications.
 
OK, thanks! I was putting it back together and found the manufacture date: 03OCT1987, my daughter's birthday, but a year before. I shall call the amp "Octavia."
 
It's fitting to show all of you the Cyrus in all its minimalist glory. The sound is glorious too with the Energy speakers. Eventually, I'll get around to the Vandersteens. BTW, the left hand unit, the amp proper, runs quite warm - I found out that it runs in class A/B.
 

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