Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
OK, I’m starting to really realize that recapping is the way to go. Mind you, I have never been one to just outright recap, but I’m finding that the receivers that I completely recap and also replace known bad transistors just perform so much better! I won’t say it’s night and day difference but it’s significantly better.
Spent all week recapping this Harman Kardon 150+ in the evenings and I would guess there’s over 150 caps and all the ones I spot checked were 25% over spec with higher than expected ESR. Not a single cap was dead on as it should’ve been. These were all mainly grey Elna’s. And none were shorted or malfunctioning - which gives the brand a good test of time and there’s no reason to criticize them.
And I even recapped the tuner - it’s also stable and working fine without any adjustment. What’s also interesting to note that this receiver was working 100% fine prior to recap, it just had no variability in the tone circuit, and I knew it was struggling because the dial lights dimmed with the music. And it got better when it was powered on for an hour.
It’s now strong and good for another 40 years. 18 transistors were swapped out for the Swiss army knife 1845’s. It had previously exhibited a bad transistor in one of the channels kind of a bacon frying pan noise. Also, the bass/treble/midrange tone circuit was all messed up between all the channels which could’ve been capacitors or transistors cause there’s a lot of them in the tone circuit - 3 per channel.
I left the (4) 6800uf filters. I feel those are strong enough for now.
Right now it’s dead silent at idle, powerful when pushed, and ready to perform with less expected issues for years to come.
So I might be rethinking my strategy for the future, I might recap ALL my receivers, but if that’s the case, I’ve got quite a few to do and a lot of parts to buy!
What’s your experience recapping?
OK, I’m starting to really realize that recapping is the way to go. Mind you, I have never been one to just outright recap, but I’m finding that the receivers that I completely recap and also replace known bad transistors just perform so much better! I won’t say it’s night and day difference but it’s significantly better.
Spent all week recapping this Harman Kardon 150+ in the evenings and I would guess there’s over 150 caps and all the ones I spot checked were 25% over spec with higher than expected ESR. Not a single cap was dead on as it should’ve been. These were all mainly grey Elna’s. And none were shorted or malfunctioning - which gives the brand a good test of time and there’s no reason to criticize them.
And I even recapped the tuner - it’s also stable and working fine without any adjustment. What’s also interesting to note that this receiver was working 100% fine prior to recap, it just had no variability in the tone circuit, and I knew it was struggling because the dial lights dimmed with the music. And it got better when it was powered on for an hour.
It’s now strong and good for another 40 years. 18 transistors were swapped out for the Swiss army knife 1845’s. It had previously exhibited a bad transistor in one of the channels kind of a bacon frying pan noise. Also, the bass/treble/midrange tone circuit was all messed up between all the channels which could’ve been capacitors or transistors cause there’s a lot of them in the tone circuit - 3 per channel.
I left the (4) 6800uf filters. I feel those are strong enough for now.
Right now it’s dead silent at idle, powerful when pushed, and ready to perform with less expected issues for years to come.
So I might be rethinking my strategy for the future, I might recap ALL my receivers, but if that’s the case, I’ve got quite a few to do and a lot of parts to buy!
What’s your experience recapping?
