Expensive yes, very much, just the missing blue caps will cost a ton to restore.Įven carbon comps that are USA nos gets very expensive, you have to buy about 5-10 to find one that is up to the task. This amps value is nothing like one in good working order, I would look at all transformers and get the date codes, and the speakers, and adjust the price accordingly, it would more than likely at this point never be cost affective to restore. Why would you splice wire? Very Shoddy work! That whole eyelet board looks like something built with things out of a junk drawer, it’s pretty haphazard looking to me. They do show up on eBay for $30 a pop, so shady techs cash in.Īnd that is why blue molded caps go missing… They don’t just last longer, I have yet to see a bad one, and have yet to see anyone verify they had a bad one, never! And I keep asking. The blue molded caps do not need to be replaced, they are a very strange cap, rather bombproof, where mustard caps, the brown turds, and most vintage ones all do go bad after awhile, I have never in my life tested a blue molded cap that showed any leakage or esr, not one.Īs tested by a calibrated stancore capacitor analyzer, and a blue esr meter that reads esr on small signal caps. The most troubling thing about this is the iron has been replaced. The blue caps seem to last a lot longer.Ĭarbon comp resistors will drift with age. The Fender amps that used the yellow Astron coupling caps are also very prone to leakage. Yes, by the time a tube amp is 50 years old, the electrolytics are all going to need to be replaced. I might buy such an amp, but I would consider it to be a project build with the intent to verify and correct anything changed from stock. Yes, the power transformer can be replaced, and if it has the proper voltages, the amp can sound perfect.īut at this point, that amp is effectively a 2010-build, possibly using the original circuit, possibly modified values. Yes, the amp can be completely overhauled with all new components and sound perfect, assuming that the original power and output transformers are still in good shape. The changed power transformer (not choke) indicates that at some point, this amp had a serious failure, requiring a complete rebuild. That is the original, and is likely in as bad a shape as the rest of the electrolytics. Bothers me that the cap on the bias supply has not been changed.