I know there are several threads covering the problems with this amp so here is mine and what I have done !
I bought the pair from auction with the seller saying the volume / balance had a problem.
When i received it and hooked it up i found nothing to be wrong with it
However the sound was dull as dishwater compared to my mates one so something was certainly not right with it.
I'm a fairly keen DIYer and have overhauled my CD player and DVD player in the past so the casings got taken off and I had a look inside.
The only aparant thing I could find was one of the RDE 16V 470uf caps that sit under the ribbon cable had started to crack near it's top !
I marked down all the cap's inside and went off to Akihabara to find replacements.
The four big cap's in the PSX I found Nichicon "super through" equivalents to pop in but would need to jigsaw the casing as they are considerably longer than the Cyrus ones in it. Unfortunately could not use them as when i went to un solder the originals discovered they have 5 posts and not the usual 2 
All the other cap's were a mix of Elna Cerafine Black/Gold , Nichicon Muse, Nichicon Fine Gold and Rubycon Blackgate muse.
Not knowing what is still in use I just done them all
I have done the swap over in stages - I also didn't know at the time what to replace the RDE cap's with.
After the 1st set of mod's the bass had been killed off but soundstage and detail were back in abundance and after a week of near continuous playing the bass came back again , however the musicality of the amp was still lacking and i put it down to my speakers as they are intended for AV rather than Hi-Fi.
I had a few mods in my CD player still to do and finally got round to doing them too, i replaced the standard diodes with some A&R Ultra low noise jobs and the two 16V 470uf caps beside the now op amps in the player from Elna Cerafine red to Blackgate muse.
Fantastic difference in the sound but still the overall impression was the amp was not performing right and compared to the CEC 3300R I had was making the music take a step backwards.
Yesterday some Blackgate Muses arrived to replace the RDE's and they got put in pronto (Should point out that the Blackgates all have different code# ).
They cured the problem and the amp is now rockin once more Within a few hours of the new sound i could already tell that it had exceeded the CEC and now have no regrets changing to this - fantastic amp considering it's 20yrs old, just needed some TLC to get it back up to par. next will be putting in some new diodes but that'll wait until my next trip to Akihabara.
This Cyrus II and PSX are the metal case ones with push button on. I only have the PSX powered up and I unsoldered the headphone output on the amp changed the original bannana plugs for the speaker cables to newer easier to clamp ones and polished up the CD phono connections.
I'll start a thread about the mods on the CD player.
Oh , photo's to follow of what's where too !!
I bought the pair from auction with the seller saying the volume / balance had a problem.
When i received it and hooked it up i found nothing to be wrong with it
However the sound was dull as dishwater compared to my mates one so something was certainly not right with it. I'm a fairly keen DIYer and have overhauled my CD player and DVD player in the past so the casings got taken off and I had a look inside.
The only aparant thing I could find was one of the RDE 16V 470uf caps that sit under the ribbon cable had started to crack near it's top !
I marked down all the cap's inside and went off to Akihabara to find replacements.
The four big cap's in the PSX I found Nichicon "super through" equivalents to pop in
but would need to jigsaw the casing as they are considerably longer than the Cyrus ones in it. Unfortunately could not use them as when i went to un solder the originals discovered they have 5 posts and not the usual 2 All the other cap's were a mix of Elna Cerafine Black/Gold , Nichicon Muse, Nichicon Fine Gold and Rubycon Blackgate muse.
Not knowing what is still in use I just done them all
I have done the swap over in stages - I also didn't know at the time what to replace the RDE cap's with.
After the 1st set of mod's the bass had been killed off but soundstage and detail were back in abundance and after a week of near continuous playing the bass came back again , however the musicality of the amp was still lacking and i put it down to my speakers as they are intended for AV rather than Hi-Fi.
I had a few mods in my CD player still to do and finally got round to doing them too, i replaced the standard diodes with some A&R Ultra low noise jobs and the two 16V 470uf caps beside the now op amps in the player from Elna Cerafine red to Blackgate muse.
Fantastic difference in the sound but still the overall impression was the amp was not performing right and compared to the CEC 3300R I had was making the music take a step backwards.
Yesterday some Blackgate Muses arrived to replace the RDE's and they got put in pronto (Should point out that the Blackgates all have different code# ).
They cured the problem and the amp is now rockin once more
Within a few hours of the new sound i could already tell that it had exceeded the CEC and now have no regrets changing to this - fantastic amp considering it's 20yrs old, just needed some TLC to get it back up to par. next will be putting in some new diodes but that'll wait until my next trip to Akihabara.This Cyrus II and PSX are the metal case ones with push button on. I only have the PSX powered up and I unsoldered the headphone output on the amp changed the original bannana plugs for the speaker cables to newer easier to clamp ones and polished up the CD phono connections.
I'll start a thread about the mods on the CD player.
Oh , photo's to follow of what's where too !!
The mod kit
Here is what I initially bought
(Click on thumbnail for bigger pic)
but these had to go back
but at 5,000 yen each i couldn't keep them!
Originally two Rubycon Blue were here
The board got covered in Nichicon Fine Gold
The blackgates were placed here
The offending caps(s)
Now replaced with these
Over view of the install
Not many cap's to replace in the PSX and i never photo'd it
but it got the remaining Elna's and the Nichicon Muse installed.
Here is what I initially bought
(Click on thumbnail for bigger pic)
but these had to go back
but at 5,000 yen each i couldn't keep them!
Originally two Rubycon Blue were here
The board got covered in Nichicon Fine Gold
The blackgates were placed here
The offending caps(s)
Now replaced with these
Over view of the install
Not many cap's to replace in the PSX and i never photo'd it
but it got the remaining Elna's and the Nichicon Muse installed.- Status
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