I have an old Bryston 3B (circa 1983) that had a dead channel. This had happened before to the left channel. I took it in to my local repair shop and they charged me $200 to fix the amp. I was told the capacitor replaced was not cheap and that the labor added to the cost of repair. Basically they had my amp for ransom, and I had to pay it get it out.
This was about 2 years ago and things have been fine until the right channel decided to go. It looked to be the same problem so I decided to just shelf the amp for a while until I came up with a plan for a new sub amp, besides I had a few spare amps that I could/did press into service until then.
That was about 4 months ago until my buddy Cam came out for a visit from Calgary. Cam walked into my door and it was less that 2 minutes and we were in my workshop with the Bryston ripped apart diagnosing it's ailments.
Cam is an Electrical Engineer that is very anal at times about a lot of things, specifically the way the shop "Fixed" my Bryston the first time around. It was a real hack job as he called it and he often teased me about it. The shop yanked the old capacitor and grounding straps, soldered in the new capacitor with a soldering technique that looked like a person that had just learned to solder :lol: The capacitor was left flapping in the wind, held in place only with the soldered straps, a real piss poor job.
With in 15 minutes Cam had isolated the problem to one capacitor and we were looking online for the correct part. We found the part, a 10,000 mfd 65V capacitor at our local industrial supply for $16. The capacitor was actually physically smaller than the original Bryston caps, and as such it had to be fixed sort of like the shop fixed it the first round. The major difference is this did not cost me $200, and the job was not a "Hack" job of the highest order.
Many thanks to my buddy Cam for his brilliance and care in fixing this old boy. It is back in line now serving out power to my sub again, and I'm thrilled.
This was about 2 years ago and things have been fine until the right channel decided to go. It looked to be the same problem so I decided to just shelf the amp for a while until I came up with a plan for a new sub amp, besides I had a few spare amps that I could/did press into service until then.
That was about 4 months ago until my buddy Cam came out for a visit from Calgary. Cam walked into my door and it was less that 2 minutes and we were in my workshop with the Bryston ripped apart diagnosing it's ailments.
Cam is an Electrical Engineer that is very anal at times about a lot of things, specifically the way the shop "Fixed" my Bryston the first time around. It was a real hack job as he called it and he often teased me about it. The shop yanked the old capacitor and grounding straps, soldered in the new capacitor with a soldering technique that looked like a person that had just learned to solder :lol: The capacitor was left flapping in the wind, held in place only with the soldered straps, a real piss poor job.
With in 15 minutes Cam had isolated the problem to one capacitor and we were looking online for the correct part. We found the part, a 10,000 mfd 65V capacitor at our local industrial supply for $16. The capacitor was actually physically smaller than the original Bryston caps, and as such it had to be fixed sort of like the shop fixed it the first round. The major difference is this did not cost me $200, and the job was not a "Hack" job of the highest order.
Many thanks to my buddy Cam for his brilliance and care in fixing this old boy. It is back in line now serving out power to my sub again, and I'm thrilled.
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