Lifespan of a quality solid state amplifier?

Herman, Can you please give us the proper definition of "half life"?

Herman, that is the correct use of 'half life' in this case. This is what they teach you in technical school. I have seen it borne out many times in the last 40 years.

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Marakanetz. capacitance could be OK but ESR and/or leakage too high. It is doubtful a 50 year old electrolytic is still in spec.

Rrog, half life is the time it takes for something to decay or decline by 50%, it is not the time it takes for 50% of a group of objects to fail. For instance; the half life of a discharging capacitor is the length of time it takes for the charge to drop 50%. The half life of an ingested drug is the time it takes the body to eliminate half of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life

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maybe they should make caps out of plutonium. One less thing to worry about.

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I'm dumbfounded you would continue to defend what is clearly just plain wrong. You are evidently just making stuff up as you go along this time.

That is absolutely not the correct use of the term. It means something has half it's life left, not that half of a group are dead. Find one other example where it is used as you used it.

How could you possibly have seen it many times? Give me one example where you have seen a group of caps where 1/2 have failed after 20 years.

You'll have to do better than they teach it in technical school to have any credence. I taught in a technical school for ten years and I've never heard that 1/2 after 20 years statistic before. If it is correct you should be able to easily produce at least one credible source, but of course you can't because there are too many variables to have a statement like that be true.

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Plutonium is a good idea though, it has a half life of 80 million years ;>)

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