Krell


Hi everybody,
about a year ago I bought a FPB-XXX cx by Krell as second hand unit from ufficial distributer.
It sound great and drives my speakers the way I was expecting from a Krell.
But.... had a surprise! one day opening the top cover I noticed that the left Assembly of my FPB-XXX cx were used the usual blue 8 capacitors, while in the right assembly al capacitor were black (different brand)!
Had an answer from Krell it says......"are
original and factory installed. Assembly of this FPB-XXX cx was during a
transition period where we were phasing out of blue capacitors and
incorporating black capacitors which have the same value and specifications"......I'm sorry this is unbelievable!
Any opinion?
Thanks
A disappointed!
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As long as the power supply caps meet Krell design specs, you shouldn't have any reason to worry. These are power supply caps, not caps in the audio circuit chain. This is really not a big deal or problem. Power suppy caps can be very expensive, especially if the rail voltages are high. The higher the rail voltage, the more expensive the caps would be. So, they probably saw that one channel was damaged and the power supply caps on that side were questionable. So they replaced the caps on that side. If the other side's caps were okay, then why spend the money to replace them? I would have asked the customer if they wanted me to replace them all, which is probably what Krell's Technician did. The customer may have said no due to the costs. If they are quality caps, you would be hard pressed to hear any difference. Same capacitance rating, same or higher voltage rating and you are good to go. Take a quick look to see how much those suckers costs. Say a 33,000 micro farad cap rated at 100VDC. Go ahead and check.

Enjoy
Opening (just curiosity) recently a fellow's Parasound Halo JC-1s (purchased brand new, factory sealed, from authorised dealer), we both were surprised seeing all four power supply main caps (4x33000 mfarads) altogether different, named Rubicon CE LSQ, instead of original Nichicon Gold TuneĀ…

On another forum we've been told that at a time Parasound factory was short of original caps, so they implemented the closest match.

To be honest, amps work flawlessly more than two years, for now..
I am surprised that a well known name like Krell would mix components within a single unit, but if you don't hear a difference and it was factory done, I guess it's no harm no foul.

I would have expected a manufacturer would just use all black caps of the new line in making a new amp and save the extra blue caps for incoming spares to be used on amps to be serviced that used the blue caps.
I had a KSA200S that Krell re-capped. Came back with 2ea black & 2ea blue. That was ok. Problem was FedX dropped it and half the components inside came apart.
Ever seem a growm man cry? That was the day.
-John