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Late in 2008, I'd been quite busy with an old friend's studio upgrade job on a 72 channel Speck M72 mixing console which needed both expansion (32 Microphone preamp boards) and a re-cap job. (72 channels @ 10 caps/channel plus mains and effects)
Here is a picture of the M72 console, the rack next to it has been pulled away from it's location for cabling-up that 48 track Tascam you can see there...
Since I had to make new circuit boards for these mic-pre's anyway and a goal of the project was an upgrade, so the owner decided to use these nice Jensen JT-115K-E mic input transformers at $90/ea
The original manufacturer (Speck) has not produced these for a some years now, so I had to make new microphone preamp circuit boards for the console. Here is a picture of an original Speck mic-preamp board:
The original mic-pre's used SESCOM transformers which are no longer made, carbon film resistors, and electrolytic capacitors made by Illinois Capacitor Co. The following picture is my Classic Amplification version of the mic preamp board:
I used Nichicon "Muse" electrolytics, Panasonic and Wima film caps, Metal-film resistors, added on-board phantom power support while I was at it. Here is the first batch of boards ready to install:
Here you can see some of the mic-pre boards mounted on a twenty-four batch of the 32 primary channels:
and here is the "client" inspecting one of his newly upgraded channel boards:
(he's an old buddy I've known since the 70's)
After the preamp boards were built and mounted, then a re-cap job of 700+ capacitors was completed.
© 2002 Brad Burt
Speaking of cap-jobs, I have an old Dell (Built 20FEB2002) that still runs great and I really don't want to get rid of while it does.
I was thinking of upgrading the video card one day so when I opened it up to check it out I noticed that it had some badly leaking and bulging capacitors in the VRM area near the Pentium-4.
I replaced these Nichicon HM capacitors (below left) with some real nice Rubicon MCZ series caps (below right).
Nichicon HM Rubicon MCZ
Rubicon is another very reputable brand. The capacitors for the voltage regulation module (VRM) on motherboards are not your run-o-the-mill electrolytic capacitors, they have to be very low ESR, high ripple, and high temperature (105c) capacitors, you won't get these down at the local Radio Shack!
FYI: apparently back in 2002 (to ~2005) Nichicon which is a very reputable brand was changing their electrolyte process for certain capacitors in their line and had a big batch of bad capacitors that were installed in many brands of equipment including Dell. The Nichicon HM series with date codes H0201 through H0552 are all affected and subject to leakage of their electrolyte, bulging body's, even bursting open and shorting out (and ruining the motherboard). A lot of computers and digital audio equipment has these bad caps.