Which Electrolytic caps to recap and Amek Angela V1 ?

[jensenmann]

Any 105deg rated low ESR type electrolytic will be fine. Don´t spend money on "audio grade" caps, there´s nothing special about them except your money in the pocket of the seller. Popular brands are Panasonic FC/FM/FR, Nichicon, Elna, Cornell Dubilier. Audiomaintenance.com is the place where you can get a lot of help for your Angela. Colin is an ex-Amek employee who can sell you complete recap-packages for your desk.
Bo Hansen did do an 2xAngela combining job some time ago. He may be of help for your task, too: welcome to Hansn Audio Gothenburg

[electricsky]

Thanks for your answer.
The person i bought that second Angela from, in UK, told me about That person, Colin , from AML.
Maybe he will recap the desk.

I saw some pictures on the web ,of an Amek Angela that had been built with two , maybe it's this one.

[The Byre]

Colin is unlikely to want to recap your desk for you, but he almost certainly can put you in touch with someone who can do this.

[Matt Syson]

Hi
I recap and upgrade desks, having done this for 9 years while working at AMEK. OK the desks I was commissioning at that time didn't need recapping as they were new but many had 'extra tweaks' that didn't always go into production.
Matt S

[Steele]

Screw capacitor replacement. Investigate LME 49720 as chip replacements. Then you can remove a pile of caps. I did that to my AMEK. HUGE improvement.
Check out Jim Williams advice on this. Great Guy.

[ray_subsonic]

Originally Posted by Steele

Screw capacitor replacement. Investigate LME 49720 as chip replacements. Then you can remove a pile of caps. I did that to my AMEK. HUGE improvement. Check out Jim Williams advice on this. Great Guy.

Steele. I'll take a Wild Guess. Jim's mods involve removing Coupling Caps from any of the Op-Amp/Amp circuits. This appears to be one of his pet peeves with a lot of console designs. But I'd like to be clear about what his Mods might do for the sound of the desk. He seems to be often after a more open sound (DC to Daylight I think he often says .. ). If either Jim or you would like to explain further, I'd be interested to hear more in depth info.

Some kind of description from yourself about the change in sound in your console from before, to after the Mods might be helpful. I don't know if you have any recordings from before the desk was modded ..?? I'm interested to know more as an Angela has been offered to me recently, and I'd be interested to hear the difference between a stock and a modded desk with a 24 channel mix at some stage.

Where you've suggested LME 49720's being substituted, is that on the Inputs, or in the Master Section? And just to confirm, is your Desk an early Angela? On a separate note, I think the OP was referring to Capacitors that are directly in the Audio Path. By this decade, most of these Caps probably ARE worth replacing as the OP has suggested.

Cheers RAy

[Jim Williams]

Precision opamps allow you to remove electrolytic caps if the DC offsets are low. This is done on a chip by chip basis. Another consideration is input bias current of the opamp. If high like 5532's you risk hearing some DC scratch across pots.

LME's are excellent parts but not a panacea. Each stage should be considered seperately as some have higher input impedance and those may favor fet input devices.

The BB OPA164x series are also an excellect swap in any AMEK as they are low power (same os 072's) high phase margin (tend to remain stable) and very low noise (5 nv vs 22 nv for 072 opamps) They are also low DC offsets so caps might be able to be removed. They also have much higher loop gain so boosting top end EQ is not as harsh as with 072 opamps.

El caps add nothing to the sonics of audio gear, unless you like the transient dampening they cause. They were used because it was a cheap and dirty way to control opamp offsets.

I have a Trident 65 master here, 2 caps reamin on the mix outputs, the rest are removed. I also have a 3500 Tascam in, all caps are gone except in the mic preamp and a pair on the master balanced mix outputs, the rest are gone as is that "Tascam fog".

[enginefire]

wow Jim i would really love to know how you managed to get rid of all the el caps in the m3500! i guess i have to get a scope...

[ray_subsonic]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

I have a Trident 65 master here, 2 caps remain on the mix outputs, the rest are removed. I also have a 3500 Tascam in, all caps are gone except in the mic preamp and a pair on the master balanced mix outputs, the rest are gone as is that "Tascam fog".

Very Interesting. Kinda wish I'd known more about this 12 years ago Jim (I used to own a Trident 65 Series then). To get rid of "The Wool" on almost any Tascam console is an achievement ..

[Steele]

Originally Posted by ray_subsonic

Steele. I'll take a Wild Guess. Jim's mods involve removing Coupling Caps from any of the Op-Amp/Amp circuits. This appears to be one of his pet peeves with a lot of console designs. But I'd like to be clear about what his Mods might do for the sound of the desk. He seems to be often after a more open sound (DC to Daylight I think he often says .. ). If either Jim or you would like to explain further, I'd be interested to hear more in depth info.

Some kind of description from yourself about the change in sound in your console from before, to after the Mods might be helpful. I don't know if you have any recordings from before the desk was modded ..?? I'm interested to know more as an Angela has been offered to me recently, and I'd be interested to hear the difference between a stock and a modded desk with a 24 channel mix at some stage.

Where you've suggested LME 49720's being substituted, is that on the Inputs, or in the Master Section? And just to confirm, is your Desk an early Angela? On a separate note, I think the OP was referring to Capacitors that are directly in the Audio Path. By this decade, most of these Caps probably ARE worth replacing as the OP has suggested.

Cheers RAy

No, after the front end. In the EQ section I used AD 8512 those are Jfet. For the master buss I used OPA 627s. Expensive but "Holy Shit !!!"
Over all it sounds like something totally new, ballsy. Maybe I'll write a song about it.

[ray_subsonic]

Originally Posted by Steele

Expensive but "Holy Shit !!!" Over all it sounds like something totally new, ballsy.

We Like Ballsy !!!

[PicoFarad]

I just recently fully recapped a Blue 28 channel Angela that I purchased locally. The guy I purchased it from said recapping wasn't really necessary, I decided to do it anyways, especially after noticing a crap load of them had this green corrosion on some of the leads. On top of that I replaced all the mute / solo relays, disassembled / cleaned / reassembled all of the switches, new Alps faders, and cleaned / lubed all the pots. I got all my parts from Colin at AudioMantinence. The stuff he sells is really high quality. I was completely blown away by the sound of this board when I put it back together and ran a full mix through it, the clearest / easiest thing to mix on for me yet so far. Good luck with your recapping, if you have any questions id be more than happy to help.