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Audio Research Reference 250 capacitor issue

One of my reference 250amp fuse blown and found that the capacitor is bad and audio research has upgrade kit to replace Teflon capacitors with latest ones. The also have new wiring in the upgrade kit. Has anyone experienced this ? I see they discontinued Teflon capacitors a year or two back.
veerapaneni

Showing 5 responses by veerapaneni

veerapaneni OP
108 posts
 
The old Teflon capacitors are white ones and the new ones are gold color and small size. The kit for both Amps is around 1200-1300 as I my warranty expired.
veerapaneni OP
108 posts
 
My Amps are with Technician at this time and I will get them back Tomorrow. I have to burn the Amps again for couple of hundred hours. I guess the reason ARC not using teflon caps anymore is because if failure rate is high. I only had 650 hrs on my Amp and they are 3 years old .
veerapaneni OP
108 posts
 
I don't mind paying for the parts but only hope the current ones last longer, and premium equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars should have a better warranty IMHO .
veerapaneni OP
108 posts
 
There are 2 white caps infront of 8 Tubes in each Amp and one of them failed. But I have to replace all 4 . Also part of upgrade ARC has sent new cables which are connected to the Balanced outpu (The cables which are running from front of the board to outputs)
veerapaneni OP
108 posts
 
I think the old Teflon capacitors are not able to handle high voltages and arc replaced them with new gold color capacitors. They are continuing using Teflon capacitors in preamps but discontinued in amplifiers. I have 30 hrs on my capacitors and they sound pretty good. Don't hear any difference. After 100hrs of breakin they should sound better.
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