Thor ta-1000 pre cap replacement -- advice


I am a new owner of a Thor TA-1000 preamp. What a fantastic piece of equipment. In my system it has a bit of a hard, tinny treble... just a bit. I want to try replacing caps with something warmer and wondered which caps should i replace? I see two small Hovland Musicaps and two small Multicaps. Then "beneath" the board (looking from the bottom of the unit here).... there are four big black caps... Solens i think. Which caps might be the place to start in order to warm the treble?

Before anyone asks, yes i am certain the treble issue stems from the thor. I have played w cables and tubes and will continue to do so but it needs something a bit more dramatic. I am willing to lose some detail to get rid of the issue.

Rest of system: sota star sapphire, grado reference sonata1, cec transport, audio note 3.1 sig dac, vtl mb-185 sig monoblocks, quad esl-63, vandersteen 2wq subs.

Thanks for thoughts!
montaldo

Showing 3 responses by augwest

I had all of my TA-1000 capacitors replaced with Vcaps.  Expensive but definitely worth it.  Be forewarned that they will require something like 200 hours of use before they sound their best.  I can send photos if you can figure out how to get your email address to me.

The Vcaps brought a new level of clarity with no apparent trade-off (coloration) - it improved imaging width and depth, "layering" (that tube thing), and generally made live music sound more dynamic and plausible.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT - because there is SO little available on the wonderful-but-obscure Thor TA-1000 "donut" preamps I have posted photos of the Vcap upgrades to mine. Four photos of the board are now shown on my System page called Heavenly Match. I make NO representation that this is the only (or even correct) way to do it, but I *sure* do like what I hear! And I’m not a total hack as I have a PhD in Electrical Engineering (unlike Ted D. and a few others I could name :o)

I’ll go back and see if I can add a photo of the Khozmo volume control as that was also a big improvement over stock.