Marantz SA 1- The Discovery and Remedy of Old Capacitors

Unlike my other posts, I will try to keep this one brief.  A while back, I purchased (for a very small amount of money) a Marantz SA 1 flagship SACD player.  The display did not work, and it wouldn't read discs some of the time.  I went through it and found a number of cold solder joints along with a bad transistor.  That got the display working again.  I also replaced and aligned the laser, which corrected the reading of discs.  The sound quality of this player is stunning.  I wrote about it elsewhere on AGon.  There is, however, a sonic anomaly.  It takes around 30 minutes of play time before everything smooths out, fills out, and breathes.  I leave the player on all of the time.  Because of the associated symptoms, I guestimated the output coupling capacitors may be in a state of rapid decline.  They did use Elna Silmic caps (not the Silmic II), which are a nice sounding cap.  This player is likely close to 25 years old, so the caps are that old, too.  Additionally, as disc players go, this thing runs WARM.  It has 8 individually regulated power supplies and the associated transistors are hot!  Additionally, there are transistos in the analog stage that get pretty warm as well.  There are certain items in the digital circuil that get warm, along with the 3 internal transformers.  Marantz clearly recognized this problem because they have an aggressively vented cover and bottom plate.  

I know from experience that Silmic II capacitors don't like heat.  I figured the "sonic anomaly almost HAD to be an output coupling cap problem.  Being unable to find Silmic II caps (they were discontinued by Elna), I have been looking for some sort of audiophile cap I can use in their place.  There is no room for polypropylene.  It requires a total of 12 coupling caps.  Due to "knowing a guy", I was able to obtain what I needed in the form of genuine Elna Silmic II capacitors.  

Now that the project is done, WOW.  That was the issue, no two ways on that one.  You name it, it improved.  I'm probably going to address the power supply capacitors at some point (Elna Cerafines), but I have other things to do right now.  

Ideally, I need to fins "audio grade" capacitors that are rated for like, 105C instead of 85C.  It's quite warm in there!  The project went well, though, and the sound improved by a couple of solid notches.