Capacitor Leads

[Grainger49]

I'm reading over the manual.  There is a warning that the capacitors are sensitive to heat.  Would leaving the leads long create unwanted noise?

[Paul Birkeland]

The capacitors don't like the heat from your soldering iron, and won't be happy touching a 5 or 10 Watt resistor.

Leaving the leads really long on the caps in the Crack won't lead to noise issues, but it will increase the probability that the cap will twist and the leads will short against each other. 

[Grainger49]

Thanks, that is clear to me. 

I'm a little under the weather today, a cold or something.  So I didn't do anything but mount the RCA jacks and switches.  As is my practice I bent all the leads on the switches out like I do on tube pins.  It gives extra room for my fat fingers to make connections.

I will hopefully get into it more tomorrow.

[Paul Birkeland]

So I didn't do anything but mount the RCA jacks and switches.  As is my practice I bent all the leads on the switches out like I do on tube pins.

There's a fair amount of risk in doing that, as the switch contacts are molded into those switches, and torquing on them can move them around. 

[Grainger49]

I'll check continuity if I feel good enough to work on it today.  I couldn't talk when I got up about an hour ago.

[boulos]

How would one know if the capacitors were affected by the heat of the iron?  I was very careful, but when there are three capacitors connected to a large terminal which is also connected to the drain wire, the time the iron needed on the terminal+leads to adequately apply the heat was not as short as I like.

[Paul Birkeland]

How would one know if the capacitors were affected by the heat of the iron?

The cap will kind of fall apart. 

[boulos]

ah, I see.  They got warm to the touch.  If you look at this picture, do they appear OK to you?

[Paul Birkeland]

Looks good.

[Grainger49]

I rang everything out, including the switches.  It works perfectly.  I'm using the 5k Hz. filter at 4dB.

It seems to work.

[boulos]

Here's my Fix with the Hammond base. I used small rubber strips at the corners so that the plate does not slide. My speakers are on a shelf among books. I feel the fix lifted the midrange, and I'm enjoying it in my system.  I wonder what I should do when I plug the headphones in the S.E.X. ... Should I set bothe treble and bass to 0dB, or try it out as is? Currently, the settings are narrowest baffle, 4dB, 10kHz, 2dB.

[Doc B.]

Yes, try setting the control flat for headphones. Then adjust it to taste.

[JamieMcC]

Do you think the fix will have much effect on headphones? Please could you post back your impressions of using this with your headphones Grainger I meant boulos while using with the sex.

Thanks Jamie

[Grainger49]

Jamie,

I use the Fix with my Orca/Dungeness speakers.  I don't listen to headphones.  Well, not since some time in the 1990s.

[Paul Birkeland]

Do you think the fix will have much effect on headphones? Please could you post back your impressions of using this with your headphones Grainger.

Headphones can be somewhat bass-heavy, so I wouldn't expect the BSC aspect to be all that desirable.  On the other hand, there are those cans that roll off a lot on the top end, and being able to bump that up a bit could be nice.