cjd capacitors

[jac559]

I had a channel out on my Premier 16 series 1. A good friend, who is a competent technician, checked it out and found one bad cap. It is an output cap just behind the tubes. When it failed it shorted and was delivering plate voltage to the right output. He was going to replace the cap with whatever he had on hand but I felt it important to replace it with the cjd cap. He did remove the shorted cap and the channel worked perfectly with exactly the same measurement. He said the output impedance may be raised but it would have an insignificant effect since the input impedance of my amps (Quicksilver M135's) is over 100,000. Still I'd like to have it replaced. I called cj yesterday and was told they will not sell any parts and if I want a replacement I have to return the preamp for repair at a minimum cost of $500 plus parts and shipping.

The cap is yellow in color and is a cjd 2 MFD, 250 VDC with model number 9721 (the 9 is red). It is the same as most of the caps in the audio circuit. I believe is is a polypropylene. Does anyone have access to this cap? I'd really appreciate your help.

[admin]

If I am correct, I think the official CJ caps are only sold by them. Now whether this is only cosmetic labeling or they are doing something special with the caps, who is to say? You can always substitute the cap for the same rated one by another manufacturer. If you do this, you may want to replace both left and right corresponding caps to keep the sound the same.

FYI: I moved this topic into the troubleshooting forum.

[jac559]

That's what I'll do if I can't get the cjd cap. Seems like someone would have a take-out on hand if nothing else. I'm not sure why cj won't just sell me a cap. I'm not happy with that company policy. I'm afraid that using substitute caps might lower the resale value of the unit, although I don't plan on selling it anytime soon. Thank you.

[admin]

I think it's a quality control issue. If you see original caps in the unit then you can be pretty much assured that it was done in house and correct. If you start doing the work in a non-controlled fashion, a prospective buyer really wouldn't know if there was any work done on the unit and by whom.

I think it's kind of like with exotic cars. You only fix Lamborghini's at the Lamborghini dealership.

[AnotherJohnson]

I wish they would sell parts too, but I understand why they won’t.

It is quality control... there are a lot of guys out there with soldering irons that aren’t yet ready for prime time. CJ can’t control who you get to do your work, but they can control who gets their parts.

The one exception seems to be for owners based outside of the US. From time to time there are reports of parts being sent from CJ to help someone in a foreign country.

I don’t even think they send parts to their dealers in the US. I’ve seen some instances where a dealer routinely does recaps for other high end brands, but even though he’s a CJ authorized dealer, recaps for CJ products go to CJ.