Update My Dynaco

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Dynaco SCA-80Q
Many years ago I decided to get into hifi in a big way. At that time there was not much to choose from so I did what a lot of other audiophiles did at the times and that was to buy a kit from a respected manufacturer and assemble it myself.

The company I chose was Dynaco. they had already made a splash with their bookshelf speakers, the infamous Dynaco A-25. You can still see them offered from time to time on EBay. they were a great speaker.

What you see here is the Dynaco SCA-80Q an integrated amp from the 1970s. About 30 clean watts RMS per side.

Now, admittedly, it had not been running for a number of years but I thought, let's give it a go. So I hauled it up from the basement, packed it in the car for our annual summer jaunt to our cottage this past summer and thought, heck, we'll use it to listen to music while we are there.

It worked great for the first few weeks but then it started to develop an annoying hum. Snapping it off and on quickly got rid of the hum temporarily but it was soon to raise its ugly head again and again. At first I thought it was the main volume control but after doing some research I came the conclusion that some of the capacitors had come to the end of their lives. .

What to do? It did not take long to find Update My Dynaco.  I perused the website and found two capacitor replacement kits that promised to cure the hum. Not expensive at all. The parts came a few weeks ago and although I have not had a chance to install them just yet, I am confident that it will solve the problem.

Its a good thing, too, because I always liked the sound of that amp.

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