Expensive Audiophile pre-amp repair

[kitcatch]

I was just looking for the video by Mend It Mark on that £25K audiophile pre-amp. I guess the designer of the amp wasn't happy with the comments people were making about its build quality so they took it own? From what I remember from the video, the repair revealed that the expensive part of the amp was the hand picked op-amps and all the separate power supplies. The problem turned out to be a tantalum capacitor. Mark also pointed out that the circuit boards were stacked with plastic standoffs and that's probably why they got knocked out of place during shipping. Have you seen the video?

 

[Guardian Egyptian]

I didn't see the original video, but I heard about it in some repair forums. I'm in LA and mess around with audio stuff on weekends. Sounds like that pre-amp had some nice parts but simple problems, like a bad capacitor and loose boards held by plastic clips. That's not great for something that costs £25K for me.

 

[fantacuits]

Guess I'm not the only then, the way he traced it down to a single tantalum cap was wild, and the stacked boards with standoffs explanation made a lot of sense. Shows that even a £25K amp can have surprisingly simple weak points