Turtlerock Forum

As I sit here with my thumb up my butt, (left thumb, the right arm still aint right after surgery yet)I contemplate many things.

This was this mornings.


Surface mount components, and in particular capacitors. Their lifespan.

How many of you are avoiding gear with surface mount stuff in them where possible?

Do you even consider it?

As a budget flyer, I have lots of stuff (most of it?) with surface mount components. I think I've had 2 be!@#$%^& compressors and and an AD8000 fail in over 10 years. One of the comps was replaced under warranty, the other I replaced for (probably) less than the cost of repairing it. The AD8000 I will have a quick look at for loose ribbon cables etc, if I see nothing obvious it will be binned, I have a spare.

My first mixing desk, a be!@#$%^& MX2442A (the blue Mackie-ish one) lost it's right main output, I'll get it fixed one day, I quite liked it.

My catalyst for this, was the new

1073N from AMS Neve.

http://www.ams-neve.com/news-and-events/neve-1073n-standalone-mono-mic-preamp-eq

If you look there are quite a few SM components there.

At first , i thought, what a great idea, a 1073 that can work standalone, or go into a rack.. genius...

but, SM.

I honestly don't think about it.
For a start I don't know what the true ramifications are.
I've got a whole mix of stuff in my studio and my main criteria are if the piece will be useful, and if so can I justify it's cost.

Yeah, I have never thought about how it's made. I can't fix it anyway and a competent tech can fix either.

Surface mount is great in a lot of ways- smaller size can also lead to more freedom in circuit layout, which can reduce hum etc.

Longevity is a tricky one- most SMD gear at the moment is cheaper stuff, so there's been other cost cutting that is the more likely cause of problems.
With the right tools, replacement of parts is actually quite easy. I don't like working with it because I'm not used to it, but I think that's more habit than actual quality of the parts or difficulty of the job.

I certainly wouldn't avoid something because it has SMD- whether the new "Neve" 1073's bear much relation to the old ones is a different matter!

A very good tech PP presentation on the yays and nays is here, from the president of Audio Precision:

app.cooleremail.com/c.pl?07db18023cab316619d7d0e2af46d24b86e814311b3ebcde

Milo

As long as somebody did their homework on the circuits
I can see no reason that 1073 isn't the answer
For a whole bunch of people ..

Half my studio is probably surface mount

When that stuff breaks down I am going to swear alot

Untill it does ..its just the way stuff is built now
But anybody that needs to be in an actual viable
Manufacturing business .. It's just how it is done now .

Surface mount Longevity .. 30-40 years ..? nah uh maybe ?
Who can really tell ?

But if you have ever had any neves
You have learnt that they all have issues and need
"Tuning" maintenance a fair bit over a period
Of 20 years ..
Reseating cards modules .. Cleaning pots n switches
The only reason they are still in use at all
Is there were profoundly serviceable ..
This new stuff is not so much .

But really is it 2 years 10 years or 40 years with
High quality .. Low run studio stuff ?
Your guess will be as good as anybodies !

rick wrote:The only reason they are still in use at all
Is there were profoundly serviceable ..
This new stuff is not so much .

But really is it 2 years 10 years or 40 years with
High quality .. Low run studio stuff ?
Your guess will be as good as anybodies !

This bit, is whats going round in my noggin.

I have spent so much money on stuff since I started, on gear, thats now f*C#($n useless. Because of either technology changing, or flat batteries that are soldered to the motherboard, and impossible to get to...

And you are right, I was looking at that 1073N and thinking, yep, its for me, if the sound is cool... But, again, the thing about the older stuff, is it can be brought to life.

I thought caps, maybe 20 years????? but I am not sure that is even me remembering correctly and that was electrolytics.

Imagine, if all the old stuff, was surface mount..... I guess there would be less conjecture about old gear... 8)

Alistair wrote:Longevity is a tricky one- most SMD gear at the moment is cheaper stuff, so there's been other cost cutting that is the more likely cause of problems.

There's an awful lot of SMD on the modules in an SSL AWS948, but the build quality is superb. The only problems we've had so far was a failed LED (replaced the module under warranty), and a hum issue that went away by pulling and reseating a module.

Again, I just want to stress that a failure on surface mount gear doesn't mean it's destined for the trash. With the right tools they are pretty easy to work on. If nothing else when replacing parts you don't have to clean solder out of holes!

But all that said, I'd rather work on old guitar amps- everything is a long way away from everything else and I can get my fat hands in there no problem.

As with discrete components, there is good quality smd, and cheap rubbish, too. Depends on investment in build quality. Tolerances can also be much better for surface mount in, for example, resistors: 0.1% is common for quality components. So, power ratings for the little buggers can be increased by parallelling them up, with no loss in accuracy.
Tolerances are also much tighter on caps, too. So, theoretical designs tested on a simulator can be pretty close to the 'ideal', if you know what you're doing.

Milo

Great discussion....


So,me know that it's theoretically possible to have our 1073n recapped at some point down the road....


Is anyone doing that kind of work? SMD repair?

Rob?