Recap service. Any board, any era.
Electrolytic capacitors dry out and leak with age, and when they go the board does weird things: no power, noise, random resets, dead channels. We replace all of them with fresh quality parts. The shop just invested in proper desoldering tooling, so recap work that used to take an hour now takes minutes, and that shows in the price.
Board-level recaps from $75 · Receivers & amps from $200 · Everything quoted per board after we look — the $49 diagnosis is free when you approve the repair
The long version: what a recap costs · is a recap worth it?
What recapping actually is
An electrolytic capacitor is a small can of foil and wet electrolyte. It is also the part on a board most likely to fail first.
The part that ages out first
Electrolytics hold a wet electrolyte that slowly dries out. Heat speeds it up, so the caps closest to a hot regulator or a warm power supply go first, years before anything else on the board does.
What a dying cap looks like
Sometimes a bulged top or a brown stain on the board. Often nothing visible at all. A capacitor that reads fine cold can fail the moment the board warms up, which is why the diagnosis runs it warm.
What it does to the board
A dried-out cap stops smoothing the power rail. The rail sags and goes noisy, and the board downstream does strange things: it browns out on power-up, hums, resets at random, or loses a channel when it gets warm.
Recapping means replacing all of them with fresh quality parts, before they fail or as they fail. Not just the one that is bulging: the rest of the caps on that rail are the same age and have the same hours on them, so a partial job is a callback waiting to happen. All of them, or it is not a recap.
How a recap goes
Diagnosis first, then one itemized quote. You approve before anything starts.
The five steps
- 01Diagnose. $49, free when you approve the repair. We confirm the caps are actually the fault before a recap ever gets quoted, warm and running, not just cold on the bench.
- 02Itemized quote. One quote listing what gets replaced and the labor. You approve it before any work starts, and there is no hourly meter running.
- 03Full recap. Every electrolytic on the board replaced with a quality part: 105°C rated, low-ESR where the board calls for it, correct values and footprint. Through-hole and surface-mount, desoldered with hot air and proper tooling rather than pried out.
- 04Burn-in and test. The board runs under load long enough for a marginal joint or a wrong value to show up here, on the bench, instead of in your hands next week.
- 05Home again. Picked up in Longmont or shipped back, packed for the trip. A recapped board travels as well as it did when it was new.
What a recap fixes, and what it doesn't
A recap fixes capacitor-caused faults. It is not a magic fix for every dead board, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Straight about what a recap is for
Capacitors are the most common failure on aging electronics, and the most oversold repair in the trade. Both things are true. Here is how we split them.
- If the caps are the fault, a recap usually brings the board back. Sagging rails, hum, random resets, a channel that drops out when it warms up: those are the classic cap symptoms, and they respond to a proper full recap.
- If the caps are healthy, we say so and chase the real fault. The $49 diagnosis is what tells us which one you have. No recap gets quoted onto a board that does not need one, because that would be selling you the easy answer instead of the right one.
- A recap is not a rebuild. It does not fix a cracked board, a dead processor, a blown trace, or a broken connector. Those are different jobs, and they get their own honest verdict.
- Recapping cannot undo what leaked electrolyte already destroyed. If a cap has been leaking for years, it can eat a trace or a pad. We tell you what the leak has already cost before you commit to anything, and sometimes the honest answer is that it is parts-only.
Wondering whether your old unit is worth a recap at all? The fix-or-replace take on aging gear covers the math in plain language, and the cap-by-cap version lives on is a recap worth it?
Recap questions
The things people ask before they box up a board.
Straight answers
Board-level recaps start at $75, and receivers and amps start at $200. Everything is still quoted per board after we look: cap count and how much of the board is reachable decide the final number, so two boards of the same age can quote differently. A typical full receiver recap lands in the $200 to $500 range the audio bench publishes. You get one itemized quote and you approve it before any work starts. No hourly meter, no surprises.
Only if the capacitors are the cause. Hum, sagging power, random resets, and a channel that drops out when it warms up are the classic cap symptoms, but plenty of faults look the same and are not caps at all. That is why every job starts with the $49 diagnosis, free when you approve the repair: we confirm the cause before quoting a recap.
No. A full recap means every electrolytic on the board is replaced, not just the one that looks bad. The other caps on that rail are the same age and have the same hours on them, and reusing them is how a recap comes back to the bench.
Yes, and finishing someone else's partial work is common. We check what was done, replace anything wrong or reused, and complete the job properly. Tell us it has been worked on before and we will look closely at the previous work.
Quoted per job, with the turnaround in the quote. A small board is quick; a whole receiver with a hundred capacitors takes longer, and the quote says which one you are getting. Mail-in is welcome either way.
The honest math is the same as any repair: what the recap costs against what the device is worth to you working. The $49 diagnosis gives you both numbers before you commit, and the fix-or-replace take on old gear is one page over on this site.
Every number explained: what a recap costs and why.
Got a board full of old capacitors?
Call the shop any time: our AI receptionist answers around the clock and a human follows up. Or run the repair wizard for a first-pass assessment before you commit to anything.