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My DAC has exploded. I'm not kidding

Jimmy

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I have a 19 year old X24K and it doesn't even get luke warm, I also have several X-Can revisions and that's another story, you can almost fry eggs in the V2, mine are still in good condition, I only had to replace the tubes a couple of times.

Good low ESR electrolytic caps are more than good enough in this case, using tantalums will increase the cost by 10x, I don't even know why they used them in the first place.

The X24K is still a good sounding unit (it sounds warm and performs well when fed 24bit 96khz signals), but nowadays you can get the same or better performance for peanuts, so I woudn't spend more than necessary for repairs.
 

JohnYang1997

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I still don't recommend tantalum caps. In my short electronic design life. There is only one capacitor failed. A 220u 25v tantalum in a 18v circuit.
It fails very strangely, 20ohm resistance "shorted".
In my experience ceramics are much more reliable. Using one aluminum and/ or ceramic will be very economic and reliable.
 

JohnYang1997

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captain paranoia

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The text and markings also look just like those on the SALs I was designing into equipment about the same time this device was made. The reason we didn't use tants was due to the known issues. I was assuming the same design guidelines were used in this product; they may not have been, perhaps preferring the ESR advantage that tants had over SALs back then.

It's not a big deal; an observation is all.
 

JohnYang1997

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The text and markings also look just like those on the SALs I was designing into equipment about the same time this device was made. The reason we didn't use tants was due to the known issues. I was assuming the same design guidelines were used in this product; they may not have been, perhaps preferring the ESR advantage that tants had over SALs back then.

It's not a big deal; an observation is all.
Yea not a big deal.
Does sal burn tho? Just curious. Because if I search for capacitor explode on YouTube. None but tantalum explode and burns. (no videos for sal exploding of course.) The ones exploded here has black marks which indicates violent explosion and burn. Also is there any benefits of sal over ceramics?
 

captain paranoia

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Dipped SALs like that are discontinued (read the wiki); been surpassed by more modern constructions.
 

egellings

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My experience with bead-type tantalums is that inrush current needs to be limited, even if the DC voltage across the cap is well within spec. Same for AC ripple current. There are tantalum surface-mount caps designed for switch mode use that tolerate high inrush & ripple currents, and they have exceptionally low ESR as well. I would not use a bead type Ta cap in a power supply location where inrush current is high.
 
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