Arcam SA30 with Lulon and Jamicon Capacitors

Hi Felix

“BTW - i’m also engineer with more than 20 years of experience, and? Does it prove any point or make mine (or your) arguments “more valid than others”?”

The meaning of the point is that with the knowledge and experience we have , we are able to identify weak engineering or selected parts and point of improvements. I have done Many , many repairing , restorations and Tests. Man, I can tell you there is a lot of changes depending the quality of the parts. I did not want to believe it because there is a lot snake oil around, but man, the sound do not lie.

I won’t replace all caps, just the critical ones. Example Main power supply, signal path and DAC side.

Regards

Hi Peter, thanks for your insight. For the Main power supply I guess is the four capacitors the 18,000uf and 10,000up. For the Signal path which are these ? also for the DAC side which are these ? any input or pictures are appreciated. Thank you.

Signal path use Lelon 10 uf/16v NP. Best replacement is Nichicon NP, the green ones. Highest voltage like 25v is better due the lowest ESR. DAC uses LM317 set as 9V regulator. A very good upgrade will be an Sparkos or Belleson low noise regulator. There is 4 capacitors Lelon of 100uf/25V, 470uf/16V and 4,7 uf/50v. Just open the device and the top board is the DAC PCB.

Regards

Thank you Peter, appreciate it very much. I may have some more questions in the future. :slight_smile:

Any time , your welcome. Will upload my upgrade and sound impressions

Regards

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Hello Peter… Interesting thread and opinions etc. What is the latest in 2023? Has anybody tried or done and replacement parts in heir SA30 and what was the end result. Many thanks. Luke

Hello Peter,

It is indeed unfortunate Arcam sends ‘Golden models’ to various reviewers on the web to acquire stellar lab results from soundstagenetwork, alpha audio (winner) and the like. I have purchased Arcam SA30 6 months ago (latest revision) and the situation is the same - cheap parts inside which I would like to change, see my pictures.

Would you be able to help me? I have budget of £1000 - £1500 pounds for audio parts to be changed inside Arcam SA30 and work will be done by professional service for free. I would love them to be the best quality (There’s Nichicon power supply caps on marketing materials and in various Lab reviews).

Once done, I would post my sound impression changes (after burn-in period) if any, as currently my Focal Aria 926 does produce really weak bass, with average dynamics. Otherwise the sound is beautiful with tight bass and is much better match than Marantz Model 30 I have - which is too soft both at bass and trebles.

Sadly can post only single picture:

Hello there,

I really feed up and sold mine, too much to do and the risk is too high. I made the maths and is not worth it. The Arcam price is too high to have those cheap parts , I mean is a death sentence with those capacitors.I am very sure that if the parts are replaced will be in major league, but the risk is very high and no warranty. We know the software is not very good and can be affected doing some soldering, and the only way to fix it is with the factory warranty. I bought an old martanz from Japan (current feedback) and I got a better sound to my ears for a couple of hundred of dollars, the device has great potential for modifications and no risk, build like a tank with ELNA and Nichicom everywhere audio grade!!. 1000 pounds is a great budget to improve the device, but I think there is better options out there. Atoll IN300 is a beast!! with great parts and sound. I had a huge dissapointment with the Arcam sa30 because one of my reason to buy it was the Japanese parts showed in the pictures by the reviewers, and was not true. That is not fair for the consumers.

Depends on what one is looking for.
To be honest if someone is not looking for all-in-one with good room correction, there were always better options than Arcam. There’s plenty of good/great sounding amps in this price range.
To be honest i would never get one if i didn’t want Dirac Live. Without this system, you could easily find as good or better sounding all-in-one within same budget, and with better support. So for me DL was SA30’s biggest seeling point.
And to be honest there’s still handfull of devices with same functionality. Apart from old ones (NAD M10, NAD C399 with new MDC, miniDSP SHD Power, Lyngdorf TDAI1120) i only found one released recently - Sonoro Maestro Quantum. And that’s it, no more devices ticking all the boxes for me within this budget.
But to be honest i’m temped to sell SA30 and get Lyngdorf, MiniDSP or this Sonoro (if i can find some more info on it). We’ll see…
But definitely not considering re-capping of SA30. Seems like a waste of money, that you will never get back in re-sell value. It’s just not kind of device were potential buyer will be eager to pay more hearing about better caps…

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agreed Felix, that is my conclusion too, check this one!

same price, great parts, power supply, better overall.

Yes, it’s a good amp, but lacks Dirac Live :slight_smile:

Well, that is simply not true. What Arcam did that is not okay is send promo pictures of (probably pre-production assemblies of) the SA30 with different capacitors and some sites and magazines use those in their articles (especially news items, more rarely reviews).

Every publication that features their own photos of the amp (such as the Soundstage Network you mention) shows the insides as we all know and have them. The SA30 has won all these accolades simply by offering reference-level sound and a crazy feature set at a relatively affordable price, which became feasible due to cutting some corners, obviously.

Below a screenshot from the Soundstage review, where the “cheap” caps are clearly visible (eg the Lulon profile on the right).

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honestly , Dirac live did not work for me. A simple 2 way amp sounds better to my ears that Arcam with the equalization of Dirac.

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Good for you - you have much better choice because of that :slight_smile:
But as said, for me DL was it’s seeling point. There’s much more similar devices on the market with similar functionality, but missing Dirac (and maybe HDMI ARC), but in some cases better sounding.
If i wasn’t looking for DL, i wouldn’t get SA30. Would go for example with Moon Ace, which sounds very good and has much better app than Arcam.
Or with mentioned Atoll (although i heard they had some issues with transformers and reliability in general). Or with Advanced Paris. Or, or, or.
Plenty of choice IF not looking for particular feature set including room correction, as there’s still handful of devices with this.
For me Dirac works very good and gives me possibility to “create” my own sound, which is great.

Me too. It all started when I bought an Arcam AVR with DL. The installers spent 3 hours setting up the DL in my theater. When they first clicked on the DL filter and the walls dropped away and the sound tracks became incredible my first thought was hell I need this in my high end 2 channel system! Then the SA 30 came out and I jumped on it. Yea it was a struggle until the software glitches were sorted, but after I spent a few hours building the DL filters and heard them, there was no going back. I am glad some people have rooms that are so good DL has little to offer. That’s great. But personally I have never heard a room that didn’t need help.

Ken

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