The short answer: recapping often makes sense with other preamp brands as the unit grows older. But you won’t need to worry about it with a Backert Labs preamp.
What is recapping? Recap means, “put new capacitors into the power supply.” Why do people talk about this?
It’s because the power supplies provided by most manufacturers use capacitors that can degrade over a period of years (“electrolytic” capacitors). In these other preamps, once they get old enough, replacing the power supply capacitors can breathe new life into the sound quality of the preamp. At Backert Labs, we don’t use this type of capacitor for the audio power supply, so re-capping is not necessary.
Instead of these electrolytic capacitors, we use “film” capacitors, which never degrade. We are able to use film capacitors in our audio signal power supply in part because of our unusual patented GreenForce™ power supply. So again, you won’t need to re-cap a Backert Labs preamp.
“If these electrolytic capacitors can degrade over time, why do other companies use them in the audio signal power supply?” Because they have to. For the power supply, most manufacturers need capacitors that carry a large amount of power (capacitance) in a small package, and that are affordable to buy in large quantities. At Backert Labs, we don’t need such large amounts of capacitance because GreenForce works completely differently and uses a tiny fraction of the capacitance of other power supplies. Because we only need a tiny amount of capacitance, we can use higher quality capacitors – film capacitors with polypropylene or PTFE – in our power supply.
Summary. The bottom line is that re-capping your old preamp can improve its sound quality, because the capacitors in its power supply may have degraded somewhat over time. So if it’s more than 10 or 15 years old, you might consider re-capping. This is true whether it’s a tube preamp, or a solid-state preamp. However, you won’t need to worry about re-capping a Backert Labs preamp, because the capacitors we use in the audio power supply never degrade.
