can anyone tell me how hard, difficult or downright foolhardy is it to replace caps on an old amplifier?

i’ve got an old cyrus thats got a bit of a hum on the phono, a very well known and documented thing, and whilst i’m quite willing to send it off and spend a hundred or so quid to have the whole amp refurbed i just wondered whether its something that can be done at a DIY level as a newcomer to all things soldering and electronic.

certainly a little bit of knowledge of how to do some basic work like this for future upgrades i would like if it is possible to learn.

Soldering is IMO dead easy if you are handy.

It’d be diagnosing that could hoover time, but if the issue is well documented then it may be covered online somewhere?

I wouldn’t have thought burst caps would create hum – more likely a break in earthing, but I am no expert.

It’s straightforward if you know which bits you are targeting. Sounds like you have a decent idea of what to replace (or a guide). As long as it’s point to point wiring it’d be quite satisfying to fix… multi layer circuit boards though you might want to avoid for now.

Blown caps can create hum, although to be fair my experience is 100% guitar amp based – they stop performing their decoupling effect.

Get the orientation right on electrolytics if you don’t want a bang, a mess and a bigger refurb bill!

And ensure they are discharged-especially if they are big PSU caps.

PCBs on HIFIi kit tend to be low end pth stuff so the worst you could do is burn off a pad. get a fairly good iron and wick, desolder and then put the new cap on its not that hard. Oh and remember they are polarised!.

can anyone tell me how hard, difficult or downright foolhardy is it to replace caps on an old amplifier?

Easy.

With a couple of gotchas, orientation and discharge are the important ones.

I wouldn’t want my first soldering job to be desoldering on a bit of old kit that I liked, personally- it’s not hard at all but it’s definitely ****upable, even if only from trying to juggle the parts. A bit of practice first could be useful, maybe just find some bit of random scrap electricals to mess with?

thanks. yes its well documented, where to look, what to buy etc and what to do. i had also thought about finding some old stuff to desolder and resolder first. thanks