Having become increasingly dissatisfied with the dark sound of my CLAIIa's, and having washed them in the shower to little effect, I decided to call Melodie at ML to see if it might be an electronic problem instead of the more obvious aging panels. The panels are about 10 years old, about half the age of the rest. Melodie was pretty sure it was panel replacement time, but that is just not in the cards financially now. Desperation made me check out the circuit board, and I determined that there was a single capacitor in the tone-shaping circuit: a 10mf 250V Solen. This was far less than the 70mf in the schematic I'd seen on this site. Sooooooo....
Just to experiment I copped some cheapo caps from Radio Shack and paralelled them with the existing one, and Boy Howdy! It was like opening a window. With a total of 40uf in there I'm just about where I want to be. I've ordered some better caps which should only improve things (especially after I remove the test clips and actually SOLDER them in). Just wanted to present an option to those who are considering new panels to fix this problem and are interested in forstalling the eventual expense.
Just to experiment I copped some cheapo caps from Radio Shack and paralelled them with the existing one, and Boy Howdy! It was like opening a window. With a total of 40uf in there I'm just about where I want to be. I've ordered some better caps which should only improve things (especially after I remove the test clips and actually SOLDER them in). Just wanted to present an option to those who are considering new panels to fix this problem and are interested in forstalling the eventual expense.
