Interesting discussion. I just went with K40-Y9 and carbon film Takman resistors as that seemed the consensus at the time. Very happy with that decision, and all the Russian military caps seem to last forever too. I can’t recall any discussion of failures with them. I do have a little stash I’m keeping should I need them (enough to fully rebuild my pair of TL12 Plus again), but I doubt that will occur.
This prompted me to have a peep at the
English Acoustics site to see what they are using these days. Looks like K40-Y9 for the 0.22uF, and maybe for the 0.1uF, though I can’t see the markings and both seem to have a clear heatshrink. Resistors look to be mainly metal film, which wouldn’t be my choice. I get the impression from far too much obsessive reading that carbon comps sound the best, but have issues, carbon film seem the sensible compromise, and metal film shifts the sound a bit too modern/lean/bright.
This is just not something I’d ever be prepared to rip out and replace to test/second-guess, so I just went with a consensus view. I read miles of old Japanese sites, looked at Classique Sounds, ancient Yahoo groups etc. My goal was only to restore and make safe and reliable, not to alter the sound. My aim was at how a new one would have sounded in 1958 or whenever, though I’ve still no real idea by how far and in what specific way sonically I’ll have missed that mark.
