Mohican question, capacitors.

[Katie Wasserman]

It looks like the 150 uF is used as a bypass cap for the common emitter circuit driving the output transformer.

One of the 50 uF caps connects the volume control to the base of the same transistor, I think that's the one you're referring to on the PCB. The other 50 uF cap connects to the headphone jack and is the final output capacitor. These are both in the signal path.


The 150 uF cap can be a larger value without causing any issues. It will help drive the speaker at lower frequencies.

The 50 uF values can be a larger value but you might find that you're hearing more 60Hz hum with a larger values. They should both be replaced with new 50 uF one, as specified.

Note the polarity of both capacitors on the PCB, it's important to get them right. The output cap seems to me that the schematic has it shown backwards. It probably won't make much difference but ideally this one should be a bipolar cap, I think.