BOSS NS-50 Gamble.
Yeah so last Saturday I had to go to the Kyoto Concert Hall for our annual school (work) choir festival thing. It’s not a bad deal, we get paid a day of overtime, plus an extra paid day off added to our vacation time, and the upper grade classes really did an outstanding job this year, so I’m not really complaining.
This is the concert hall as seen from A Place Into Which Entry Is Forbidden. Can you tell how much I pay attention to (and obey) Do Not Enter signs? Shit, I had an “official photographer” pass anyway so whatever. Hahaha! In any case it’s a fantastic venue obviously. When it was over, I thought I’d walk a few km over to Circus Coffee, a nice, small (really small!) shop that roasts its own beans, some of which are sourced from single origin farms or whatever coffee growing thingies are called. Bought 300g of some beans I forget exactly what the deal was but from Central or South America someplace. Sun-dried small lot stuff. Considerably cheaper than Starbucks Reserve (got one of those literally a 5-minute walk from here) and just as good. If you take the trouble to find sun-dried small lot beans, I think you almost can’t go wrong. In any case, yay. I saw an odd sign along the way:
Two hands clasped, making a heart shape, but “human brain” underneath. Whaaaaaat? I’ve been in Japan twenty goddam years now and I still don’t get some of this shit. Amusing but confusing. Also along the way I found Ecogreen Recycle Shop, which was a big surprise. I’ve known about the place for a couple years as a friend of mine (Bigfoot) did a panel and designed stickers for the shop. Here’s the top of the panel:
Yeah so if you recognize this and go “Wait, what? THAT Bigfoot?” Yeah, THAT Bigfoot. Met him here when he came along with Mike V on their Japan tours. I literally walked right past the shop and then stopped, my subconscious screaming at me “HOLD ON A GODDAM SECOND, LOOK BACK! LOOK BACK!” And BAM there the shop was. Freaky shit. So I walked in and looked around, and found a BOSS NS-50 with no power supply, as-is, for ten bucks. Well, ¥1000 but same difference. It was in really good shape. Hmmm. Yeah ok. Why the hell not? So I had to source a power supply, twenty bucks. Moment of truth, turned it on, works fine. Yay! But no no no I can’t leave shit alone, we know this. Time for an overhaul! LED swapout and total electrolytic capacitor replacement. Went with Nichicon KT Audio grade caps. Took maybe an hour and a bit start to finish. Woohoo!
Before.
After.
In action. Pink (“sakura”) LEDs for Overload (why not?), Blue instead of red for the Reduction meter, and Green for Reduction On. Looks pretty snazzy. Total cost, about 50 bucks. Groovy.
Since I went through the trouble of writing down all the cap values, and couldn’t find a service manual online anywhere, I figured I may as well share the info, though I have doubts as to whether anyone will find it useful. Who knows. Here goes: C1 4.7u, C2 1u, C3 1u, C4 10u, C5 100u, C7 10, C9 1u, C11 100u, C16 4.7 (tantalum but I went with electrolytic for less KABLOOEY! chance), C17 4.7u (same as C16), C19 1u, C26 10u, C28 10u, C29 10u, C30 10u, C33 10u, C34 10u, C38 10u, C39 10u, C45 10u, C46 10u, C47 10u, C48 10u, C49 10u, C50 10u, C51 47u, C52 47u, C53 10u, C54 10u, C55 10u, C56 47u, C57 47u, C58 100u, C59 100u, C60 100u, C64 47u, C65 47u, C66 1u, C67 220u, C68 220u, C69 470u, C70 470u, C71 100u, C72 100u, C73 220u, C74 220u, C75 100u, C76 220u, C77 220u, C78 100u. So it’s 50 caps in all and here’s the shopping list:
1u x5
4.7u x3
10u x19
47u x6
100u x9
220u x6
470u x2
The shop I bought these at (Digit, or maybe dejitto, in Japanese デジット, an offshoot shop of Kyoritsu in Osaka) only had the 50V versions of the Nichicon KT Audio series I went with. The highest rated original cap was in the NS was 50V, most others were 16V with one or two oddball 25V in there too if I remember right. I read a page online from a shop that mods these and other similar BOSS Pro series half rack units, and regarding the NS-50 they were adamant about the thing being run at its absolute limits because of using low-voltage rated caps (predominantly 16V), but whether that argument holds any water or not I can’t say. It works, it sounds clean, maybe a bit cleaner than before but it was already pretty goddam transparent (it’s not supposed to color or affect the sound anyway) to begin with. Anyhoo, that’s that.
