Rant: Recapped a Game Gear and now the sound is worse than before?

I recapped my old Sega Game Gear last week using a cheap cap kit from eBay, and now the audio has this constant buzzing that wasn't there when it was just dead silent. Did I mess up by not using higher quality caps like tantalums or is this just something you live with on these old handhelds? Anyone else noticed worse sound after a cap swap or did I just get a bad batch?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabeth_williams29d ago

Nah, cheap caps are fine for stuff like this most of the time. That buzzing is probably just a bad ground or something else on the board you bumped during the work. Maybe it's just me but recapping usually cleans up the sound, not makes it worse.

kevin_bailey29d ago

Man, cheap caps can be hit or miss in my experience. @elizabeth_williams is probably right about a bad ground - I had a Dreamcast that buzzed like crazy after I swapped caps and it turned out I just nicked a tiny trace near the audio amp. You might wanna double check your solder joints around the speaker wires and the headphone jack, those are common buzz culprits on the Game Gear.