There's a lot of discussion here about the quality and longevity of
electrolytic capacitors, and to read much of it, one would think that
these are the most failure-prone of all electronic components, and that
any piece of equipment you may have around the house (or lab) that uses
them is likely to fail any day now.

I can't really dispute any of this, except to say that this is not my
experience at all.

Three pieces of electronic equipment I use every day: my computer
(motherboard is about 10 years old), my "good" audio equipment (Technics
amplifier, Vector Research tuner, both somewhere between 15-20 years
old), and the receiver I use for sound on my computer (an Allied that I
bought *used* in 1975).

I have other old elecronic stuff that also works fine.

None of these have had any electrolytics fail, so far as I know. So what
gives? Am I just lucky? Did the manufacturers use higher-quality caps
than what's commonly used today? (The motherboard ain't anything
special--it's an Asus, I think, but I do have extra fans in the enclosure.)


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism