I’m considering upgrading my speakers internal wiring

I agree with @stereo5 ​​@mapman @erik_squires 

OP, you asked for some thoughts. I wouldn't do it.

Already mentioned but still want to add my two cents....

From  real world experience, not just what I read or watch on youtube....

I would dive deep into this and learn all you can first then look at not just wire but also the resistors as those look like sand cast. Inductors as I found foil much more to my liking, capacitors, hard to tell what you have from pics of the crossover.

And wiring.

And solder.

And binding posts (or lack of, I prefer direct wiring to the crossover or if possible to the driver terminal and I always solder the driver wires)

Some components will not matter, those directly in the signal chain are far more likely be the ones to look into.

Some changes you might like but if you do the research and pick parts that fit your particular tastes you might save time and money on the upgrades.

If you have any issues with a particular aspect of how they sound you can focus on that and tune them to your liking, at least I hope there is room in the design to accomplish that.

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The advice to contact the manf might prove the best course to follow so I would at least ask but it might not pan out, some might not like getting asked such questions, sensitive egos and all. I do not know nor have dealt with this designer so not pointing him out, just general thing to consider. I have had to deal with many stubborn "engineers" in my lifetime of modding things.

FAR more important, have fun:)

Rick

I like the make the internal connections better if possible idea more.  That can only help and not hurt if done right.

Also I would add that tinkering with a product often leads to less interest and value on the resale market if properly disclosed because now the product is not what the original vendor sold, but something some guy decided to experiment with.  

Ultimately, the decision to tweak or not is yours. It will be an experiment with unknown results until you try. Is that OK with you?

@bobbyloans  -  After reading through the posts, it got me thinking.  So, something to consider, or not....  If you are looking to dive in and tinker, learn what things can improve SQ, or just change it, rather than experiment on your $$ main speakers, maybe purchase some inexpensive speakers (inexpensive being relative) and play around with them instead.  Especially if you get something that was more mass market with more "compromises" that you can "correct".  Hey, and maybe acquire 2 pair so you have a baseline to reference.  LOL  

That might be fun.

- Jeff

@grannyring 

Good research, and comments.  Well done.

@ghdprentice Thank you,

IMHO, internal wiring does not do all the much, that being said, I have never used any exotic wire, just OFC copper. Unless I'm putting in a new XO, usually just keep the OEM wire.

Also from experience, take a picture of all the connectors before you remove any of them. If any of the terminals are not marked +/- mark them before removing anything!!!!! Nothing is worse than spending hours swapping parts out, only to have something out of phase. It will never sound good, and you will curse yourself chasing it down. Woofers are usually easy, mids/highs can be tough to tell phase. 

Crossovers will yield huge benefits! However, it will also cost a lot to do correctly. Spending $20 on a single resistor, or over $100 on one cap. Just know, for a 3 way, simple XO it can be $500 in parts.

Don't forget the binding post, this is another area where most manufactures cut corners. Even speakers that cost $10k can have $10 binding post in them. Take a magnet to them, if it sticks, you want new post.

@bobbyloans If it ain't broke don't fix it.......unless you are an audiophile...you know you want to noodle around. Why not. @waytoomuchstuff makes excellent points in the how to department. But before you get to your workbench is your room treated?

Second guessing oneself is par for the course. You may also need to see the voodoo priest Xanthos Terwilliker to cast a spell eliminating confirmation bias of your hometown pride in your modifications.

I took the time to look at your speaker’s crossover online and the builder makes both access and visibility of parts very easy! He did a very nice job on the design and cabinet. The parts quality changed over time with this speaker as can be seen in photos. Some images show only sand cast resistors used throughout while other images show sand cast resistors only on the low pass portion of the crossover. Some pics show the use of Clarity PX caps and other pics show the better CSA. Not sure what set you have. The Clarity CSA caps are certainly good and better than what I see in most $15,000-$20,000 speakers I have opened up. This gives us some insight into the quality level of the parts he used. Peter used air core inductors throughout including woofers. This is an indication he is both aware and takes into account parts quality. However, all the cast resistors and Dayton caps on the low pass are a place he definitely saved money. Overall crossover parts quality is a mix of good and mediocre to be honest.  Peter obviously saved money on the low pass portion except for the inductor. 

I would certainly email him your serial number and ask him about the internal wire. Ask him about gauge especially on the woofers. Gauge is important on the woofers. I bet he shares the information with you as he does not seem concerned with hiding parts based on the design. I bet he simply used Mil Spec silver over copper wire based on what we see for parts quality. If he did, then know this kind of wire does have a sound personality. It can be described as pushing forward the upper mids and highs. All bulk hook up wire has a sound personality based on the design and materials used. You need to know what “change/improvement” you desire in the sound of your speaker. Looking for more warmth and body? Smoother highs? More fleshed out mids? More resolution? What are you desiring more and less of? Without knowing this you are lost and the end result may prove to be negative.

Lastly, are you experienced with this sort of soldering and DIY work? You could easily damage drivers without proper soldering tools and technique. Are you confident you can reassemble without damage or mistakes which could prove costly and a great big hassle. Getting inside and doing this kind of work is not for the faint of heart or unexperienced. It is a lot of work with attention to the details vital. Yes, internal wire quality does matter and can definitely impact the sound! The bigger questions are: What’s already in there? What is your end goal? Are you skilled at this?

@mapman Considering the amount of posts you post, your comment of - 'If you want to do it do it', is,,,, useless and unhelpful.

Manufacturer voicing is simply another take on sonic presentation, it may or may not correlate with your own preferences. This where you need to ask yourself what is missing or wrong with speakers in stock configuration. If you can't define what it is your looking for you're shooting in the dark.

As for expectations of the highest quality components based on price of speakers. Don't assume anything, have a look at those crossovers, if you've done your research you'll know quality. And don't expect the manufacturer to acknowledge they could have done better with design or parts used. They see you simply as end user, questioning them about such things will likely be perceived as criticism, you think they like that?  The above based on my experience with contacting any number of manufacturers with various ideas of mine. You may perceive it as being helpful in making their product better, they don't know you from Adam, you're not part of design team. In the one case where manufacturer adopted my parts mod, while somewhat irritated with me, the manufacturer did seem curious in regard to the specific capacitors I was using.

Bottom line, you own your equipment, you can modify to your heart's content as long as its for your personal enjoyment. Manufacturer's choice of parts used and/or voicing is not necessarily some kind of objective best, there may be some untapped potential they failed to uncover. 

@erik_squires i was just thinking the same thing. Seems like you love your speakers and just want to tinker.  If it were me I would tinker with a kit.  Scratch the itch by building a kit speaker where you can use whatever components you want.  In fact, you could buy different types of wire and see what, if any, effect they have.

@waytoomuchstuff 

Great post. I appreciate you sharing your experience and well reasoned logic in assessing the potential risks and gains of doing these modifications. 

If "Peter builds high quality equipment with nothing spared" it can not be "Internally it’s not so great".

Changing wiring probably would affect the performance, but if to your liking? It is impossible to know unless you go through the process. Only you can tell if it is worth the effort. 

I sound like "Captain Obvious"

OP:

I do want to warn you that you may be on the wrong path.  Maybe the path you really want to be on is building your own kits from scratch?

Plenty of those at Madisound or Parts Express or Meniscus.  Also, you probably want to head over to DIYaudio instead of Audiogon.

I did a "deep dive" into this subject under a post entitled: "Thinking Inside the Box."

As a enthusiastic "modder" of decent hifi gear, our objective is not to "paint a mustache on the Mono Lisa", but rather address compromises that the manufacturer would have faced with considerations related the manufacturing efficiency, in-field service considerations, and costs. "Costs’ can also include engineering time. This is a point where you have to stop designing, and start producing.

During an audio event, I had a nice one-on-one conversation with the owner of speaker company that had just produced a highly successful speaker that was rocking the audio world. After whacking the ball over the net a few times about the stuff that goes inside, he finally said: "Yeah, I get all of that. I just don’t want to argue with my engineers over it." I arrived back home and decided to do a "what the heck?" modifcation of those speakers, installing VERY good cabling, bypassing crimp connectors, reducing cabinet resonances, etc. When they came to visit a few weeks later, I just had to fire them up vs their (highly successful and very good sounding) OEM version. They sat there, expressionless. Then after a while, paused : "Okay, yours sound better. What did you do?". My answer: "Everything your engineers told you wouldn’t make a difference."

The real question here, Mr. OP, is "what DYI tweaks can I do at home to make them sound better?" Yes, cabling MAY be one of those tweaks. But there may be others.

First, cabling:

Dealing with unknowns will give ... eh ... unknown results. I’m betting that you’ve never heard the internal cabling compared to other cables? Then, replacing that cable with one (you haven’t heard) recommended by others is, yet, another unknown. All the stars may line up and you might get wonderful results. Or, it may be technically better in some regards, but the sound may not be of your liking. As a "modder" and dealer, we had a pretty big toy box to work with. Cabling on spools laying around from $5 per foot to several hundred $$$ per foot. We auditioned these cables over many decades connected OUTSIDE the speaker boxes, so we were pretty sure what we were getting into INSIDE as well. We heard, literally, dozens of cables over the years of different designs and manufactures , and we adopted our cable design preferences. We had a 90%+ certainty that what we were replacing on the inside was going to be sonicly superior to what was provided and had a very good idea of what performance gains to expect. Again, that’s us.

That being said, you picked your speaker cables for a reason. Chances are you auditioned many cables over the years and prefer the sonics of what you have. If these are available bulk, these would be the preferred cable to use INSIDE. Ideally, you’d get a length of the OEM cables and do an A/B comparison. Not likely, but ideal. This would remove any unknowns from the cable equation. If your preferred cables are available in bulk, they may be difficult to work with. If so, you may need to "dumb it down" a bit (smaller gauge, similar, but more workable design).

I like to take a best bang for the buck approach to speaker upgrades. You may obtain some obvious sonic improvements from doing some simple things FIRST:

- bypass EVERY crimp, spade, screw down terminal, and push-on connector and replace with direct silver solder directly to the posts. This is (usually) an easy DYI. Those crimp on connectors and terminal strips create another switch/relay point and are usually made of production-grade (cheap) materials.

- IF the horn body is not dampened, put Dynamat (or, equiviant) on the back side. This will dramaticaly change the focus, detail, and reduce the coloration of the horn driver.

- upgrade cablling

- replace crappy OEM crossover parts (if they exist).

Hope this was helpful?

You’ve gotten great advice.  I’d call and talk to Peter, in this hobby owners / builders, designers will often give candid, great advice on their products.  Not across the board but more often than in most industries.  If you have that itch, you will always want to scratch it, if you keep the old wire, take pictures, you can always reinstall the original wire if you don’t like the upgrade.  

The downsides are if Peter voiced the speaker not off of what the components cost but what sounded the best with his design and synergy with the other components, design, I wouldn’t mess around with trying to make the speakers “better”.  Peter, if he’s honest can point you in the right direction.

Thanks for all the input. I’m still on the fence. Also the fact that they sound great nor… upgrading the final 2 feet to the speakers themselves should Improve the sound further. 
Kenny I did not pay 18k for these. Reach out to Peter himself and get pricing. They’re worth every penny 

Many years ago I re-wired a pair of speakers with what I thought was better wire. I loved those speakers, but after re-wiring them they sounded sufficiently different that I was never happy with them and I ended up selling them. Not only did they sound worse, I was constantly second guessing whether this was the way they were intended to sound. I have always regretted what I did to those speakers and wish I still had them in their original form.

You say:

I have a beautiful pair for PBN M1!5 in a Black finish which I love and sound incredible.

If you love them and they sound incredible, why on earth would you want to modify them? It is hard enough in this endless obsessive pursuit that we all subject ourselves to, to find something we love. In that rare moment when you do, try not to kill it. Even if you succeed in making it sound "better", it will still sound different, and that itself will be enough to drive you crazy. If you have an itch to scratch, buy some exotic power cable but please leave the speakers alone.

Curiosity killed the cat...luckily they have 9 lives.

I'd say scratch that curiosity itch - audiophile fun and likely better than a lifetime of wondering.  Seems like you can go back to the original wiring if desired.

What the? This regular ol' speaker retails for ~18k??

Well, for what the dude charged you, he better already have put the best wire on earth, best crossover components. best of everything.

Go for it, I've been modifying crossovers and internal wiring for many years. One speaker manufacturer incorporated my mods in future production runs. Changing out internal wire, caps, resistors, inductors in crossovers usually results in easily heard differences. Determining exactly what you want to accomplish prior to mods important, research replacement parts to help ensure the replacements meet your needs. I also use the Duelund wire in my present speakers.

I changed the wiring and the crossovers at the same time.  Noticalbe and excellent changes, but can't say what the impact of the wire was.

Warranty law:  Something breaks, they have to show that what you did caused the problem to deny the claim.  Now if you're clueless and can't argue your side, you'll lose.  but if you can condfidently say that the wire you installed was as good or better and that it was installed properly, you haven't invalidated the warranty.

Now if you put an unapproved racing oil filter on your car and the engine blows, that's not gonna be good.  but if you work on the door handle and the windshield wiper quits working, no relationship.

Jerry

These are not old. Less than 2 years. I’m not concerned about the warranty as there really is not anything to a speaker other than drivers and crossovers… This is basic and not so much as an experimental experience. lol 

Hey, it can't hurt to contact the OEM and just ask what is worth changing out or replacing internally. Especially if the speakers have some age on them.  Who knows, there maybe some parts that he will say "swap x out for y" because y is a better part that wasn't available when the speakers were made.

But if you do make changes, you will invalidate the warranty (if it is still valid) and if you ever send it back to be fixed, they may refuse to work on them.  And document everything you do, take pictures and keep the old parts.

None taken but I’m curious… did the upgrade of wire enhance the sound in a positive way. I can only speak from my own thoughts and say… if everything matters why would we stop directly before the actual speakers themselves and say that should not matter as much? It’s the final point of contact before our ears

@bobbyloans I didn't mean any negative toward him.  But he is a businessman and has to answer like the owner of a business, not like your buddy over having beers.

Peter is a great guy and I have a very good relationship with him and respect his build quality and craftsmanship. This is not an insult or point to a flaw. Only my own OCD and thinking it has to enhance the sound quality but is not essential to a speaker builder. I’ll call him and get his opinion and I know his honesty will be true.

I replaced all my internal wiring with Duelund DCA oil cotton insulated wire in 10 awg for the bass drivers and 16 awg for everything else. I did this while I was upgrading the crossovers.

A dirty little secret is that almost evey speaker saves money on crossover components since they are inside and invisble. I’ve seen speakers that put their crossovers on the back under plexiglass to brag about how good their components were and they were merely mediocre. Most have plain old sand cast resistors like they used to sell in radioshack for 15c. This is a fertile ground for upgrade.

Those suggesting that you should call the OEM and ask should put yourself in the shoes of the OEM. Most will say it is not necessary as to say otherwise admits their product can be improved. Many will worry you’ll break something and then ask them to fix it since they approved the modification. YOu’ll almost always get a negative reply. which is good if you don’t really want to do it anyway

I got so many negative comments when I upgraded my crossovers that I think many people are just hoping crossover upgrades don't become a trend because then they will have to do it.

Jerry

When I open my Norh9 speakers I did not like the wire inside. I replaced the wire with siltech . The sound did improve . So my advise keep the original wire, in case it does not work . Also take a picture.

Asking the designer for his thoughts seems prudent if it’s an option. There may be more to the internal wire than meets the eye.

Most speakers use fairly pedestrian internal wire, and normally I’m all for parts upgrades, but in this case, I’m not so sure. He used a lot of really good crossover parts. On the other hand, it is reversible if you don’t like it, so if you’re up to the cost and time, that’s all that’s really at stake.

Why don't you call him up and ask if he thinks that is a good idea. 

You have fully broken them in and know exactly what they sound like? If not make sure you have at least 500 hours on them and many of those listening. Cardas is likely to sound a bit warmer... is that what you want?

Sounds like a great learning experience. Make sure you dont go cheap on tools, especially crimpers and connectors

Stay away from crimp connectors from parts express, they are universally garbage.

If you want to do it do it. 

Before going forward I’d ask Peter what wire he used internally. He’s usually very good with email.

I doubt that he used some cheap THHN. Some Neotrch OCC or Mundorf might give you a different sound but you’ll never know if it sounds better to you or not until you try. Personally I used solid core Neotech OCC in teflon for my speaker internal wiring and like it very much.

I do have a pair of Peter's Liberty Audio B2B-100 amps and I did change the binding posts on those to KLEI.

Leave them alone, as far as I know, he voiced the speaker using that wire, changing it probably will change the sound.