Don't be silly. Of course everyone knows all wire sounds the same. I mean, unless they're going different directions.
Millercarbon's Mega Moab Mod Meander
One of the all time great automotive engineers, Norbert Singer, was a key player in every one of the 16 Porsche LeMans victories from 1970 to 1998. His dominance was such that at one point Porsche had won LeMans more than all other marques combined. This was all accomplished by building on the already solid foundation of Porsche production models. The air cooled flat 12 in the 917 was really two flat sixes combined to make 12. This car so dominated motorsport the rules had to be changed to stop it!
So Norbert Singer modified Porsche production technology to extract the absolute most for racing. His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle Design https://singervehicledesign.com Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche. It is in essence a hot rod. What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics.
I am not anywhere near the level of Singer. But that is the spirit of what we are doing: taking an already world-class design and hot-rodding it to be even better. Well, better for me anyway- or so we hope!
The early modders started with substituting off the shelf parts to get more power or less weight. That is pretty much all we are doing here. Would be cool if some day people are doing this with a lot more sophisticated approach. Maybe they will. Maybe even I will. For now though we have the current crossover project.
My approach is pretty simple: better parts sound better.
This lesson was learned back in the late 90’s with Linaeum Model 10 speakers. The designer had a new tweeter and told me how to modify the crossover for it. Simple mod, one cap, one resistor. Bought the parts from Radio Shack, put it together, sounded like crap. Absolute horrid crap! Called him up, he said those parts are crap. Said Musicap, Vishay. But they measure the same? Just do it. I did. It worked. Even though they measure exactly the same, the sound difference is off the charts.
Even though they measure exactly the same. There is a lesson here. For those willing to learn.
So this is the essence of it: Eric Alexander has made a speaker the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Even better: an affordable Porsche 911! But after a while with my 911, after learning what makes it drive and feel the way it does, it was only natural to change the shocks and torsion bar and other items to bring out even more of what I like so much about the 911.
That is what we are doing here. Hot-rodding a speaker. Thank you Rick for the metaphor!
The parts are on order. Next week the fun begins!
So Norbert Singer modified Porsche production technology to extract the absolute most for racing. His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle Design https://singervehicledesign.com Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche. It is in essence a hot rod. What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics.
I am not anywhere near the level of Singer. But that is the spirit of what we are doing: taking an already world-class design and hot-rodding it to be even better. Well, better for me anyway- or so we hope!
The early modders started with substituting off the shelf parts to get more power or less weight. That is pretty much all we are doing here. Would be cool if some day people are doing this with a lot more sophisticated approach. Maybe they will. Maybe even I will. For now though we have the current crossover project.
My approach is pretty simple: better parts sound better.
This lesson was learned back in the late 90’s with Linaeum Model 10 speakers. The designer had a new tweeter and told me how to modify the crossover for it. Simple mod, one cap, one resistor. Bought the parts from Radio Shack, put it together, sounded like crap. Absolute horrid crap! Called him up, he said those parts are crap. Said Musicap, Vishay. But they measure the same? Just do it. I did. It worked. Even though they measure exactly the same, the sound difference is off the charts.
Even though they measure exactly the same. There is a lesson here. For those willing to learn.
So this is the essence of it: Eric Alexander has made a speaker the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Even better: an affordable Porsche 911! But after a while with my 911, after learning what makes it drive and feel the way it does, it was only natural to change the shocks and torsion bar and other items to bring out even more of what I like so much about the 911.
That is what we are doing here. Hot-rodding a speaker. Thank you Rick for the metaphor!
The parts are on order. Next week the fun begins!
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- 185 posts total
Originals are still here. The way I did this there was never any fear of screwing it up, I was way too methodical and redundant. Main concern was getting it back in there without snagging a wire and not being able to see. If you saw how it is in there now you would not believe it. There's pictures on my system page but not of the crossover mounted in place. I don't know how it could be any tighter and still fit. |
When Danny Richie builds replacement crossovers for loudspeakers sent him, he sometimes mounts the new x/o board on the outside of the rear of the enclosure, rather than back inside. That is in some instances necessitated by the much larger size of the upgraded parts (air-core inductors in place of iron-core, film capacitors in place of electrolytic, etc.), and the new x/o board is too big to fit in the enclosure. Some builders of GR Research loudspeakers---many of which are open baffle in design---do so with the x/o board separated from the enclosure or ob structure with an isolation product, to keep the board free of vibrations. |
Yes the crossover got physically roughly 8X the size, if you go by volume. And I totally know about outboarding. Rick was pushing it hard. And really, I wanted to do it. Why I did not, it was a simple calculation of risk/work/reward. Moabs have a really complicated mess of wires to run. It is a lot of work running those wires, and I am not about to undertake that "just" to move the crossover outboard. A project that involved, it is not that much more work to replace all the internal wire. But I was nowhere near knowing what wire would be equivalent to as high a quality as I want. I mean I know what I want, but to get them to build it.... Anyway it is a really good project, or will be, some day.... meantime, BDR, Pods, Mats, is pretty sweet doncha think? I mean, look at the last couple pics. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 😍 |
- 185 posts total