Modifying Crossovers

There seems to be a lot of advice from people who have little to zero experience with XOs and even display resentment that somebody should have the temerity to suggest they could improve on what the OEM did.

The idea that if better parts were needed then the designer would have used them, is the result of not properly thinking things through and finding comfort in the dubious knowledge that their speaker is the best it can be. Really? There is very little that can't be improved with knowledge and some cash!

Caps are, for some strange reason, thought by most to be where the performance difference occurs so I will mention them in my example, but truth is all the components will have a sound and contribute to the end result.

OK, lets take a manufacturer who intends to produce 500 pairs of a certain speaker, and lets take the series cap for the tweeter. A cap in this position that will do the job can be found for $1 or less and will provide an acceptable frequency response.  The owner of a pair of these hypothetical speakers could replace cheapo cap with a $20 cap of identical value, which will provide the same identical frequency response as the cheap cap, and hear a nice improvement. So for $40 he could enjoy an upgrade on both speakers about equal to a $200 interconnect. (I'm generalising here)  

So why you ask, doesn't the manufacturer do this? Think about the cost!

By just looking at the tweeter caps and nothing else he would have to outlay $20 x 1000 = $20000

Everything matters in audio and in a XO which is widely accepted as the heart of a speaker it matters lots. For those that ask: how can a cap or whatever improve the sound, the answer is, it can't. What we are trying to do here is do the least damage to the signal.

@carlsbad2, nice looking XO you put together, congratulations. Are those Path resistors you have there and did you compare with any others? There is also what appears to be maybe a Mundorf resistor mounted on a heatsink. If so I think it is a Vishay device and adopted by Mundorf. I found the same thing under the brand Powertron and is cheaper. I find it clean, very dynamic and open and use it always with it's heatsink to avoid thermal compression. Also are those 2 caps next to the low frequency inductor Duelund bypass caps?

Regarding your choice of Duelund in cotton for internal wiring may I suggest you consider solid OCC copper in PTFE insulation instead. It's more expensive but in keeping with the other components you have in the XO. I normally remove any push on connectors and solder, vastly and consistently better. Solid core wire needs to be anchored close to the terminal to prevent fatigue. Do not twist + and - just keep about 1" spacing between. To take it up a level avoid using the speaker terminals as a connection. I do this on my speakers' and amplifier terminals. I bring the wires from XO outside the box and terminate with pure copper FUREZ spades. I use identical spades on the speaker cables also terminated with FUREZ spades and place them back to back into the terminals that now merely act as a clamp. Ideally removing those huge lumps of dubious quality binding posts, finding that a non-metallic way of clamping is better still.

Next step would be to have the XOs outside the box.

The best crossover is no crossover. Just listen to a good full range driver in a well designed horn cabinet. Why distort the signal through all that mumbo jumbo of wires and circuits?

"Why distort the signal through all that mumbo jumbo of wires and circuits?"

@boxertwin12 

Why? Because full range drivers have their own shortcomings. Some people aren't bothered by them, others are. 

There is no perfect loudspeaker. In this instance you gotta decide if you want purity and soundstage or dynamics.