Modifying Crossovers

@johnk I respectfully disagree with you.  I'll fight to the death for your right to your opinion.

Do you have an example of someone you personally know, even better yet, that you heard before and after, of that sounded worse.  I have a friend with a similar speaker to mine.  Mine sounded better before the upgrade, now his sounds much better.  

Every manufacturer is different, but IMO even high end manufacturers tend to cut corners on the (invisible) crossovers.

Jerry

@carlsbad2 

Thanks ,  I can see why you are moving the crossovers out of the cabinet .

This is something I have thought about and something highly recommended by Tom Thiel , but making the external cabinet is not part of my skill set .  I have pictures posted on the virtual systems of my before and almost complete after crossovers , I just installed the newest Clarity capacitor  on the tweeter board and am waiting for Clarity to release the full range of caps to finish with the 1uf for the mid range .   My work doesn't look near as refined as yours .

Rob 

@vair68robert I toyed with the idea of having my crossover box made by a friend that does woodwork.  Since there are no external controls it isn't hard to make.

Seems making boxes and selling them is a nitch that someone should fill.  I don't enjoy woodwork enough and don't need a new business but it would not be hard to mass produce them.  Maybe I'll find a young guy and back him financially.

My plan was to replace components  on the boards and leave them internal.  I was going to have to add a 3rd board for the large inductor.  In fact I made one of them but it was going to be real tight.  Here is one of the boards (since disassembled):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/stNMSckHnLVPngVdA

:

@carlsbad2 

Beautiful work.  I like your choice of capacitors.  Mundorf, at least to my budget, are my favorites.  I've used quite a few of the EVO Oil caps in speaker rebuilds, and have always liked their sound.  I'm using a mix of Supreme EVO Oils and ClarityCap CSA's, on a current project.  Hope to get it completed soon.

Also, I've never done recaps, on both vintage or new speakers, where the recap didn't improve the sound.  I've only done like for like recaps.  Never anything to mod or change from stock values, and never been disappointed.  And I do A/B the stock speaker, to a recapped speaker, for comparison.  I even volunteer family members, for an extra set of test ears, and they hear positive differences between the two.  So, I don't shy away from tearing into a speaker, if the base design is worthy of the upgrade?  Part of the fun.

Interesting discussion.  I am pondering updating the crossover components on my IRS Beta. They are original except that I have "re glued" some of the components that fell off.  Odd that they used what seems to be glue gun adhesive and then hung components instead of placing them on the bottom of the crossover enclosure.

In my case, there is Bayer in Germany that developed a modern crossover for the speakers.  I wonder how they sound.......