Vandersteen 5a battery biased crossovers

I changed them myself when I had the 5's with the help of jeweler friend. He supplied me with some nice silver. I agree about the heat on the batteries but what else can he do. He seems to have "mastered" this design.

Audioconnection - I didn't say that the batteries are a 'bad' design. I said "really awful" :). Not disputing their function in providing bias voltage, I just think that they were probably added as an after thought/ improvement subsequent to testing and soldered only because there is not ample room to provide for connectors (we do circuit design & prototyping at my place of work and stuff like this happens, redoing boards is expensive, for premium priced components though I think it is time to bite the bullet and give the poor buyer a cheap, simple, and reliable means to swap batteries, the other thing is that sometimes when board layout is done you remember all components but forget things like connectors that are unique to one component).

Not sure what you mean about the battery in my remote, pressure connectors are typically found throughout every component of a stereo system, including several wire to lug points on the Vandy's, and they work just fine, which is a good thing because soldering to my TT cartridge would be a real nerve wracking job :). If I was going to be concerned about a pressure connection in the Vandy's (and I'm not) I'd worry about the tiny spring loaded contacts in the impedance matching dip switch arrays. The contacts on a 9v battery are huge - gigantic - enormous (pick your favorite word here :) ) in relation to their electrical requirements.

Sounds like I'm anti Vandy & I'm really not, the big things (sound quality, value etc) I'm happy with, just expected he would have cleaned up some detail level / attention to detail things better (the batteries, one speaker was missing the screws that hold crossover to speaker, both 110v subwoofer amp receptacles required bending so power cords would be securely connected, I think that is it, all easy enough to fix but I don't think the buyer should have to).

Sonofjim - not sure about which. Am thinking I want to take to whole system to something SET like though. Midrange lush, less truth but more beauty. May just keep the Vandy's and push them with an original issue BAT VK75 for a while. May go all the way to a flea amp and super high efficiency speakers.

Bjesien - If you swap them again, a lighter gauge wire will let you cut down on battery heating and still get a good connection. If you have the occasion to see a 9v battery with the innards on the outside you will see some very light gauge wire used in a series connection, it works.

Jeff Jones
Put connectors on if you like, there is room for them but remember any noise in the connection will be passed by the caps as noise.
In circuits like this where there is no current flow over a 7 year period of time (basically shelf life) the solder and wire is cheap insurance.

The M5-HP being run un soldered is very risky as 9 volts of noise into a typical amplifier will be one hell of a damaging pop!
As far as quality, I defy you to find another speaker with as much technology and raw parts count for twice the price.
Much of the technology found in the 5A can't be found in any speaker for any price.
By the way the new Model Seven has 36 volts of lithium SOLDERED onto the crossover board. Some how I don't think that was an oversight also.
Best
JohnnyR

Audioconnection - Actually I soldered lighter gauge wire (less chance of damage from overheating) as I could not find room to fit the connectors on the high pass filters and doing the + - arrangement at the speaker crossovers would have been a real nuisance.

Do not understand your risk comment, 9v battery connectors work great and they have been around for 20's of years and used in millions of circuits, I don't think you can find anything that is more well proven rock solid reliable. If you are saying that an open circuit will create a pop, well, I've already had an open circuit when a battery blew up in my 5a, apparently from overheating due to soldering (my best guess) and you mentioned in your previous note that you have seen this also (and it is easy to clean up :)). I have never seen a 9v battery blow up in any other application, if I was concerned about blowing up components my first move would be to stop grossly overheating the battery terminals with soldering irons.

Sorry to hear that Vandy is hanging on to the solder thing in newer designs. Not in the customers best interest in my opinion, but as a once in 7 year thing it is something I think folks will be ok with.

As far as quality, I think you are right and the Vandy's are high quality in general but I suspect that you would agree that missing screws and loose connections and an exploded battery are not what I should have expected to find on my 5a's. As I noted before, none of this was hard to fix, just kind of figured I shouldn't have to.

Jeff Jones, I have changed the batteries on dozens of 5 and 5a and have never found a blown battery on one that was within the date noted in the owners manual.

You never said if your batteries were within the recommended date.
Where they new speakers or demos?
I have sold hundreds of Vandersteen speakers and find
them to have the highest quality control standards.
Disparaging a great product should be done carefully
with honesty and should not be trivial.

About the high-pass, if the connection has any noise or a intermittent connection the caps will couple this voltage change into the input of the amplifier with potentially bad results. Again the solid reason for not offering 9V clip on types as you had suggested, hope this clarifies.

My garage opener uses a 9 volt battery and corrosion is a problem. Some speakers end up in very humid conditions or salt air. If it is too much trouble for you, put in the 9V lithium's which last 11 to 12 years. Best JohnnyR