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Capacitor log Mundorf Silver in Oil

I wished I could find a log with information on caps. I have found many saying tremendous improvement etc. but not a detailed account of what the changes have been. I have had the same speakers for many years so am very familiar with them. (25+ years) The speakers are a set of Klipsch Lascala's. They have Alnico magnets in the mids and ceramic woofers and tweeters. The front end is Linn LP12 and Linn pre amp and amp. The speaker wire is 12 gauge and new wire.

I LOVE these speakers around 1 year ago they started to sound like garbage. As many have said they are VERY sensitive to the components before them. They are also showing what I think is the effect of worn out caps.

There are many out here on these boards I know of that are using the Klipsch (heritage) with cheaper Japanese electronics because the speakers are cheap! (for what they can do) One thing I would recommend is give these speakers the best quality musical sources you can afford. There is a LOT to get out of these speakers. My other speakers are Linn speakers at around 4k new with Linn tri-wire (I think about 1k for that) and the Klipsch DESTROY them in my mind. If you like "live feel" there is nothing like them. In fact it shocks me how little speakers have improved in 30 years (or 60 years in the Khorns instance)

In fact I question Linn's theory (that they have proved many times) that the source is the most important in the Hi-Fi chain. Linn's theory is top notch source with lessor rest of gear including speakers trumps expensive speakers with lessor source. I think is right if all things are equal but Klipsch heritage are NOT equal! They make a sound and feel that most either LOVE or hate. (I am in the LOVE camp and other speakers are boring to me)

So here goes and I hope this helps guys looking at caps in the future. Keep in mind Klipsch (heritage Khorns Belle's and Lascala's especially) are likely to show the effects of crossover changes more then most.

1 The caps are 30 years old and
2 the speakers being horn driven make changes 10x times more apparent.

Someone once told me find speakers and components you like THEN start to tweak if needed. Don't tweak something you not in love with. Makes sense to me.

So sound
Record is Let it Be (Beatles)
The voices are hard almost sounds like a worn out stylus.
Treble is very hard. I Me Mine has hard sounding guitars. Symbals sound awful. Everything has a digital vs. analog comparison x50! Paul's voice not as bad as John's and George's. Voices will crack.

different lp
Trumpets sound awful. Tambourine terrible. Bass is not great seems shy (compared to normal) but the bad caps draw soooooo much attention to the broken up mid range and hard highs that are not bright if anything it seems the highs are not working up to snuff. I have went many times to speaker to make sure tweeters are even working.

All in all they sound like crap except these Klipsch have such fantastic dynamics that even when not right they are exciting!

Makes me wonder about the people who do not like them if they are hearing worn out caps and cheap electronics? Then I can see why they do not like them! If I did not know better from 25+ years of ownership that would make sense.

For the new crossover I have chosen Mundorf Silver in Oil from what I have read and can afford. I want a warm not overly detailed sound as Klipsch already has lots of detail and does not need to be "livened up" they need lush smooth sounding caps. Hope I have made the right choice?

When the crossover is in I will do a initial impression on same lp's. Right now it goes from really bad (on what may be worn vinyl) to not as bad but NOT great on great vinyl. (I know the quality of the vinyl because tested on other speakers Linn)

The new caps are Mundorf Silver in Oil and new copper foil inductors are coming. I will at the same time be rewiring the speakers to 12 guage from the lamp cord that PWK put in. PWK was a master at getting very good sound often with crap by today's standards components.

The choice of speakers would be a toss up now depending on what I am listening to. Klipsch vastly more dynamic but if the breaking up of the sound becomes to much to effect enjoyment the Linn would be a better choice on that Lp. If I could I would switch a button back and forth between speakers depending on song and how bad the break-up sound was bothering me.

volleyguy
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,455 posts
 
Interesting. I have found large parts point to point wired with large gauge solid core wire to sound better than any circuit board loaded with surface mounted resistors and those tiny electrolytic caps etc...

This subject is most interesting and I would have to compare in the end and decide which is indeed better. I don't buy into the thought that tiny parts are inherently better sounding. That has not been my experience, but it can certainly be true of a particular design. No absolutes.

I have a two way speaker with a very simple crossover design and perhaps I can compare in the future.
salectric
747 posts
 
A line-level crossover means biamping or triamping which definitely makes your system more complicated. For those of us with tube monoblocks, it means an additional 2 or even 4 amplifiers, each with its own power cord and mounting stand. If you obsess over coupling capacitors and other components, biamping also means doubling the number of parts to worry about.

My experience with biamping is limited to xover frequencies of 250Hz and below, but even with a relatively low xover frequency I found it was important for the amplifiers to be identical; otherwise there were obvious discontinuities in the sound. In particular, using a solid state amp on the bass and tubes for the mids and highs didn't work well at all. I am pretty sure the matching issue will be even more important with a higher xover like 1K.

There is also the issue of possible damage to delicate midrange and HF drivers. Ordinarily a small cone or compression driver will be protected from low frequency noise or amplifier turnon thumps by the xover capacitors. In a biamp setup the ampifier outputs are wired directly to the speaker and any LF signals like this go right to the driver without any filtering. With compression drivers costing so much, that's not a risk I want to take.

I have heard of people who have biamplified or triamplified systems who are very happy with the results. For my tastes, however, that's a move in the wrong direction. I prefer to simplify wherever possible.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,249 posts
 
Salectric,
That is a well stated reply and I agree with your perspective . As Bill said I'd like to compare both approaches directly. I don't believe active Xovers inherently superior to a good quality simple passive one.
ricevs
1,543 posts
 
I don't use any electrolytic caps in my xover (there are no coupling caps except for the filter caps)....only tiny polyprops. As far as resistors....you can easily to a straight wire bypass on a one ohm resistor.....just add it to the output of a low impedance line source...like your preamp. You can get a one ohm Pathaudio or Mills resistor and a .1% Susuma surface mount resistor (10 cents each) and listen....I know what you will hear. It won't be in favor of the giant thang (otherwise we would all be using giant resistors in our gear). The reason for giant resistors is that they need to be large to handle the current and wattage at speaker level or the voltage/wattage when using in high voltage tube electronics.

If you have 6db per octave x-over then you really don't need an active x-over.....at least on the top end. Coils really muck up the sound on a two way. Yes, bi-amping or tri-amping is not simple.....but with the right equipment and drivers can be incredible. The dynamics from a midrange and woofs without the coils is spectacular. What is for certain....is that there has never been a great line level x-over before. So, anyone who has tried this with what is currently available has no idea how good it can be. Even the one that Rockport sells with their $200,000 speaker is full of opamps!!! yikes! op amps are fine for the bass...but above that....not!!!
vn101606
73 posts
 
Regarding active bi-amping, I tried for several months, with a Pass XVR-1 (upgraded pot to Dact), and two pairs of Kell fpb 750mcx. Tried many alternative settings, with one pair driving directly the two 15" woofers of each speaker, and the other driving the remaining 3-way passive crossover. Measured, listened, changed, measured, listened, changed, many times.

The sound with just the passive external crossover, with the Duelund (caps/inductors) and Path Audio resistors is so much more open and fleshed out than biamping that I finally gave up and I am selling the crossover and second pair of monos.

I considered trying the new active crossover designed by Nelson Pass, the First Watt B4, that now uses top components such as discrete Vishay resistors and Toshiba JFET transistors (US$1500), but I decided I am done with biamping.

Quite happy about the sound of my system with my new external passive crossovers.
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