Xover parts quality,/sound difference?

Vman71, Klipsch are what I did many of my trials on as well.. They did respond incredibly no doubt. Maybe some of these guys just simply have less results due to lower sensitivity speakers.. I mean many speakers are very overdamped sounding, for example my Dynaudios were less responsive to complete crossovers at first but it was more than subtle so I heard far lower noise etc.. Still. I had JM labs which were one of the best I ever heard after having outboards, near cost no object built as well, The sharper speakers such as the Jm labs with metal tweets, and the Klipsch with the compression drivers were much more apparent in the upgrades so maybe that is why its hard to prove.

But then again I think more of the argument is here from the DIY guys building From scratch and putting their stock into the design factor more than the parts cost, I have not had as good of results building from scratch myself, but have had huge increase in fidelity using hi quality crossovers in already proven designs that skimped on the best caps, inductors etc...

Sean,

Spoken like a true veteran! The things you've mentioned like horn dampening, sealing the cabinets, stuffing material, etc. are things I need to do. I was so impressed with the results of just upgrading the parts that I stopped with the speaker mods and decided to mod my CDP with better caps, diodes, internal silver wire, easy power supply tweak, and chasis dampening.

CDP mod results were even more impressive! Now I want to do the same to all my gear!

Thanks for always having great advice & ideas and sharing them.

Undertow,

You bring up a really good point about the sensitivity of the speaker and it's relationship to responding to crossover upgrades. A great perspective I didn't think about, probably because I haven't yet upgrade any speaker crossover networks that have a low sensitivity.

Mike

How many of us either
1) have actually seen with our eyes, the Xover in our speakers
2) know the brands of the parts used, and if its "run-of-the-mill" cheapis or best that money can buy.
I just looked at Madisounds web, and there seems to be from cheap to expensive. Hopefully we do not pay $$$ for a speaker and they are using cheapo parts. Its rare thata lab tells you what parts they use.
We need to take this hooby to a new level. Labs need to be forthcoming as to parts used. I want to know what I'm paying for, don't you?

Labs accountants/owners "lets see i can order 5K of this capacitor for $5/each...thats ...$25K...or I can oder this cap at $40 each, thats....$200K....I think I'll get the $5 cap. Who's gonna know the difference anyway..."
I'm afriad this takes place more often than not.

Like i said earlier, some of the crossovers i've seen were enough to make one want to either laugh, cry or at least shake their head in disbelief.

As far as sensitivity being a major portion of the revelatory importance of such upgrades and differences, i don't necessarily find that to be true. Many of the models that i've performed crossover surgery on were low to moderate efficiency designs. The results there were just as good ( if not better ) than with high efficiency designs.

Part of this may have to do with the fact that most high efficiency designs are bandwidth limited. As such, even if one were to modify and improve the crossover in such a design, the drivers themselves may not have the bandwidth to take full advantage of such mods. Minimizing signal losses and distortions are most beneficial when the drivers themselves are linear enough to reveal such changes and wide enough in bandwidth to reveal the full potential.

Besides all of that, lower efficiency designs can also benefit from the reduction in series losses from crossover upgrades. As noted above, electrolytic caps are FAR more lossy than various types of "exotic" caps. On top of that, high efficiency designs are already pretty responsive to input levels and dynamic shifts. As such, the further gains from reducing internal losses aren't as dramatic with them as compared to lower efficiency designs, where small gains become more noticeable.

Part of this could be due to the typically higher parts count in the crossovers of lower efficiency designs. Lower efficiency designs typically have more parts and more of those parts tend to be electrolytics. More parts upgraded and improved results in a greater overall percentage of improvements. Sean
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