Acoustic Zen Crescendo speaker crossover capacitors ... who makes them?


I own the MKl version of the Crescendo and see the crossover uses all Acoustic Zen branded capacitors. Most are blue in color with the smallest values bring black. Does anyone know what company makes these for AZ? I did email the builder, but no answer. Love any information the community may have on this topic. 

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Loved the 40.1’s! We moved to Franklin, TN and downsized. I lost my dedicaded music room and now share a space in our main living area. The home is new with cool tone colors like white kitchen, light gray walls, black granite etc... and my wife felt the Harbeth’s just didn’t work in the space aesthetically. I also agree though hard to admit:)

The good news is I have always loved the Crescendo speakers and was lucky enough to get a used set in gloss black that my wife also loves. (Great price also)Turns out I like the Crescendo even more 😊

I looked inside the speakers for the first time and like most $10,000 - $20,000 speakers I have taken apart I saw sand cast resistors and other obvious places that could be improved. Still blows my mind that a speaker of this expense uses 89 cent sand cast resistors that any good DIY guy knows sound just ok, and a tad harsh in the highs compared to a Mills MRA for example.

I love the speakers and will leave most of it alone except for the resistors and caps on the tweeter and mids. All else will remain the same. I assume the film caps used are middle of the road at best based on the resistors and inductor quality used. I am not certain, thus my question.
Forgot to answer the question about what I drive them with. Well here is something I could talk about for hours. We could not have a bunch of gear in our living room so I had to search for a downsized, yet wonderful solution. I listened to many integrated amps including the Devialet. I ended up talking to Neal over at Sound Science who sold off $30,000 worth of separates for this Lyngdorf 2170. Well I decided to try one and my goodness was this piece special. It is a preamp, amp, room correction, dac all in one box. It actually sounded as good and in some ways better then my wonderful separates including the TRL Dude preamp, Luxman DA06 dac, expensive cabling, and Von Gaylord Triode Lengend monoblock tube amps.

The room correction in this Lyngdorf is amazing and the diffference maker. It is 100% digital from beginning to end with the signal going to analog just before powering the speakers. So the internal dac is really not a dac in the conventional sense.

I also have have a very highly modified Cary Rocket 88r that I also use with the Lyngdorf at times as I must always own a tube also. It is so highly modified that you would not recognize it as a Cary any longer with the expansion chassis and all I did.

Enjoying the new home and system and looking to get the very most out of these already very good speakers.

Hi Bill,

On the one hand you certainly have to admire the talent of Robert Lee using very low cost passive parts and getting such truly high quality sound. A quite talented builder with excellent design and execution of the Cresendo.


However I do see your point and agree that the wise selection and placement of high quality resistors and capacitors will yield more from this fine speaker. Those passive parts do sonically matter. No harm in making something "very" good even better with thoughtful part upgrades.

Charles