Acoustic Zen Crescendo speaker crossover capacitors ... who makes them?
I personally wouldn't bother with the bass capacitors in the Crescendo, for the effort and money required the ROI is small in terms of sonic impact. Bill you did a fine job making modifications where it matters by far the most. I'd just enjoy the improved sound quality you've discovered. Unless you just can't resist the urge to tinker further. Charles |
Ha! Charles, I can’t resist😀 I do honestly believe the bass can be improved with even the low cost battery bias mod. I know JBL and Vandersteen do it with great results. Peter who makes wonderful PBN speakers also shared it would be an improvement. The thought of those poor sounding $5 electrolytic caps will never settle well with me. The bias mod would cost about $150 total. I think that is a modest investment for improvement. Plus I learn and execute a new mod that would be fun. |
Bill, That approach makes sense and is of very modest cost. I was referring to replacement with film caps at those very high uf values. It’s funny, the stock Crescendo sounds very well "with" the dreaded electrolytic caps. You are really enjoying your sound now with those caps still in the crossover. However you’re right in that they can be improved upon. Charles |
Mapman and Granny, The type of capacitor used depends on where in the crossover it is used, in some cases the only reasonable solution is to use a Electrolytic capacitor. http://pbnaudio.com/speakers/speaker-kits/scanspeak-b741 Use the above speaker design as an example, in the bandpass for the midrange driver there are two series capacitors and two shunt capacitors, the two series capacitors certainly in a speaker this quality needs to be metalized poly propylene 100uF is a standard value and the 180uF is made up by paralleling 2 each 90uF capacitors, the two shunt capacitors both are 27uF, since this is a relatively small size it only makes sense to use polypropylene here too and luckily 27uF is a standard size too with a pretty tight tolerance too as compared to an Electrolytic capacitor. Now for the Impedance correction network in parallel with the midrange driver, here a 820 uF capacitor is needed - the only reasonable choice is an electrolytic capacitor, in this case to get the 820uF, 320uF uF is paralleled with 500uF and then I typically use a small value polypropylene to bypass with, something like 3uF Good Listening Peter |
