Wilson Audio MAXX resistors

Hifi,

I agree with the attitude, the ones that feel personally offended if one dares to question a design choice made by the maker of their speaker seem to have it in spades :-)

Anyway, I must clearly question your statement replacing said resistors due to "lightning strikes" are you serious ???  In the rest of the system that the speakers presumably were hooked up to at the time of the "Lightening Strike" there are components way way way more fragile than the above mentioned resistors, did you replace them too ??  Once a lightening strikes anything it usually disintegrates.  That would go for the Amplifiers Preamps etc which are connected to the electrical grid directly - your speakers are not  - they are only connected to the amplifier thats connected to the grid and it would be TOAST.  

So you'll have to come up with a better explanation to why the resistors needed replacing - if you read comments above you may find an answer.

And for the record, I never questioned the value/sound/looks of Wilson Speakers - In fact I think he has done a fantastic job with his company - what I do question is the use of resistors as fuses - electrically it makes  zero  sense.

Good Listening

Peter   


  

Little confusion. Electronics may have fusible/flame proof resistors. Usually these open under 1 watt. Nice to prevent an amplifier failure from cascading and melting the entire thing.

Not practical for a speaker. Actual fuses and self-resetting devices are much more practical, though for homes, honestly should not be used either. More parts to break and age over time. VERY useful for pro speakers.

Properly sized for a speaker’s power handling, a resistor should outlive all of us. Still, if you are going to play, I highly recommend Mills.

Best,

E

Erik,

You should read the entire post :-)


Good Listening


Peter

Don't most resistors fail due to pushing to much current across them? As in "high volumes."

Mr_M

Yes they certainly do - however all resistors have a Wattage rating as well which is how much power they can safely handle without heating up and self destruct - a properly integrated resistor should have adequate power handling capabilities to not change its properties when in use.  

Proper practice is at least twice the wattage rating of what the resistor will see in actual use.

In a speaker crossover this is doubly important, depending on where the resistor is inserted in the circuit it will change the frequency response of the speaker system, if inserted anywhere after the first component in a specific crossover rung, its change in value will change both SPL and crossover frequency, this because all preceding components in this rung values are selected based upon seeing a constant load.   In some cases one can place the resistor as the first component but then its even more important that its of proper power handling capabilities as it must be able to dissipate all the effect consumed by the shunt components in the crossover also,  however in this case only a SPL change will happen.

For examples of crossover implementation here are a few examples

http://pbnaudio.com/speakers/speaker-kits/scanspeak-b741
 
http://pbnaudio.com/speakers/speaker-kits/xmax

Good Listening


Peter