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Replacing caps on crossovers?

Has anyone tried upgrading caps on their crossovers? Curious if they experienced any issues with changing the voicing of the speakers in a negative way? Thinking the speakers might be voiced based on lower quality components. 
128x128musichead
erik_squires
16,404 posts
 
OP:

What you should do is gain some practical experience, cheaply!

My recommendation for inexpensive experiments are Mundorf MKP and Clarity CSA caps.

Should run you about $20 for a pair of caps. Gain knowledge for yourself. If you can't hear a difference, you will learn there's nothing to gain for you.

Best,

E
cal3713's avatar
cal3713
1,421 posts
 
@bache My speakers (Coincident PREs) only have a single capacitor that filters the tweeter.  I've tried three separate caps on that tweeter and they all sound different.  Replacing the stock Solen for a Jupiter was a significant upgrade.  Will probably try Duelunds at some point...
musichead's avatar
musichead OP
94 posts
 
I've asked Naim for a schematic, see if they provide one. What prompted me on this is I'm replacing some caps on my DAC soon with some Duelunds. I suspect my speakers could be improved as well only worry about messing with the balance of them because they could be voiced with the lower quality parts. I might end up with a different sounding speaker that I don't like.
timlub
2,042 posts
 
@musichead 

If you can't get a schematic,  as Erik mentioned,  the biggest improvement is replacing the series caps (in positive lead).... 
It was mentioned to get rid of the Solens... These are only a decent cap,  fairly neutral,they don't do anything terribly wrong,  but as Good Polypropylene goes nothing special.  Personally,  I'd start with any caps that are in the midrange and replace those (especially Electrolytic or Mylar caps (The Solen are much better than both of those).  I'd then take a look at the Series caps in the tweeter and replace those (probably the Solens).  Most if not all caps that run to ground are most likely Electrolytic,  You should be okay replacing any smaller values, but an Electrolytic of any size, I probably would not replace unless you do some resistance measuring.  Otherwise, buy a decent .1 mfd or so Polypropylene, Polystyrene or Teflon and do a bypass on those Parallel caps (goes to ground)... Overall this should provide a very nice improvement without any chance of negative effects.  
Good Luck,  Tim 
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