Fried speaker comparison

Nmmusicman, it would not surprise me if your issue was in the wire you employed.

Several of us, including Bob (Rfogel8) have upgraded (and reengineered) Fried crossovers with stellar result. There are a lot of places you can go wrong in speaker when it comes to the crossover. Often, it's the intent in trying to upgrade too much (better coils with larger AWG/lower resistance that trow off the crossover points, harsher sounding capacitors and resistors, etc.) where things break down. Crossovers are jut one of those things one has to learn the hard way of trial and error and making a whole lot of "mistakes" along the journey.

As Joe(Trelja) mentioned, upgrading passive parts in a crossover doesn't necessarily guarantee better sound. Perhaps the "major leap forward in resolution" and "accuracy" was pointing out weaknesses elsewhere. Then again, replacing inductors with equal value but different AWG/DCR may change the crossover point making the speaker sound brighter and more aggressive.

With Bud's(or anyone else's) first order series crossovers, there are a minimum of passive parts and everything matters. Say you go from a junky 18 or 20AWG coil to a 12AWG Goertz to provide maximum protection for a tweeter, you will hear big differences.

Joe and I have a friend who designs first order series crossovers for the "C" cabinets. After selecting the drivers he wants to use and the optimal crossover point based on computer modeling, he then goes with good quality coils, caps and resistors(if used). Then he spends many hours/days voicing the speaker by making small incremental changes to the values of the passive parts. As Joe said, sometimes it's "trial and error" but, like fine tuning a cartridge, when you get it dialed in, it's worth the effort.

My "C" satellites use the newer OW-4 Hiquphon tweeter which is a huge step up from the old OW-2 with ferrofluid that Bud used to use. The midrange driver is a pricey but excellent ScanSpeak and the entire external series crossover consists of one Mundorf Silver/Oil cap(soon to be replaced with Dueland Cast) and two Goertz 12AWG inductors; no resistors anywhere! Add in the matching subs, good down to 20 Hz, and as my designer friend Joel will tell you, we'll put this system up against anything on the planet.

I finally got the Q/3s up and playing. To my surprise, I like them better with a mid-line Cambridge integrated than with my Jolida 302b. I would never have predicted this! Any thoughts or comments?

You never know what will sound best with what.
The variables in audio(in general?) are so many we don't even know what most of them are.

I'm supossed to receive my Q/3's tomorrow,my initial guess
is a Promethius TVC with AVA 260ex amp and DNM reson speaker cable.
No doubt I'll end up using one of the other dozen pre's and amps currently in my possesion-LOL.

I have an underutilized (i.e. too many other speakers) set of Fried Beta Signatures with factory replacement "woofers" ($75 ea. for replacements) and "The Subwoofer". I listened to them connected to a H/K PA5800 amp and H/K preamp. Very musical, indeed.