MC i always liked the idea of upgrading some of the crossover parts in my Dunlavys. I know they can sound even better. It was after reading of all the difficulties a member here in Agon faced till making them sound right again with a good number of changes, especially with absolute coil values, the idea has stalled for now. Looks like the easiest part to do is to upgrade all the wirewound resistors first and pray for some rain. Some of the capacitors later. One step at a time.
Really interested to hear how your project turns out.
Resistors are probably the safest ones to start with. A resistor however you must remember to think of as a fixed volume control. Swap out a resistor of a little higher or lower value and it will have the effect of turning the volume up or down a little bit on whatever drivers it feeds.
But that is not all a resistor does. Resistors also generate heat. Power resistors in crossover networks especially. Heat if you know your basic electronics increases resistance. Therefore a resistor is also going to compress dynamics.
Think about it. Music is nothing but swinging dynamic voltages. Every one of these voltage peaks we want to come through loud and clear. But the increase in voltage produces heat increasing resistance. This all happens incredibly fast and local. Gradually over time the whole resistor will grow warm. But the immediate local effect is for that localized heat spike to increase resistance, turn the volume down, and there goes your dynamics.
All my 15W resistors are being replaced with 2 Path Audio resistors for 20W. These resistors are physically a lot bigger. Instead of one resistor hot glued to a board there will be two vibration isolation mounted with air flow all around. This will greatly increase power handling and heat dissipation. Hard to see how this can be anything but good for dynamics.
But again, remember it is a fixed volume control. It affects frequency response. So if you are sensitive and this is a priority you may notice whatever tiny amount it shifts dB and so to avoid this take care to measure and precisely match values.
I never did this with the Linaeum. I simply soldered in the values the designer told me to use. Never actually measured them to see what the actual values really were. Went by whatever was on the label. Worked just fine. Based on that I am not too worried. Professional driver. Closed course. Do not try this at home. Your mileage may vary.
The information here in this discussion represents hours of searching around talking to experienced modders, picking their brains, combining with my own experience and distilling it all down. I find over and over again that while it is a lot of work, when you take the time to do this you rarely put a foot wrong.
We will see.