Millercarbon's Mega Moab Mod Meander


One of the all time great automotive engineers, Norbert Singer, was a key player in every one of the 16 Porsche LeMans victories from 1970 to 1998. His dominance was such that at one point Porsche had won LeMans more than all other marques combined. This was all accomplished by building on the already solid foundation of Porsche production models. The air cooled flat 12 in the 917 was really two flat sixes combined to make 12. This car so dominated motorsport the rules had to be changed to stop it!  

So Norbert Singer modified Porsche production technology to extract the absolute most for racing. His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle Design https://singervehicledesign.com Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche. It is in essence a hot rod. What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics.  

I am not anywhere near the level of Singer. But that is the spirit of what we are doing: taking an already world-class design and hot-rodding it to be even better. Well, better for me anyway- or so we hope!

The early modders started with substituting off the shelf parts to get more power or less weight. That is pretty much all we are doing here. Would be cool if some day people are doing this with a lot more sophisticated approach. Maybe they will. Maybe even I will. For now though we have the current crossover project.

My approach is pretty simple: better parts sound better.  

This lesson was learned back in the late 90’s with Linaeum Model 10 speakers. The designer had a new tweeter and told me how to modify the crossover for it. Simple mod, one cap, one resistor. Bought the parts from Radio Shack, put it together, sounded like crap. Absolute horrid crap! Called him up, he said those parts are crap. Said Musicap, Vishay. But they measure the same? Just do it. I did. It worked. Even though they measure exactly the same, the sound difference is off the charts.  

Even though they measure exactly the same. There is a lesson here. For those willing to learn.

So this is the essence of it: Eric Alexander has made a speaker the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Even better: an affordable Porsche 911! But after a while with my 911, after learning what makes it drive and feel the way it does, it was only natural to change the shocks and torsion bar and other items to bring out even more of what I like so much about the 911.  

That is what we are doing here. Hot-rodding a speaker. Thank you Rick for the metaphor!  

The parts are on order. Next week the fun begins!
128x128millercarbon
nmmusicman,

Good to hear. We are on the same page. Already planning everything you mentioned. In fact I just got notice most of my stuff is to be delivered tomorrow. With parts in hand will begin the process of building all the little doo-dads that will hold things in place.    

Here is the plan (so far, I keep improving it as new information arises!):

The new crossover will be all Path Audio resistors. These will be isolation mounted above the board with air space all around.

The cheap electrolytic is upgraded to Jantzen Premium ELKO with a Jantzen Alumen Zcap bypass cap. All the other caps are Jantzen Alumen Zcap with Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps.

All inductors are 12ga Goertz Alpha Core. They will be mounted as you said, arranged to mitigate field interactions.

All components will be mounted with as much attention to vibration control as I can muster. Every component will be treated appropriately with fO.q tape, as well as some other stuff I have that I’m not supposed to talk about.

The original was all hand soldered direct component to component and I hope to be able to achieve that here as well.

The "board" will actually be a PPS Omega Mat bonded to a BDR Shelf. This will be threaded to attach Townshend Pods. The whole thing will then be reinstalled inside the speaker on the same brace, which will be reinforced and enlarged to accommodate the now much larger crossover.

What was already a high resolution speaker became a liquid see through panorama with greater dynamic reserves and tonal density.

Exactly what I am going for. Exactly what others who have done things like this talk about. So glad you posted this. So when it actually happens it will not be out of the blue.

What I like is you got this result from just the caps. I am doing at least as big a cap upgrade, plus a big inductor upgrade, plus a huge resistor upgrade, plus a huge vibration control upgrade- and with better magnetic field management. Whew! If after all that it ain’t a holographic fantasmagorical experience I will be sorely disappointed!
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As for "modding" them. That is an admission that they are  defective. Can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
Ooooops,

there goes the credibility of the thread...

"His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle

Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche.........What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics."


"Singer Vehicle Design is driven by the singular vision of Rob Dickinson- an ex car designer who then became a rock musician who now stands as one of the worlds foremost distillers of the essence of air cooled Porsche."

Singer Vehicle Design – Restored. Reimagined. Reborn
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