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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
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Right now (before this whole thing blows up in my face!) would probably be a good time to thank Rick and Paul for all their help. Paul (sorry I forget his AG handle maybe MJLett?) was a big help early on, and Rick rixthetrick a huge help with details especially towards the end. There were others but these two especially have taken the time to answer all my dopey questions and help me climb a very steep learning curve. Thanks, guys!

Also want to give a shout out to Madisound.com and partsconnexion.com for getting my orders out and delivered super fast. Both orders were placed late Thursday night, shipped Friday, and delivered the following Monday. This, with standard shipping! Impressive!   

John Hannant at Townshend Audio- bet no one ever asked him how to put Pods inside a speaker before! Thanks! 

Krissy, when she found out what I’m doing, is sending me some of her TDF magic designed to go where no TDF has gone before! Love me my Krissy magic. She is the best. Frank knows, doncha Frank? ;) And Tom. Almost forgot. (How could I?) ;)

chicagoblue1977, hilde45, mglik, lawmnsuu, ovinewar1, petg60, nmmusicman, willgolf, oldhvymec, and all my many loyal lurkers, thank you as well. A lot of you prefer to avoid the unwanted attention of the few bad apples. Totally understand and respect that. All the same, so glad you reach out to me. My system will soon be a whole lot better thanks to information gleaned from others very much like yourself. Couldn’t have done it any other way.

Was about to add something, but let’s keep it positive: Thank you!
theaudiotweak
2,797 posts
 
I have had platforms inside my speakers for many years and inside my power amps for the last 6 all tensioned..resonant energy directed to mechanical ground to and thru platforms on the outside of all. A stable reactive conduit for noise to get out of town. The drivers chassis are also part of this exit path strategy.  Different concept than what you are employing..I guess we are both tied together at opposite extremes. I am certain all that hard work will be worth the effort. Another great project to describe and build.
Good listening. Tom
rixthetrick's avatar
rixthetrick
1,060 posts
 
I would implement ERSE audio inductors, specifically one from the Q series.
But, since you never read what I write, you know with me being so horribly hateful and all, perhaps one of you fellows that miller at the moment acknowledges can pass along this most audiophiley suggestion.
Thanks ever so....
@thecapathian [I misnamed you sorry] - actually I tried to get MC to order the ERSE FoilQ which Erse claim to have even less distortion. Unfortunately Erse have discontinued the Foil Q.

I was directing him to the same series of coils you are, just a different model. I am confident that the entire series are great performers, he did choose a highly performing alternative in a suitable gauge.

There have been shootouts on inductors and foil inductors have a particular transparency in the signal path, of which I have been informed (rightly or wrongly) is due to the skin effect, or diminishing it’s negative characteristics with the thinner geometry.

Some may ask why is it more important on the inductor as the rest of the components are not ribbon or foil conductors??
As air cored inductors generally sound better than iron cored coils, I suggested the foilQ, for reasons mentioned above. Air cored coils (also known as inductors, reactors, chokes) have longer windings (length of wire wound around a core) than ones with an iron core to achieve the same values. [I’ve wound air cored inductors in as large as 10AWG by hand, and not as much fun trying to keep it tight and neat as one might hope.]

Specifically my answer is, there is many feet in those windings, a lot more material to affect the signal along it’s path than any other single item in the crossover, or along the signal chain, including the speaker cable.

I guess MC will discover first hand whether or not it was a good call?!!

Skin effect is the tendency of an alternating electric current (AC) to become distributed within a conductor such that the current density is largest near the surface of the conductor and decreases exponentially with greater depths in the conductor. The electric current flows mainly at the "skin" of the conductor, between the outer surface and a level called the skin depth. Skin depth depends on the frequency of the alternating current; as frequency increases, current flow moves to the surface, resulting in less skin depth. Skin effect reduces the effective cross-section of the conductor and thus increases its effective resistance. Skin effect is caused by opposing eddy currents induced by the changing magnetic field resulting from the alternating current. At 60 Hz in copper, the skin depth is about 8.5 mm. At high frequencies the skin depth becomes much smaller.
source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect
theaudiotweak
2,797 posts
 
Rix it was not me who mentioned the Erse inductors it was Carpathian. I use ribbons originally from Solo electronics which I have since wound down for use with different driver updates.
Tom
 
rixthetrick's avatar
rixthetrick
1,060 posts
 
^thanks, I edited the name.
sorry thecarpathian, and yes that is an excellent series of inductors.
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