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
MC went about the capacitors differently than I had done in my crossovers (seen in my system page), the two different crossovers (two different pairs of speakers) both employed a use of double wall heat shrink. Where I joined two capacitors in parallel, there was silicone between them, and then double wall heat shrink and siliconed (if it’s not a word, maybe one day it will be?) securely to the board the crossover is built on.

**Double wall heat shrink has hot glue on the inside wall.**

Either way, MC’s way or the way Mike Lenahan told me to mount the capacitors are a good way to mitigate the ringing inside of a capacitor.
An entire thread could be written on such things in crossover electronics,
and ways to get the most out of them....

Interestingly: I bought fO.q tape and discs some time ago, based on a thread on Agon actually. As the thread progressed, the claims of snake oil came into the discussion and well, when the package from Japan arrived, I simply put it in the drawer. Seems like I’d better find it and apply it sometime, somewhere?!!

@thecarpathian - your suggestion on the Erse was a really good one, and they were exceptional value for money as well. I was more than a little disappointed they’d stopped producing the FoilQ.

@millercarbon - are you going to glue and cable tie your inductors to the backing board? That is to help mitigate ringing in your metal coils, by laminating it to the backing board and high tension cable ties. As they are tensioned they kinda act like springs, constantly holding the inductor to the backing board, coupling them. **it also insures that the glue never lets go either, just sayin'!

Yes, that is the plan with inductors. Strip of fO.q tape, wrap with Mat, glue and strap em down.

Crossover tweaks alone are enough for a big jump in sound quality. Combined with these high end parts you turned me onto it is scary to think how good it will be. Might be. Should be. lol! We will see! 

After carefully studying your system page Rick I think I have figured out what you are doing wrong. The system will be so much easier and better if you can just figure out how to get rid of the mortgage. 
There is no way you can claim your Tekton speakers are equivalent to a Porsche in status or quality, you either don’t know Porsche cars or you don’t know audio, or both. What you are trying to do is to take a Corolla equivalent speaker and make it a Porsche beater, good luck with that. BTW, I’ll take the Ruf!