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!
millercarbon
My new crossover under much consideration will have no caps and will rely on 2 inductors and a resistor. Right now looking at Solen Litz wire inductors of 12 gauge or less. I can purchase 10 gauge and they can wind down to the values I need .2 mh on the woofer and .4mh on the ribbon tweeter. Not sure of the wire length but with these small values it should be short enough.
The Litz wire will have less skin effect than a comparable solid core or ribbon inductor and less  mutual capacitance and therefore more extended response..Only listening will tell for sure. Tom


I did not like Solen Litz inductors when I tried them. OFC Mundorf Foil inductors were way, way more transparent and extended (both were 12 gauge). Even the type of coating on a litz wire will have a serious effect on the sound. The thicker the coating....the worse the sound. Double coating is really a no no.  If you like slow fat veiled sound then Solen's are great.  I can see some people will think they are smooth.......and if you have bad electronics then a nice match.
I can understand how the coatings will alter the sound. I do have a couple large value 10 gauge Solo not Solen foils I can wind down to a loose wind which I prefer to a tight machine wind More air in between the layers and less skin affect I would believe.  Tom
Microphonics are important.  You do no want a loosely wound coil.  Mundorf has a newer foil inductor where they use special paper and resin to create an even tighter coil for better sound.

https://www.mundorf.com/audio/en/shop/Coils/Air_Coils/MCoil_VLCU/
Post removed