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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
willgolf
939 posts
 
Why not just get better speakers? For all time and labor costs, I would think it would be worth it.

I asked the question about changing drivers because I have the opportunity to upgrade the four drivers.  Let me just state that my Viking Acoustic Grande Voix dual horn speakers are phenomenal.  I really don't need to change anything.  However, David Counsell, the designer and speaker builder from Viking Acoustics told me about a German driver that would take my speakers to even another level.  Further, he would do all of the work at my house (it is a 7 hour drive).  

It would cost me over $5k to have the work completed.  My speakers already have an 18" woofer so I get plenty of bass.  The new drivers are spruce wood with ultra detail and more air.  He would use different caps.  The end result would be better detail and more output in the mid range and the highs and a 5% reduction in bass which will balance the speakers better.  

 I am not saying I am going to do it.  I am functionally blind so I can't do anything that Chuck is doing to his Moabs.   I just threw it out there because I have not seen any threads on changing drivers.  Hope that clarifies why I asked and thanks for the feedback.   
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Ahh, good, thanks! I thought you were talking the usual general hypothetical sense. Instead this is one very particular case and from what you said I would have to say since you already know you love what you have, and therefore trust the guy who built them, then I have to say go for it. 

What I did was basically what little I can do knowing what little I do know. If I could instead call up Eric and he said well you know for that money I could upgrade all your drivers and part of the crossover and in a way that sounds better than anything you could ever do yourself, well then I would have to believe him and go for it. Replace Eric with David, and there you go.

Either of these guys, since they work daily with their stuff they know it inside out. Some guy like me, I don't have time or money to figure out which cap or whatever in the crossover is so essential it is worth the very best, and which it is almost unnoticeable to sacrifice a little. So in my case it makes total sense to just overkill the whole thing, as that is cheaper than doing it five times trying to find the most cost-effective solution! In your case though you have the designer saying it is totally better. I would trust him a lot more than I would trust me. 😂😉
rixthetrick's avatar
rixthetrick
1,060 posts
 
@ willgolf - well that's an entirely different proposition than the one I presumed you meant.
And yes changing both the crossover and the drivers by someone who actually has the knowledge to do so correctly, makes more sense.

If you do choose to do the upgrade, and use a different capacitor, and you're feeling like experimenting??
Might I suggest you get yourself a pair or two of the Duelund silver foil bypass capacitors, and have him wrap one full turn of the legs of the replacement caps and listen, if you like it, leave it in, if not he can easily remove them. Or you could simply cut them off after run in, the wire is thin.
Chances are very good that the silver foil bypass caps will give it a positive bump in performance. Google this for yourself, this is truly worthy of some  due diligence.

He only will need to change the capacitors, and no resistor values?
Depending on the space you have on the crossover board, you might ask him to swap out your resistors for Path Audio resistors of the same value. They are universally tested as being the best sounding (at the moment) and introducing the least distortion of any crossover suitable resistors.

As you will already have a skilled tradesman there working on the speakers, akin to having a motor pulled apart. The relatively minimal amount of extra work compared to removing the crossover and drivers, would not be unlike putting in a performance part in an already opened up motor.

For that kind of outlay, you could maximise your upgrade while he's already pulled it down, and is modifying the crossover. Run it by him, he can decline, or he might give you a significantly better result, maximising your performance / dollar. I almost wrote bang for buck, but your speakers aren't bangers.

https://guneytuncer.blogspot.com/2017/03/resistor-shootout-duelund-pathaudio.html

Just the first review that I found with a quick search^^
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Yeah and thanks for sending that one to me Rick, that is all it took to convince me to go for Path Audio resistors. All the glowing accolades in that review, are what I am hearing now. Truly exceptional performance. Of course I did them all at once, even the shunt resistors are all Path Audio. And of course I did the Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps too. Doing everything all at once means no way to separate out what the resistors are doing from the caps and inductors- and BDR, and Pods! A lot of these contribute to the exceptionally low noise floor, incredible dynamics, and fantastic subtle detail I am hearing now.  

A local audio bud Steve was over recently and at one point said incredulously, "How much more detail can you get??!" That was before! What it sounds like now with this crossover upgrade, the old sound was thick, muddled, blurred, damped, grainy. The comment in the resistor shootout about hearing really low level detail, totally true. There's stuff now so obvious it is like where was that before?!?!

What was that I was playing last night, really wish, oh yeah Steely Dan Aja! Forget which song it was, but there's what I thought was a xylophone or something, only it had a richer texture to it. That was before. Last night it was startling to hear it is not one but TWO very different instruments, one of which has a really distinct sharp attack almost like little pieces of wind chimes tinkling. Thought I knew what was on there. Not even. Freaking blew me away!

If it was me willgolf, I would see if he is willing to add Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps to whatever he does (they are only .01uF and so can be added to any cap no problem) and see if he will swap out whatever resistors are in there now for Path Audio. 

I would hope that speakers at that level would be using parts at this level. But hope, I said. Not expect. Would be interesting to know what is in there. 


willgolf
939 posts
 
Interesting comments.  I will send to David at Viking and get his comments.  I also have all Dueland silver and copper power cords for my components.
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