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
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.
I have always added off the shelf stuff to improve my vehicles:  Pipes, ignitions, supercharger (S2000), and suspension improvements.  For somewhat normal use, I do not believe in touching the inside of an engine.  Exceptions have been smoothing out intake and exhaust castings (esp. FZR1000), and the porting of two strokes.  My S2000 is the strangest engine I have had.  It has no power below 4500 rpm, just like my prior 1986 GSX-R750, but really wails between 7200 and 9200.  My office used to be across the lake/pond from Champion Porsche.  I'll never forget how upset these guys were when they had to skip LeMans the first time; almost as much as when the local Flea Market/Drive In Movie guy had the very first totally factory built, actual 917 in the world.  Yes, Preston Henn, the guy who was able to skirt the heat the Whittington Brothers got, because they did not have any proof of legitimate income as to how they supported their racing...  Not to mention Nobby Clark's stories about Don Aronow.  Good Times, all!
@willgolf  -- I'm a fan of Duelund, however I've never played with power cords with their conductors. So far their caps are pretty hard to beat (but my goodness they aren't exactly cheap, or cheaply made either).

I just came back after looking at your system page...
That's one huge fish tank mate! (hehehehehe)

And now I really have a connection why you might be interested in the Moab build - I'm smarter than I look (apparently, that's not much of a boast).

I'd be interested if you do the upgrade, and what you do. If you do start a thread about it, please be sure and make sure I know about it?



One thing I noticed with my crossover upgrade, just a huge drop in the noise floor. To anyone who has been here they will probably get a good laugh out of that, or at least a chortle snort. Because my system is far from silent. I am one of these guys when I read people fret and worry about hearing something with their ear to the tweeter, when mine you can clearly hear no problem from the sweet spot. I would hesitate to say noisy as hell, but not by much.   

Which makes this strange, but true. Huge drop in the noise floor. Huge improvement in resolution of fine detail down to below a level I would have thought possible. Given all the system noise, I mean. But there it is. 

The reason I mention it is willgolf, you have those ultra high-sensitivity highly resolving speakers. I would think with some of these upgrades the difference might be even greater than in mine. Hard to say of course. Could well be you are coming from a higher level to begin with. Even so.....
MC - I was one of those GUYS who would put their ear up to the 98db speakers and hear a slight hum and get pissed.  Now, After changing all of my cables, Power cords, adding the Lampi Pacific it is pretty much quiet.  

I wonder, can you really compare a $7-8k speakers to a $35-40k speaker?