Prof - the little critter has become a different animal. I began experimenting with the CS2.2 and 3.6 but migrated toward smaller models for practical reasons. I collected a few pairs of 02s to further simplify my learning experiments. I soon learned that I didn't want to live with the 2nd order XO due to higher reactivity and difficulty time-aligning the wavefronts. Jim had always (in every product from the start) kept onset transients arriving in same polarity. (Whereas most 2-ways flip polarity for one or the other driver.) Your stock tweeter signal arrives a full cycle before the woofer (which sounds 'normal' due to its ubiquity.) That's very non-Thiel to my ear and sensibilities, so I ended up using CS.5 drivers and a first order crossover, moving the woofer forward on a standoff and the tweeter backwards behind a waveguide for . . . Phase Coherence.
Now, of course, diffraction and so forth become much more audible (you know my hypothesis) - not just to me, but to collaborators as well. So the cabinet edges are eased in an elliptical cross-section to meet the new (forward) super-baffle plane. Rear edge easing is also in the mix. Internal bracing (not visible) beefs up the panels. The diffraction-causing grille is gone, replaced by (most probably) a CS2.4 / 1.6 type arrangement, except I have no magnetic metals in my enclosure systems.
The crossover of the stock 02 is built on the rear input panel, right behind the woofer magnet, with audible and measurable distortion. In a portable speaker an outboard XO cabinet is a bit much, so I've mounted the XO on the exterior bottom of the cabinet in a plinth with ventilation holes. A chimney is under consideration to take heat through the cabinet and out a flared outlet in the top.
A big area of experimentation has been laminar wave-launch technology. It's not particularly visible, but no front or edge surfaces will be smooth or hard. Similarly the port looks like a 2" port, but it now contains patented and proprietary technologies that impart an uncanny realism. The increase in clarity, dimensionality and musicality are hard to describe and harder to explain, so let's not for now.
So, what's left of the 02 is the cabinet, the driver sizes and port, but everything is subtly to radically upgraded. I won't have a 'fix kit' for a normal 02. I know you love yours, but it is an ordinary if well-done second order 6.5" ported two way. My mission is to develop ways and means to improve performance beyond stock Thiel levels. The 02 emerged as my baseline platform due to its simplicity, flexibility and accessibility. My vision is for the Renaissance 02 to be a uniquely high-performance stand mount speaker with discrete drivers. It is fiction-ware in that no such product actually existed. I envision a limited edition inaugural run and that all this learning and solutions will be applied next to the CS3/3.5 which has gotten the bulk of my attention of late. Stay tuned, sorry to be so slow . . .
Pictures aren't appropriate. They change constantly and aren't yet very pretty.
