Modifying Crossovers

 I had an old pair of JBL 212's with the sub given to me. I changed the capacitors to new Sonus (I think they were called) capacitors. They really sounded great - big difference, so much so that I regretted selling them. 

 Capacitors don't wear out but the newer caps are much improved. Swapping out the older for newer caps is not a difficult job, just remember to label the speaker polarity.

@lemonhaze   I've worked 40+ years in an industry where all equipment is continuously in service with very short outage times.  So there isn't much testing time available.  Generally the engineers (I'm the engineering manager) do a lot of research and have one chance to get it right.  It needs to be well designed, prefabricated, and ready to instll quickly.  Which is my plan here.  I plan to have my speakers down for 1 day, at most 2.

So I guess it is natural that I took that approach with this project.  And a good thing too since I've been very slow to get the internal crossovers made.  Got traction again when I decided to go external and think I'll have them done in a couple of weeks.  Picked up the wood for the caninet this morning after my hike.  Right now I'm waiting for my sawblade to come back from the sharpener.   Also the Neutrix connectors for the cable from the crossover to the speaker were backordered but I found them somewhere else.  It's al coming together.

So I don't plan to try it with and without the bypass capacitors.  I chose the .1uF Dueland Copper-Sn foil based on experience and recommendations from friends.  If I was doing it now I might go with the copper silver for $30 more each. I agree with Erik that .1uF is the right size.

If you are anticipating doing this job yourself feel free to send me a PM.  As a DIYer I'm always willing to spend time helping others.

Jerry

The Volti Rival also allow crossover adjustments through resistor changes:

https://voltiaudio.com/new-rival-crossover-adjustments/

looks like not necessarily improvements but rather adaptations to a room and/or user sonic preferences.

@jaytor, understood, thanks.

@carlsbad2, Hey Jerry, thanks for the generous offer. I have a lot of experience designing and modifying XOs. Have been doing this for what seems like forever and have a speaker design of mine about to go into production. The person who asked me to design him a small bookshelf speaker was a customer of mine and now has a retail outlet. He has the prototype but seems to have a problem finding someone to build a good quality veneered box.

After designing the XO I spent some considerable time choosing components and it was then that I settled on the Powertron resistor. Reverting back to Mills, paralleled Kiwame, Mundorf and some others was a big disappointment. I did not have a chance to try Duelund nor Path resistors as it was at this time that I was preparing to leave South Africa to move overseas.