A previous discussion included a statement about crossover components.

This is interesting. I responded to a thread asking about when speakers become hi-fi verses mid-fi and was excoriated for stating that my Klipsch Heritage speakers were easily modded in the crossovers, making them more palatable for me as hi-fi. Crossovers can always be made better depending on your other equipment and musical tastes. Spend 40 years building your system and have a rudimentary knowledge of electronics and the world is your oyster.

Good Morning 

I am in the almost finial act of upgrading my crossovers , while I don't consider my Thiel CS2.7 speakers as " high " end they are of high quality build except for the quality of the crossover parts .  The " made for Thiel " 1uf bypass capacitors by Clarity were the only high end component used .   

My thoughts on upgrading were to use the best quality that I could fit onto the board ,  I also decided to try to keep the sound signature by using upgraded film capacitors by the same manufacturer as well as increasing the voltage rating as much as the size allowed .

I have a few questions for the experienced here ,  How does a larger gauge wire on the inductors improve the sound ?  Has anybody replace an electrolytic capacitor with a film and heard the improvement ?  Have any of you moved the crossovers out of the cabinet or are considering moving them out  ?

@peporter , Yes, the quality of caps in the crossover network can and often does yield differences.

Sometimes changing them out doesn’t sound any better--just different. Other times, it can be pretty darn significant of an improvement.

My favorites are:

VCap ODAM

Clarity Caps (I think the top of the line ones can sound eerily big and have great sense of space)

Auricap XO

AMTRANS AMCY Golden Black

I’m no engineer, but...I highly recommend staying within the tolerances designed into the circuit. So, if you see a pretty run of the mill 5uF 200v Bennic cap in your network, you’d want to replace it with the exact same capacitance value and voltage rating. Don’t change the values unless you know what you’re doing or have incredible patience for experimentation. (Note: you can increase voltage rating but try to avoid decreasing it). 

Finally, sometimes the OEM will use some pretty decent if not great caps that are rebadged for the manufacturer. Manley comes to mind. I know they use some nice REL Caps that are not a cheap product, wrapped in a Manley labeled wrapper. Other times, manufacturers might use something more basic while wrapped in their own wrapper. It may be helpful to see if you can find out what brand(s) they used. I replaced the caps in my Cornwall IVs because they looked to be some fair but not great Dayton caps--so the upgrade was definitely worth it. Other times, maybe not so much.

Yes, the quality of caps in the crossover network can and often does yield differences.

i very much agree with this comment

i recently undertook a fun project of upgrading the wiring, connectors and crossover components of my magnepan 1.7i’s ... i bought a second pair to keep as stock as a control

the difference is monumental, and the capacitor choice in the crossover is of major importance, especially feeding the upper frequency drivers

@audioman58, and anyone else experienced... How would you approach upgrading an isolated woofer crossover with cap values of 125uF and 250uF? Just stick to adding bypass caps to the OEM caps, or no? Those big uF values are basically non-existent for the select caps aforementioned in this thread.