Top resistors

Thanks Salectric,

I have just got my resistors in, 1 for the mid and 1 for the highs.

Just deciding if i should do 1 at a time or dive in with both.

The resistors you have are all in the high network? Just curious why you still have a mix of duelunds and mills.

Did you find a mix better than all pathaudios?

Yes, my resistors are all in the high-pass section of my 2-way crossover. And I am using a mix of Mills wirewound (black body) and PathAudio. I am not using any Duelund resistors these days.

As for why I have a mix rather than all PathAudio, my speakers need some emphasis in the extreme highs, and the Mills provide a sparkle or shimmer that the more neutral PathAudio does not. It is not a case of one being better than the other. You have to mix-and-match to get the particular sound that you were seeking.

After a backbreaking afternoon, the paths have been installed in series the mid and tweeter.

I was broken in on the frybaby for a week and a couple of hours on a bedroom set.

I not sure if the were even close to brokem in nut has a bit strange highs which quicky vanished after half an hour.

These are good and won't hesistate to choose them on the pencil lead resistors. Duelund have good detail and did mostly good with the exception of harshness in the uppermid(midrange driver) and tweeter on 20% of recording which caused some hurt to my hearing.

All these are now banished, thanks to Salectric ;) i had always felt from changing caps etc. the duelund cast gave to the sound i would not expect more.

Details, bass, mids, highs of the path are spot on, no touch of brightness, no shortcoming that i can tell. I feel the biggest difference is the control of the individual sound and sure footedness in the music now, more balanced over the frequencies.

The cast remind me of the mundorf sio capacitors sound, beautiful but with a larger unfocussed and slightly messy soundstage. Swapping the the path resistors were akin to moving up from the mundorf sio cap to something like the duelund cast / Vcap teflon capacitors.

I initially had reservations on how the cast resistors could be bettered, and hesistant to swap in the paths as i had already bought them. I do not need to swap the duelunds back in now!

I guess they can only get better with more run in.

Great report Justubes2! I am glad the PathAudio resistors have worked well for you. Your description of the Duelund resistors as having "a larger unfocussed and slightly messy soundstage" is, I believe, the same thing I was trying to describe as "wispy" highs that seem to float around in space; the soundstage with the Duelund resistors is big and airy but not focused.

Have you connected the ground shield lead on the PathAudios? If so, to what? I am still using mine without the shield connected.

I want to emphasize that my misgivings about the Duelund resistors (both CAST and regular variety) do not apply in any way to the CAST capacitors. I continue to feel that the CAST caps are the single best sounding capacitor for speaker crossovers. Expensive but well worth the investment. I am not quite as enthusiastic about CAST caps in electronics. In that application I think system matching is more of an issue, and I prefer a balance of CAST and V-Caps. Right now I use a CAST cap in only one place in my electronics---the output coupler on my phono stage. All of my other couplers are either CuTF or regular V-Caps.

For any system towards the darker side, the duelund cast resistors should work also, but cost more than the paths, so it's a hard choice. The duelund resistors do impart a "live venue" sound which is also kind of nice, maybe in a more damped or dead room will help bring the required liveliness or airiness.

I did not connect the shield, cannot imagine any improvement as the other signal path is not shielded. Could it lead to quieter/dull sound?

I feel the level of boutique parts have reached a level which one could well be happy with either of these parts with some good matching with other parts. I do have casts in the tweeter and bypass the mids in the crossover, they don't do harm but i never felt they were exception (very good as it is) comparing to teflon vcaps / jupiter copperfoil - they are all top notch. i actually felt the vcap TFTF gave more air than the duelund cast while never sounding bright, just very extended though a touch more neutral than duelunds.

The highs pricing of some of these parts , however good, just cannot maintain a decent cost/performance ratio with the competition available.

The cast caps are good in the output stage of my preamp, nothing magical. just neutral with no misgivings. I feel the Vcap TFTF and CUTF can give more noticeable difference (super linear for the TFTF and saturated tonal colour for the CUTF) which can work even better in a system correctly matched.

I have a jupiter in the output of my phono, nice and have lost the desire to find the best. Maybe sometime when i have time to listen to LP's will i swap the duelunds in - that when i have/tryout a passive preamp. The sound of the cap can be compensated elsewhere that i am lost at the number of permutations in tweaking possible. So long as the cap is of a certain level, it works for me, or should i put it as i will make it work for me.

I now focus attention to the PSU which brings about dramatic changes. Gone are the days of just swapping in "better" electrolytic caps. I now focus more on changing transformers, low noise regs etc. in the PSU circuit which i find makes more difference on a cost/improvement, but still learning in this area.