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Speaker Mods

Several years ago as a young struggling audiophile I bought a pair of Warfdale Diamonds. I was sceptical when I set them up, but I thought I'd give them a chance. I put an album on and listened. After only a few minutes I was ready to cry. I sold an okay pair of speakers to buy these and they sounded awful. I let them run for a while and since there was no noticeable improvement I realized I had to do something. I don't remember what the cable was anymore (this was about ten years ago) but I opened the cabinet and replaced all the wiring with either audioquest or monster cable???
When I put the speakers back on their stands the difference was unmistakeable. I did a "blindfold" trick with a friend who was also into listening. I played some familiar music for him while he couldn't see them. When he removed the blindfold he was floored that these little speakers sounded so good.
I have since moved on to bigger and better speakers and have thought about doing something with the cable but I'm worried about doing the wrong thing. When the speakers were cheap it wasn't intimidating, now it is.
Does anybody have any ideas about safe mods I could try on my Sony SS M7es speakers. They sound good now but I think they could be better.
Thanks for any insight you can offer.
128x128nrchy
kana813
956 posts
 
Get your self a couple of sheets(24" x 27") of Black Hole 5.

Remove the drivers and and loose damping material and try
and cover the inside walls of the cabinet. It's easy,just cut, peal and stick(it has pressure sensstive adhesive).

Stay at least two inches from the rear of the drivers.
nrchy's avatar
nrchy OP
2,124 posts
 
What will this accomplish?
kana813
956 posts
 
It will greatly improve inner detail in the lower midrange & bass.

Also, don't waste time with the Bybee filters, get the Bybee
purifiers($40-$50.@) and connect them in line with the postive leads of each driver.

I recently did these mods to my seven year old pre-Talon Khorus speakers and was blown away with the improvements.

Total cost $225.00 and two hours of my time.
pilar
24 posts
 
Kana, where did you buy the Bybee's? I would like to try them on my Dunlavys, but can't find them for less than $80 each.
twl
3,251 posts
 
I can tell you 4 reasons why I use the Bybee Ultimate Speaker Filters.

#1 - They work and sound great.

#2 - I don't have any crossover unit and there is nothing between my speaker driver leads and the Bybees except a pair of Cardas posts and 11 inches of Nordost SPM cable.

#3 - Anything that is inside the speaker cabinet is subject to far higher amounts of vibration than something outside the cabinet.

#4 - There is at least 8 times the filtering in the Ultra Filters than in a single Purifier. All Bybee users will tell you that more Bybee is better. I don't know if there is some kind of upper limit.

I can agree that when using 3 way systems such as Nrchy, it may be advantageous to place the purifiers after the crossover, at the drivers. However, he expressed trepidation about going into too much "surgery" inside the box. And the caveats above still apply about the vibration, and the smaller amout of filtering. I would add a warning about changing the stuffing of the cabinet, that it could change system Q and result in an unknown sonic difference, that may be better, or worse. If much internal surgery is now up for discussion, high quality caps, chokes, and wire in the crossover networks is in order as well as possibly wider spacing between chokes and other field-sensitive devices. Brass screws on the crossover mounting could also yield improvements, and even relocating the crossover to outside the box has been known to cause improvements due to lessening the vibration on the network. Damping driver baskets can help. Redesigning the crossover for bi-wiring or tri-wiring may help, if you know what you're doing. Even eliminating the crossover altogether, and using active electronic crossovers and tri-amping is an option. How far do you want to go?
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