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"Parts upgrade" on crossovers -Any experiences?

I remeber upgrading the crossovers of a pair of B&W DM12's with esoteric resistors, caps and wiring (about 10 years ago). In the end I got a different speaker. The bottom end seemed improved and the highs were more delicate and smoother, but the midrange had lost some of the magic. I could not deal with the decreased midrange quality so I re-soldered most of the parts back to the crossovers but left the upgraded wire (the wire in there looked like tined copper and was tied with a Molex connector to the board!). I changed the parts since I felt that early 80's speakers could only benefit from higher quality parts and was worried that the cap values might be out of spec. I am currently using a pair of KEF 101 and I've been thinking about upgrading crossovers with Solen Caps, maybe some Caddok Resistors and Cardas or Kimber wire. The KEFs sound great but if I can get more out of them, I might give it a try. Anyone do similar upgrades with an increase in ALL aspects of your speakers performance...or have BAD results...or find the end result a mixed bag of better here, but worse there (like me)? Also, any input on what parts / brands to use and which not to use? Are Solen caps good choices (or are there others that work much better for this application)? Resisters Brands?
I am purposely leavig out the issue of active crossovers (don't want to find 4 identical monoblocks to run my speakers).
one_audiophile
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
The first thing I would do is try to get a hold of KEF and see if they would be kind enough to send you a crossover schemetic, you never know what ideas you may get. Next I would go to audioasylum.com and visit the "tweaks" section and ask this same question there. There are a lot more DIY guys over there with a lot more experience. How ever if you are able to get schemetics then it should be fairly simple to make it happen. A lot of folks don't like modifying equipment because they assume that the manufacturer 'tuned' it when they designed it, but they also built it with in a certain price bracket and an easy way to trim some cost off the product is to use cheaper parts of the same value. I think you may be on the right track, just ask around a bit more and see if anyone else has done what you are trying to do.
one_audiophile OP
21 posts
 
Tireguy, thanks for the reply. I know the KEFs have matched drivers and crossovers. I might at the minimum replace the push button connectors with quality binding post and the wire that goes from the board the the new binding posts. So far I am very happy with the sound (after all, KEF supplied most of the drivers for the Rogers and Spendor BBC monitors). I might try to make me a board adhearing to the factory schematic (and bypassing the overload protection circuit). This way I can simply keep the stock xovers intact and be able to put the KEFs back to how they cam. I'll check out audioasylum.com's tweaks section.
rives
953 posts
 
I lean pretty strongly towards--don't mess with it, if it isn't broken. Cross-overs are voiced for the speakers. In most cases, even with improved parts and wires, you will usually take 1 step forward and 3 steps back. I could go into examples--but everyone is different. Suffice to say, that even a simple wire upgrade in a speaker can actually give you much worse results because the crossover was voiced for the wire used and thus an "upgrade" causes a loss of "magic". If you do decide to experiment--save the old parts--and label where they go. Also--I don't necessarily feel this way about amps and other electronics because the do not have the "voicing" so to speak. Speakers are a transducer and thus the synergistic nature of the cross over and drivers (and wiring) can not be broken down into confined specifications of what is supposed to do without the other. In electronics--such as amplifiers--the power supply (or other subassemblies) can be broken down into specifications for ripple, noise, etc--which can be independently improved by better parts--i.e. capacitors etc.
albertporter's avatar
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
I totally agree with Rives. It is very difficult, almost impossible to change crossover parts and maintain the speakers voice. You might get improvement in one area only to make the speaker un listenable overall.

I post this from experience, having rebuilt the crossovers on three high quality speaker systems with the Snell Type A being the biggest disaster.

The Snell I "ruined" simply had the wire replaced and swapped caps with EXACTLY same value, but better quality. The sound was so shrill they had to be returned to the factory to be restored to stock. Luckily this was many years ago when Peter Snell was still alive, so he bailed me out. (Bless him!) he was a wonderful person and a good friend.
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