Very interesting - as I posted in a recent thread, I had to have an under-spec'ed resistor that went bad "upgraded" on one of my Thiel 2.2's by the factory, whose tech stated that this particular resistor (at 1/4 watt) had caused many previous problems on this model. He just threw what he happened to have lying around (of the same ohm rating) in there instead - a 5 watt resistor of a clearly different type, and also gave me another one to install in my good speaker as a preemptive measure (he admitted that this wattage rating was actually overkill). I haven't done that yet, and this thread gives me pause. Maybe I should call back down to Thiel and see if I can speak to the head honcho himself by way of doing a little more research before breaking out the soldering iron. My one reassuring indicator so far - since I haven't yet re-broken in the fixed speaker, which also required two new drivers - is that the tech performed a quality-assurance anechoic test on the repaired speaker, and said it measured better (by which he presumably meant flatter, or within a tighter tolerance) than most examples of the model.
"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).
I am purposely leavig out the issue of active crossovers (don't want to find 4 identical monoblocks to run my speakers).
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- 26 posts total
- 26 posts total