Will I notice improvement with crossover mods?


I've finally discovered that the difference in sound between my two Hales Transcendence 5"s is due to a difference in crossover values between the two speakers. Aparently one of the speakers was at the correct values but the other speaker's crossover was off by over 10%. I've decided to repair the speakers by having both the crossovers completely redone with new caps, coils and resisters. The crossovers of both speakers will be upgraded to better parts and they will be the same correct values(evenly matched).
My question is that will I notice a big improvement with this upgrade/mod? I am having Solen foil caps replacing the old caps, Hepta- Litz coils replacing the old coils and improved resistors although I do not know exactly which ones. Opinion would be appreciated.
128x128mitchb
I hear ya Eldartford..that's one reason I went with the Jantzen copper foil inductors. They are reasonably priced and claim to have almost zero FM distortion. They really opened up the Magnepans. It's tough to compare the stock Magnepan inductors which weigh maybe 14 ounces together..two for each speaker.To the Jantzens copper foils of the same value that weigh over 6 lbs ! Huge difference in weight and sound!
After all said and done I'm getting Dynamicaps for the tweeter/midrange and solen and Axon for the bass. I'm getting Alpha Core coils all around with different gauges 12 ga for the bass 14ga for the midrange and 16ga for the tweeter. I'll be using Mills resistors all around and will be rewiring the speakers with Cardas chasis cable of three different gauges to each driver.I went this direction as the parts are known to be of good quality and I'll have them in two days and I should have my speakers back in my living room hopefully within the next week. The Mundorfs were only available in two weeks and there would have been a week of shipping. I couldn't wait any longer. The Sonicaps were considered but would have also been a several week wait. I'm sure I did OK. The one thing I am doing at the reccommendation of someone is putting single caps of a value where possible as opposed to cascaded caps of lower values. This is only done in a few places and was highly reccommened by Michael Percy who is where I am getting my parts from and I get the impression he really knows his stuff. Jeff at Sonicraft is brilliant and had terrific Ideas most of which I didn't fully understand but he knows his stuff. Unfortunately the wait. As for all you Americans, Andre at e-speakers is a really nice and helpful guy but is no longer distributing to Canada as Canada has it's own distributor now being Audyio Sound in Canada and they were extremely helpful as well but once again the dreaded wait.The website for Audyio is www.audyio.com They are online dealers of audio parts with Mundorf soon in Canada.
I got my speakers back today and at the advice not taken by an expert I decided to give listen immediatelty. I was told to wait a few days before even listening but I found that impossible to do. It worked!!! The sound is different and I'm sure will be way better than the origional crossovers in a few days to a few weeks. Already with only five hours play(and everything including the chasis wire was replaced)the speakers sound pretty good. They have a bigger sound with more bass(not boomy)nice mids and the tweeters are getting smoother by the minute but they were not harsh to begin with. Overall I'm excited and I know the speakers will sound awesome when the parts are broken in as the speakers sound good already. I was nervous by reading another post on Audiogon where people said crossover mods were huge mistakes in their opinions. In my case my only regret was being without my speakers for 3 months,3 weeks,1 day and 7 hours. Not that I was counting.
In my case I believe this move to be successful but time will tell how they finally will sound. I'm convinced I will be further impressed as time goes on. It was not an inexpensive procedure however costing about $1200 with the labor. The parts were about $800. I wanted a new speaker without taking a loss on selling my Hales and not having enough money to buy even as good a speaker. This way I think I kinda get the best of both worlds.
Good for you!
BTW, at $800, that's one expensive set of x-overs -- OTOH, it should allow you to get the best out of the drivers & cabinet design..