You bought $14,000 20.1's for less than $1,000??
Do they have anymore for sale at that price? That is an incredible deal.
Do they have anymore for sale at that price? That is an incredible deal.
Crossover mods and speaker efficiancy?
I was just wondering if anyone can tell me if it makes sense that with complete crossover mods(caps, coils, resistors, and internal cabling)that the speakers would draw more current from my amp? My speakers are Hales T5's with totally upgraded crossovers. I am using Dynamicaps for the tweeter section, Dynamicap,Audiocap and auricaps for the midsection and Solen/Axon for the bass area. My coils were replaced with Solo foill coils(16guage for tweeter, 14 guage for mid and 12 guage for bass). Finally as well the internal cabling was replaced with cardas chasis wire of three guages for the three drivers.
My question is that should these changes make my speakers less efficient or draw more current from my amp. I have a Pass X250 which has a meter on it which indicates how much current is being drawn and when the amp is going out of A mode. When the needle moves at all it's out of A mode and into AB mode. What I have noticed with the crossover mod is that the meter is reading that the speakers are taking very much more current than before the mods. The needle bounces to around the 2 or 3 O'clock point on loud passages where as before the mods the needle rarely passed 12 or 1 O'clock. The sound is way bigger sounding and I suppose the bigger sound is due to the larger current draw but I'm not sure. Would this type of crossover mod make my speakers less efficient in that my amp is obviously working much harder than before but the sound is much bigger than before. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. I should note that I can listen to louder levels of volume of the music as the sound is clean and doesn't sound "loud" as the speakers now tend to have less distortion and I can play loud without being annoyed. The needle on the X250 meter now tends to bounce around alot where as before it just wiggled.
My question is that should these changes make my speakers less efficient or draw more current from my amp. I have a Pass X250 which has a meter on it which indicates how much current is being drawn and when the amp is going out of A mode. When the needle moves at all it's out of A mode and into AB mode. What I have noticed with the crossover mod is that the meter is reading that the speakers are taking very much more current than before the mods. The needle bounces to around the 2 or 3 O'clock point on loud passages where as before the mods the needle rarely passed 12 or 1 O'clock. The sound is way bigger sounding and I suppose the bigger sound is due to the larger current draw but I'm not sure. Would this type of crossover mod make my speakers less efficient in that my amp is obviously working much harder than before but the sound is much bigger than before. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. I should note that I can listen to louder levels of volume of the music as the sound is clean and doesn't sound "loud" as the speakers now tend to have less distortion and I can play loud without being annoyed. The needle on the X250 meter now tends to bounce around alot where as before it just wiggled.
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My experience here is limited but I do not feel it is a gamble to replace x-over components with higher cost/quality (not always related) components. I have done this in three pairs of speakers to varrying degrees and have had consistently impressive results each time. While it is fashionable to believe that crossover design is an act of alchemy and magic (that is a component) it defies reason to assume that a manufacturer would use only the ideal components for a design. Come on, they choose the $.20 sand cast resistor not because they wanted a resistor with inductance, but because they wanted something that was cheap. A $7 caddock never even enters the equation. More so for caps (which can get really expensive) and especially for inductors, which can be made cheap in house with magnet wire... |
In many cases, one need not even change components in a crossover to achieve better performance. That is, by laying out the existing parts in a more precise manner, it is very possible to lower noise, distortion, crosstalk between circuits, improve power transfer, improve transient response, reduce the number of connections, etc... This is what i did to my Father's speakers and the difference is HIGHLY audible. Only changes made were to the wire feeding the drivers. We were able to go from 61 connections per crossover board down to 23 per board. This eliminated 60%+ of the "cluster" that was built into the signal path from the factory. While we also performed other cabinet modifications, my personal thoughts were that the crossover / wiring changes were most responsible for the drastic sonic improvements that we heard. My Father invited over one of his friends to listen to his system, not telling him what was done. This person was very familiar with my Dad's system. As a point of reference, they both ran the same amp and had the same brand of speakers. The speakers that this gentleman have are actually two models up from what my Dad is running and retail for over $6k per pair. After hearing the difference in peformance in my Father's system and being quite stunned, he asked what was changed. After my Father explained what was done and showed him the pictures, he asked if we could modify his speakers. Much like what Jonbok pointed out, it must be pretty dis-heartening to find out that your $6K+ investment bought you speakers that were far from optimized. Having proof right in front of you that your speakers sound quite poor compared to what they were capable of is NOT what you want to find out after shelling out that kind of money. Then again, one would hope that the manufacturer was intelligent enough to produce a proper design and impliment the existing parts in a more precise manner, but in most cases, they aren't and don't. As in the above example, i'm not even talking about using higher grade / lower loss parts in some speakers. Like i said, we were able to achieve MUCH better results just laying out what was already there in a more precise manner. After looking at and playing with dozens of crossover circuits, i know that this specific situation is not unique either. As a side note, even though the parts in the crossover had thousands of hours already on them, the sound of the speakers changed VERY noticeably. I used the Ayre Acoustics "Irrational But Efficacious" disc ( track 7 ) for 72 hours non-stop. After that, we ran the entire disc mixed with some other discs on repeat for 10 more days. One would never believe that these were the same speakers that we started off with, although the only components changed in the speakers were the wires. On top of that, the wiring that i used cost pennies per foot. As "cheap" as this cable was, it was still FAR superior to what was in there from the factory. Sean > |
Funny you mention the separation of parts. This is exactly what I did in my crossovers. My inductors are nearly 12 inches apart in each speaker.Also the capacitors and resistors for the highs/mids and lows are seperated by up to 10 inches. I am still experimenting but it seems to work well on my speakers. I am not as technical as some but I know what sounds good to these ears. |
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