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I am currently replacing some Erse foil inductors on my speaker (Cabasse Baltic IIs) midrange crossovers and am deciding on whether to use Jantzen Wax Coils or Solen Hepta-Litz. Maybe some of you have experience with these two inductor types in speaker crossovers, especially midrange crossovers, that I can talk you into sharing, perhaps? :-)
Here's the background:
The Erse inductors I am currently using are a little rolled off and a wee bit aggressive, as a recent replacement in my tweeter cross-over proved when I replaced my tweeters' single Erse foil inductors (from Percy Audio) with Jantzen Wax Coils. I replaced the tweeter inductor because I only needed one per side, and this was the cheapest way to see if the Erse inductors really were rolled off, harsh, and aggressive (as Ric Schultz of tweakaudio.com has recently posted in our own AA "Tweaks" Asylum, and he was right on the money.)
Indeed, it was immediately apparent that the Jantzens were far more extended, detailed, natural, and musical sounding, while the Erses were slightly veiled, rolled off, and yet at the same time were just a wee bit aggressively over-dynamic, all of which are the problems I have been having with my system ever since three years ago when I completely re-built my crossovers with 99.99% pure teflon-coated silver wire, Jupiter "Flat-Stack" caps, and Erse coils. I simply never suspected the Erse coils were responsible for these irritating flaws, always suspecting, instead the silver wire or the Jupiter caps. Turns out, I was wrong. It was the Erses.
The only reason I don't just buy the six replacement inductors I need for my midrange x-overs from Jantzen is that I very recently read some posts from folks who swear by the Solen Hepta-Litz as being the most musical and true-toned, natural sounding inductors around AND they are about 1/3 the price of the Jantzens, which is a big price differential.
So, before I spring for the US$180 it will cost to replace my six Erse inductors in my midrange x-over with six Jantzen Wax Coils (through HiFi Collective, UK), I want to consider the Solen Hepta-Litz, as the six Solen Hepta-Litz I need only cost US$55 (through Parts Connexion, Canada.) Like I said, BIG price difference there.
I am looking for folks who have heard these two types of inductors from Jantzen and Solen, and what your impressions were. Again, we're talking mids here, so warmth, musicality and natural tone are critical, just as much as speed, dynamics and detail, if not more so.
Folks who have no experience with either type of inductors (Wax Coil or Hepta-Litz), and think all this is voodoo and magic are advised to please not waste everyone's time pontificating and bloviating their 'brilliant' opinions how all inductors 'sound the same', etc. After wasting time with posts at other audio forums where 'experts' (who have never heard either inductor, of course), go on to say that they basically know everything there is to know on the subject (again, of course!), and that in their omnipotent view inductors of identical values invariably all sound the same, etc, etc., I simply ask that such people refrain and 'stifle' (like Edith Bunker) the urge to say we're all deluded, wasting our money and time, and that all inductors really do sound the same and there is no real sonic difference among similar value inductors. We who have heard these differences, beg to differ. In short, posts from such contentious types will be roundly ignored.
What is humbly sought are simply posts from people who have actually personally heard or used these inductors in speaker crossovers, especially in the midrange, and what they thought of them. On-topic hearsay from others about the sound of these inductors is also appreciated, as that can possibly convey meaningful info. But anyone's personal experience with these two inductors would be fabulous, and greatly appreciated. :-)
Thanks in advance.
WS
Follow Ups:
The pricing was just too good on the Solen Hepta-Litz Perfect-Lay inductors, so I pulled the trigger over at Parts Connexion and will have the Solens deep cryo treated and then installed.
At 1/4 the price of Janzten Wax Coils, it was worth taking the chance on the Solens. If I don't like them, I can always put them up for sale on eBay or here on AA. But fingers are crossed these will really work out well. For US$55 plus relatively nominal shipping, the Solens will get the nod, at least for now.
I'll report after I do the Erse vs Solen comparison.
So, as Arnold the Terminator famously quipped:
"I'll be back......... " ;-)
I expect you know what you are doing in a technical sense, but I think you are ill-advised to make these kinds of changes -- internal wiring metallurgy, capacitors, inductors, resistors -- to a complex, high quality speaker system that I expect was "voiced" with care by a competent maker.
It's one thing for me to mess around with Seas Prestige drivers and Clarity Caps. You are playing in a very different league.
...for as I explained, I did the x-over mods nearly four years ago.
I have the original Cabasse crossover in original condition to compare the new x-overs to, and can always go back, of course. But I did that comparison already, and found the new x-over to soundly beat the old in every way, except this slight aggressive forward shift in tonal balance in the upper mids/lower treble and a loss of the upper-most HF 'air' and details (and I agree, the designer voiced all those crappy caps and the original DCRs for a nice tonal balance. No doubt, there. And I changed all that with the new x-over. Yup, sure did.)
BTW, the Solen Hepta-Litz inductors measure damned close to the Cabasse original design specifications (I have the Cabasse Baltic II's x-over specs directly from Cabasse, complete with DCR figures for each inductor, or for both when two are in series.) The Erse foils I had swapped in four years ago were way off on the DCRs, but recall I said I employed Duelund CAST resistors on mids and bass for DCR compensation.
Now here's the funniest part of all this.
My speaker x-over was re-designed and re-built four years ago by a recognized industry 'expert' up in Auckland. He said he had to measure the actual DCRs for each inductor or pairs of series inductors, for matching and ultimately, determining what value Duelund resistors to employ for DCR balance finishing.
So here we are hand-wringing over meeting manufacturer DCR specs, and when we measured the DCR on the stock inductors we found huge variations in the actual DCR measured, versus the DCR the manufacturer said were their design parameters. One is worth mentioning: the DCR on a huge 20mH inductor to ground in the bass x-over called for a DCR of 6.03Ω. But when we measured the actual DCR with a very sensitive device, we got the same numbers every time: 6.8Ω. Nearly a full Ohm difference!
So much for meeting manufacturer specs! ;-)
(However, to be fair, the results were probably within what could be expected within the +/- % range such inductors spec out at and perform to. But we didn't have the +/- % figures for that specific inductor Cabasse employed. That wasn't on the Cabasse production blueprints I was given by Cabasse.)
But you know, I really do agree with everyone who says be very careful messing around swapping inductors in speaker x-overs. For sure!
If I had to do it over again, I would opt for the "go-slow, change-one-thing-at-a-time" approach, and only do the caps, wire and resistors, leaving the inductors out of it, if at all possible. But that was simply impossible with my Cabasse speaker original stock x-overs.
In my case, the original Cabasse inductors are simply incapable of removal for use in the new cross-overs (we thought of that the very first thing, to avoid problems with DCR imbalances, of course.) Unfortunately, when we VERY CAREFULLY removed the first inductor from Cabasse's terribly cramped PC board, the hair-like inductor wires immediately broke, and we were damned lucky to get the little bastard back in safely and performing at spec.
So that approach of using the original inductors was out of the question, sadly. :-(
We both knew quite well that we were farting around with sonic fire changing ANY of the inductors from stock, especially as these were all super small iron/steel cores for efficiency and above all, small size. However, we had no choice at that point, inductor-wise.
But believe me, I was well aware of all that, and my Auckland speaker expert sure as hell was, too. We valiantly tried to use the original inductors, but simply could not. Thus, everyone's points about swapping inductors are well taken, no doubt.
You know, I one time early on rigged my Cabasse speakers (shortly after the complete x-over re-build/swap four years ago), so that I could use the bass and tweeter's all new x-overs, and ALSO employ the original Cabasse crossovers on the midrange only. THIS was a very, very interesting test, as my big problems with the new x-overs were a slightly peaky upper mids/lower treble AND a rolled HF in the very upper treble registers that eliminated all the air and HF details that give reproduced music so much of its life and 3D imaging.
Sure enough, as soon as the old midrange x-over was reinstalled, you could hear the sweeter, more balanced FR from the original midrange x-over, but equally plain as day was the huge amount of additional midrange info that was LOST going back to the original crappy-part stock Cabasse midrange x-over (and we're talking ultra cheap polyester caps from Korea, or some east Asian supplier from the late 90's, when my speakers were first produced.)
Oh well, you win some, you lose some. But you keep your chin up, and keep doing your best.
Seems to be the audio way, when reaching for that sonic 'brass ring', you know?
Thanks for your input. Nice chatting with you! :-)
Cheers,
WS
. . . what cheap crossover parts are used in some quite expensive speakers! (I assume your Cabasse 3-ways were not cheap!)
While I'm not the "bling cultist" you seem to be regarding caps and coils, I certainly prefer good polypropylene caps to NPEs and air cored coils (for smaller values) to little dinky ferrite or iron cores. Just gotta be careful about matching the DCR when substituting. For really large value coils, I generally like at least 15ga windings on good steel laminate or ferrite powder cores. Never tried heptalitz, foil, wax, toroidal or whatever, so can't comment on those. I am picky about tolerances -- gotta be 5% or better.
I couldn't believe the crap parts in there, either. $14,400 MSRP for el cheapo polyester block caps and teensy-weensy iron core inductors? (Well, I paid less than half that, but that's another story...... )
But you nailed it: many fine sounding stock speakers, even pricey ones, employ mediocre (at best) parts in critical applications. I know these Baltic IIs really sounded wonderful stock, that's why I bought them (after a nice, free two week home audition with matching Thor II subwoofers.)
It was only years later (at the urging of AA's own Uncle Stu Ono, BTW), that I started opening up the Cabasse spheres and began looking at the driver assembly and all the cruddy parts on that disc-shaped PC board.
Maybe it would have been best if I just left well enough alone, eh?
Nahhhhhhhh!
Even with the slight upper midrange edge and forwardness, the speakers are far better now than stock, over-all (especially in the bass response, where the new crossovers really helped a lot.) And once that very slight edge and forwardness in the upper mids/lower treble is tamed (which it partially was when I swapped that Jantzen Wax Coil into the tweeter x-over in place of that Erse foil coil), these Cabasse speakers really will earn that "A" rating Mikey Fremer gave them long ago......... ;-)
...at least some designers of high end speakers find that they can achieve the quality of reproduction and reliability they desire using cheap crossover components.
From time to time I have been involved with Focal drivers. Nice drivers, but their crossovers were made from crap, too. My experience base with factory built speakers is limited, but I suspect this could be a common practice -- and belief -- and is not necessarily wholly cost/profit margin driven.
I could be -- and frequently find myself -- wrong, but it seems to me that a good practice is to use a level of crossover component quality consistent with the quality level of the drivers. For Seas Prestige and Focal drivers, I favor metal oxide resistors, mostly Clarity Caps and Solen standard inductors.
I bought the Erse foil inductors because I wanted 12 ga inductors in my first order series networks, and Madisound had a great sale on the Erses. I have no complaints about the 0.56 mH Erse foil inductors I am using, but would not pay a premium for foil inductors over Solen standard wire coils.
The more resolving the driver, the more likely it will let you hear the admittedly small differences between capacitors, maybe even resistors and coils. The best tweeters I've used -- Dynaudio D28-2 and Bohlender Graebner Neo3 PDR -- clearly reveal the slight edginess and blurring of detail of NPE caps as opposed to decent poly film types.
If I had the budget to work with with ScanSpeak Illuminator series drivers, I would not hesitate to use the very finest available parts upstream. Since I'm more of a Vifa/Peerless/SEAS level hobbyist, I tend to stick with more standard mid-line parts from Dayton, Jantzen, Solen, etc. I've frequently sourced coils from Meniscus, since they will custom-wind any value to 1% tolerance in any gauge up to 14. All of these sound great with the drivers I typically use, and I doubt if stepping up to uber-bling parts would make enough difference to justify the cost.
...apparently not all the professionals do.
On the other hand, they have more experience, and facilities to test and screen components beyond the capabilities of the home speaker builder.
"The difference between a skilled amateur and a professional is that the professional knows what he can get away with; the amateur usually doesn't, and will tend to be a perfectionist where the results can't be detected by another human." - Richard Steinfeld
I haven't tried the Solen Hepta-Litz and I have never even heard of the Jantzen wax coil, so I don't have the direct experience you are looking for. However, I have tried the Jantzen 14g toroids and their 15g P-Core chokes in my speaker crossovers, and I ended up with North Creek air cores instead---10g for the woofer and 12g for the HF compression driver. The Jantzen toroid has excellent dynamics but the North Creeks sound more evenly balanced at least in my speakers.
You know, I almost went with North Creek initially (instead of Erse), but had some problems communicating with the owner and decided not to go that route. But they were also highly recommended. Not cheap, that's for sure. I suspect they sound quite fine. Glad you like yours.
You're making a big assumption that inductor DCR isn't an important consideration in the crossover network.
You may actually really be making a mess out of the crossover by swapping inductors.
They work well and sound decent. Pricey, though.
You made the assumption, however, not me.
I correct for final DCR. No problem there.
Very nice and very expensive. I think the XO caps matter more than the inductors. I'd check to make sure your ERSE are really the problem. I wouldn't get the biggest inductors you can find. I'd try to match DCR.
...and you will plainly see that I already did the comparison with the tweeter inductors, and the Jantzen creamed the Erses. THAT's why I am on this search. I already know the Jantzens are better sounding (in my system) than the Erses, as I have done the actual side-by-side comparison.
What I needed to know was if the Solen Hepta-Litz was as good sounding as the Jantzen Wax Coils, as the JWCs are now FOUR times the price of the Solen (as the Jantzens just underwent a big price increase over at HiFi Collective, sadly.)
Maybe the Jantzen are better than the Solen, maybe not. I strongly suspect the Jantzens ARE better, and maybe much better. That's what I was hoping someone else would have info on this subject, but apparently not. Guess I'm the only 'phile around here who has done that comparison, or at least who is willing to post about it. No problem there, of course.
And as I stated in prior responses in this thread, the Solen nicely match the original DCRs of the stock Cabasse iron core inductors, believe it or not. The Erses were much more of a problem matching DCR, to be honest, and that was why we used the Duelund CAST resistors.
But like always, there is no resistor like NO resistor, so if I can better match the DCR via the Solens, that may bring in another nice benefit I wasn't expecting: I can ditch the Duelunds and use the Solens as direct drop-in replacements, no DCR trimming resistors required. Very cool.
(BTW, I decided on the Solens and have already bought them from Chris at PCX. I'll report back after I have installed the Solens and let everyone know what I heard versus the Erses, FWIW.)
OK,I won't question your sanity. Hearing is a personal thing. But could you please explain "just a wee bit aggressively over-dynamic" as it relates to a passive component?
This is not an idle question. I use Erse foil inductors in first order series crossovers, with Seas drivers and Clarity caps.
... is how the Erse sounds compared to the Jantzens. There is an emphasis in the upper mids that creates an aggressive, forward sound, rather than a natural, balanced sound. BUT, every system has its own needs for sonic balance, so the Erse inductors may be just the ticket for you and others. It's all about balance. Nobody is 'dead right' or 'dead wrong', we all have different needs for our systems. It's just what works for you.
But it is always nice when others have gone down that road before you, and are kind enough to share their experience.
And again, my sonic experience with Erses foils vs. the Jantzen Wax Coils in my tweeter cross-over is rock solid, first hand experiential data, but only relates to MY system and its inherent flaws and needs. However, the fact that I heard exactly what Ric Schultz claims to have heard makes me suspect that, on the whole, the Erses may have a frequency response that favors the upper mids at the expense of the HF. But that doesn't mean it is 'bad', it means it has to be applied where it will sound good and work synergistically. Maybe in some systems, the Erses are literally perfectly matched to someone's tweeter and midrange FR response curves. But in my tweeter, what Ric Schultz heard is very, very similar to what I heard when I did a head-to-head comparison. YMMV, of course!
That's why I had hoped someone had done the comparison of the Jantzen vs the Solens, just so I could hear from others what they thought of the Solens. It doesn't mean anyone is right or wrong, it's just great info to gather and digest.
But as for direct Erse foils vs. Jantzen Wax Coils, it seems I am one of the only ones (and Ric Schultz) who has that first hand info and actually done the comparisons and written about it. And that's okay, as someone has to be the first at this stuff. I just hoped others had done the Jantzen vs Solen shoot out, just as I have done the Erse vs Jantzen comparison in my tweeter x-over.
Besides, maybe my findings on the comparison between Erses and Jantzens WCs on the tweeter x-over will help someone else make a purchase decision, or not. But at least the info is out there in case someone wants to check it out, FWIW.
Of course, I can always just do as Hawk Moon suggested, and simply buy the Jantzens, but it sure would have been nice if someone had also heard the Solen Hepta-Litz and could give feedback on the two inductor types.
But at literally 1/3 the price of the Jantzens, those Solens Hepta-Litz inductors would be a sensational deal if they did meet or beat the Jantzen's performance, and thus my query herein.
Cheers,
WS
My experience is that components often are application specific. I would question the relevance of advice you receive from others whose applications are different from yours.
In my application -- first order series -- there are few components, so they are all front and center. YRMV.
Changing any component in a crossover network inevitably changes the filter response and thus the sound. Simply substituting a coil, capacitor or resistor without measuring the result will lead to potentially misleading conclusions. The filter network has to be designed as a unit in order to be most effective.
Spend as much as you can as inductors really
affect the sound. The bigger, the better with inductors. I use North creek 8 ga inductors and they are a huge improvement.
Good luck!
So if I replace a 3.0 mh inductor with a larger gauge, say from 14 awg to 12 or 10 awg, I just keep the mh value the same?
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
....... which inductor is the better sounding? That's the question.
Price is not always a reflection of quality (although it certainly can be), and with some folks raving that these Solen Hepta-Litz are really superb, I had hoped someone had heard them both and could give their impressions. If not, no problem. I'll just have to decide based on theory and whatever info I can gather. (Or do the old, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe" type approach to 'choosing'.) ;-)
Thanks for the well wishes, HW.
Cheers!
WS
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