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Not sure if I sure if this post should be here or on the speaker asylum.
I will be buying some Epos 2 speakers, one of the strengths of the design is a simple crossover. Can this be made even better w. high quality caps such as Mundorf Supreme?
Thanks, Vasil
Follow Ups:
and hard-wiring the contacts on each side, and on the driver terminals inside the speaker enclosures. That's tweak 1 (one.)Leaves just one set of dry joints at the amplifier's spkr terminals.
The sound - will - have less hash. Caps are a teeny bit piezo-electric, even MF plastic film types, ;-)!
My speakers used a ladder of MFpolycarbonate caps to form each 'capacitor' in the Fs trap and high-pass on the tweeter, in the late 1970s! They were voiced by ear by a listening panel. The laddering allowed tweaking of each enclosure, as did hand-wound air core coils.
I would never contemplate trying to improve on these crossovers, except by redesigning them as a line-level passive or active crossover, each one tweaked to match the drivers. Voicing is a significant factor here.
Taking the xovers out of the their very quiet enclosures - white concrete/pva mix plus galv.steel mesh, cast into spheres - was quite a big improvement.
Tweak 2. Add some sand in zip-lock bags (sealed before you put them in) to the jiffy boxes. Do one side first, to hear the difference, and do keep the amount of sand as equal as possible. Put the bags on the capacitors and on the air-core inductors.
Tweak 3. Buy Deflex (TM) pads for the magnets on the mid-bass (cone) drivers, and if available to size for the tweeter magnets. Lead shot and plasticine is cheaper but can leak linseed oil, which is easily absorbed by timber and all particle-board. Put strips of damping material on the driver frames and on the back plate of the tweeters.
Tweak 4? Only then consider damping the cabinet walls inside, with Deflex panels. Work on one spkr at a time, damp the rear wall first.
You may then need to reduce the mfr's amount of fibre batting inside. If you do one spkr at a time and then compare-listen after each change you'll know when to stop. I'd retain 'some' fibre behind the cone driver in any case.
Take your time.
The speakers should be far less apparent as discrete sources / themselves - other than the actual voices and instruments, which will be clearer.
The spkrs might almost 'disappear' as sources, which is hard to do with standard affordable boxes.
Note that a post in response is preferred.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
Edits: 07/25/12
Per Epos: "In typical Epos fashion, the Epic 2 crossover is as simple as we can make it: The woofer/mid and tweeter networks are 2nd order filters. To ensure high sound quality, all the resistors are metal oxide – a type rarely found in products at this price level. Also included are high-quality polypropylene capacitors, used for their superior sound quality.
Inductors are designed for low distortion even at high powers: air-core for the tweeter and over-sized laminated-iron core for the woofer. The input terminals are gold plated and bi-wirable. It’s all in keeping with the Epos ethos of providing high quality at sensible prices."
You probably are not going to pick-up much by putting expensive parts in this crossover with those drivers. They can even ruin the sound if the caps sound different enough from the stock parts which throws off the voicing. You will transform the speaker from stock to "user modified" if you ever try to sell them.
"You probably are not going to pick-up much by putting expensive parts in this crossover with those drivers. They can even ruin the sound if the caps sound different enough from the stock parts which throws off the voicing. You will transform the speaker from stock to "user modified" if you ever try to sell them."
I agree and can attest to this as I replaced all the cheap and cheerful electrolytic caps in my pair of Fried Beta Signature series of speakers and totally altered the voicing of the speakers and not in a good way!
Yes it was more "accurate" sonically but the "soul" or musicality of the speaker was greatly diminished. Glad I kept all the original crossover caps as they will make a nice project one day when I decide to pull them out of storage and return them to stock as the Beta's were one of the most musical monitors I had the pleasure of owning in the 80's :-)
~
Maybe, especially if the caps are electrolytic instead of film types.
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