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In Reply to: RE: Replacing capacitors in 2.7 QR posted by scolley on May 28, 2015 at 07:48:05
The Daytons are only fractional uF so you would have to build them up as Apogee and Infinity used to do.The idea should be to allow you to use the components that sound best at a given budget and that would be best served by an external XO box. There is little space for a higher grade 3 way XO in the panel proper.
The higher voltage rated caps usually sound better probably because of more uniform film in the thicker (higher voltage) dielectric.
Edits: 05/28/15Follow Ups:
Thanks for the clarification Satie. The idea of building up a lot of low capacitance, but high value, caps makes sense. But - as you say - clearly that's not going into the panel.
But you make a strong point for not avoiding the Obbligato's for the midrange just because of the higher voltage rating. Thanks.
Having looked now at EVERY cap at Parts Connection, I'm beginning to get the idea that my original assumption was incorrect. Specifically - in my ignorance - I assumed that Magnepan put lower cost caps in the speaker, and with a reasonable investment (a few hundred bucks) and a little work I could improve that. But from what I'm seeing, all of the quality caps appear to be larger than what would likely fit in the speaker. Bummer.
And I'm fairly hesitant to take the moulding and cloth off just to start playing the "Let's see what I can squeeze in this hole" game. But it's starting to look like it's either that, or plan on going external. Rats.
Thanks for the advice and help. :-)
OK. I'm clear on the fact that I cannot replace stock 2.7 XO components in the same physical space that the stock is installed - it's going to require an external XO. Fine. So I emailed Peter Gunn.
He was VERY helpful in providing his crossover diagrams with a lot of good, helpful advice. Thank you Peter. But I don't want to bother him any more. So I'll put forward a few questions here...
PG's 2.7 XO calls for two 6.8 uF Obbligato film oil caps, and one additional 6 uF cap. But the Obbligato film oils (oil cans) are SO cheap, I'm assuming it makes sense to upgrade these to Obbligato Gold. Would that be correct?
And to fill the 6 uF capacitor need PG directed me to pick either 5 uF Auricap with a 1 uF Clarity PX or a single 6 uF Jupiter copper cap. And he was kind enough to suggest that without wood frame and everything else to pull the very best out of my 2.7's, the very expensive Jupiters will likely be overkill. I'm good with that.
But PG also mentions on his website that Auricaps and Claritys are as cheap as he's willing to go. So surely there are good caps inbetween the quality of an Auricap/Clarity combo and Jupiters. Like Mundorf M-Cap Supremes?
Am also unclear about PG's reccomendation on a 1.5 ohm Duelund resistor. Would that be the Duelund Standard or CAST?
Thanks in advance for the help. :-)
Obbligato Gold are a good value
Mcap Supremes (or with oil) are sometimes a good value when on sale. The resistor can also be a Mills.
If you are willing to assemble a large bunch of low value caps then the Dayton foil caps at 0.47 max can be combined to get close to your 6uF tweeter HP at a decent cost and not too much assembly work.
Thanks Satie. I'm comfortable with the overall cost of the M-Cap Supremes plus the Obbligato Golds. At that price point, it's not the overall cost I'm concerned about, it's whether they work well together sonically.
Clearly there is some kind of voodoo to mixing capacitors that I do not understand. And I'm sure PG has a sound that he achieves with his suggested mix. I don't want to mess that up by looking at higher rated capacitors than what he suggested.
Hi Steve. Good to see that you are gearing up for some nice tweaking fun with your 2.7s. I must say, Satie's pointers are still valid. You may want to consider that a particular "sound" -- whomever it may be from -- may still need tweaking to your be your own preference. In this sense, these pieces of advise may help you later on.
I do cringe a little when I think that all that money in new parts will not deliver top performance from you Maggies, simply a different, and hopefully more likable, sound. The day you want to maximize the Maggies, a few bucks in parts plus extra power amps can do so, and cost about the same or even much less. Such are the virtues of line-level crossovers. Keep them in mind, or ask around.
Thanks for chiming in JBen. I'll look into line level crossovers... but a new amp (or amps) is one of those things that is not going to have a high spouse approval factor, I'm afraid. So for now I'm stuck with new boxes of circuits behind the speakers. Thanks for the suggestion though.
IMO "top performance" is an illusive thing. And without serious upgrades to my amplification, pre-amplification and room acoustics, I'm never going to see it. And that's not in the cards at present. Which make small, incremental improvements the order of the day. Which is why I'm looking at a "good but not cost is not object" XO upgrade.
I've never heard a Gunn'ed maggie. But I know people rave about them. And that cannot be happening if PG does not have a good ear for a well designed crossover for maggies. So I'm very much inclined to trust his selection of components for the 2.7 crossovers (that he sells). Which is why I'm interested in learning if the substitutions I mentioned earlier would be detrimental to the PG "sound".
Also, I did not mention previously and important little twist...
The stock XO for 2.7s treats all three drivers separately. PG's XO does not. He straps the mid and tweeter together as a single driver. So it's a simpler crossover, But he appears to be mixing caps to get some sonic affect. And it's that that I'm hessitant to mess with.
I read you, Steve...my wife hits hard if I break the rules, LOL! The intent is merely to add options that may help as you concoct your own "next approach".
That said, the prospect of you paying so much money for xover parts which -- now that you remind us -- don't even cover a 3-way system is a bit intriguing, to say the least. As you look into the whole thing, you may want to challenge us as a group to see what, say, less than 5 Benjamins could bring to the plate with a line-level xover PLUS power amp. (Darn, if I had the time I'd be shooting for 2 Benjamins just for fun! : - ))
Jbens - I'm with you on the LOL!
Amplifiers. Speakers. Big speaker cable (like my Blue Heavens). Acoustic treatment. These are things the spousal unit sees. We MUST manage those occurrences. ;-)
Interconnects. Cartridges. Little, expensive solid state phono amps. And MAYBE XO's. These are things unseen. No management required.
Call me a coward, but I'm sticking with the unseen. Picking your battles is how you win the war. :-)
So line level is just out. PLUS it's WAY too technical for me. Great concept. But it's got two strikes against it for me. That said, I find myself at an interesting crossroads, as I consider XO upgrade options...
When I look at the cost, I cannot help but look at what I have in these speakers. It cost roughly $900 to have them refurbished by Magnepan (with shipping and buying a box to ship in). Then there's what I paid for them. All that gets way too close to what these things cost brand spanking new. Why would I DO such a thing?
Because - as a decades long maggie lover - I strongly suspect that these are one of the best pair of maggies made. So suddenly paying $$$ to maximize the crossovers does not seem so silly. Sure, if I buy the Jupiters I won't hear the difference over what I could have had less $$, given my current gear/environment. But SOMEDAY - God willing and the creek don't rise - I may have that new amp and room treatments - and I will hear it then! :-) So go whole hog Jupiter now? Maybe. Or...
Endure the pain of creating external XOs, and build it so that critical caps can be swapped out should I find myself in the fortunate position - in the future - of thinking I could hear the difference. But don't even bother now, if I don't think I'm going to hear a significant positive difference now. ;-)
Thus I find myself interested in trying something better than Peter Gunn's lowest possible option, but not in the stratosphere ($$$) of Jupiter use.
Sorry for the long post. But thanks for listening. ;-)
Like the 1.7 the main plus is that the 2.7 is a foil and wire driver speaker but near the size of the 3 models. So you get a more coherent sound character up and down the the freq spectrum. What is lost is the ribbon's remarkable transient speed detail and extension.
The issue of PG''s secret sauce matching of caps for a particular sound is something only he can provide but you can choose caps by their signatures on standardized listening tests reported on a couple of sites.
This is one
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/caps.htm#AAA
I can say that the Dayton foils are on par with the rel cap polystyrenes and the new Jupiter copper in wax are near the same level as the Duelund and V cap but cost about half as much. That opinion is derived as I have not that kind of budget for caps.
Thanks Satie. That's great info. ESPECIALLY that link to the discussion of how caps sound. Thank you!
I'm going to have to spend some time digesting that. Plus a little more time at http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html. All great stuff, and LOTS to learn.
"Special sauce" LOL. Indeed. ;-)
Satie, yes, the Daytons are mostly good. I tried some variants. This was during the initil months of scoping my MMGs before going to the planned line-level xover, right after I bought them used.
There was one exception. I could never like the "Dayton Audio Precision 1% Metallized Polypropylene Capacitors". Oh, brother, I tried every which way, including tons of break-in time and other types of speakers. Then I gave them to a friend, without telling him. He later jokingly thanked me for "dumping them" on him.
BTW, in those early days, there was a major surprise. Every single Solen (and other) caps removed from old Maggies, including my own, were right on the money as far a value. With mine, at first, I thought something was wrong with my meter. The 6 caps (2x25uF and 4 x 12uF) showed no variance after almost a decade of use by the previous owner.
Those are cheap and sound like it.
Coward? Ha ha! Never crossed my mind. Much less when you have the heart to tackle a xover change to begin with. Care to guess what percent of folks would dare do this? 0.00000.... Crap, my calculator just ran out of zeros!
I think it was Green Lantern in another thread just now who said something along the lines that we do our respective tweaks at our own pace, and that's what matters. We enjoy the fruits as we go along playing with our toys; as we may wish, whenever we may.
Of course, we just want you to get the most fun for the buck...and the least nagging from the boss : - ))
Long post? Hell it is almost 3am and I read through it just fine.
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