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In Reply to: RE: Replacing capacitors in 2.7 QR posted by JBen on June 09, 2015 at 13:45:42
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.
Follow Ups:
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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