LSI9 Fortress Mod DIY

walleyeny

Fantastic job . What about the sound after break in point ?

walleyeny

Rough Idea cost for DIY in parts . And cost for one made up ? Thanx

F1nut

Prices should be listed on his site.

walleyeny

Heading there now thank you .

VR3

Hey guys!

I actually dont have prices posted on my site ATM, but you can email me at Vr3Mods@gmail.com

Thanks!

VR3

Hey LSi9 Fortress owners..

I am needing reviews for these, this is perhaps my more popular mod and I only have one review... *puzzled*

cincycat13

VR3 wrote: »

Hey LSi9 Fortress owners..

I am needing reviews for these, this is perhaps my more popular mod and I only have one review... *puzzled*

I would love to give an eval, but I never even hooked them up as stock so I am not sure what to compare them to. My intention is/was to use them for the front for HT / 2 channel duty. But my 2 year old has decided that the current LSI7 microPro3000 make a great toy area. I got these both used with normal wear and tear...not where I want to put the LSI9s at this point. I can say the the LSI9s did give "more" of everything compared to the 7s which are modded with sonicap/mills. I will update when I get some time with them.

sk88

Thanks for this thread and all the pictures posted. I will be receiving the kit soon and am sure the information here will help me through the steps. I probably won't get time to finish it until X'givingt but I plan to make sound recordings before and after for a comparison (stock vs. first hour vs. 50 hrs and probably a 200 hrs if I bother to).

cincycat13

Well, its been almost a year, and I am loving the detail and soundstage of the modded LSi9s with VR3 fortress. So I have been stressed out and decided to tear apart my stock LSi9s and have some fun. This is not an official VR3 mod, but I didn't want to start a new thread of a similar build. VR3 did let my buy some plates to support this so a shout out to him. Any luck and I can fire up the solder iron this weekend. If not, I should find some time by next Friday.

cincycat13

Well, it took me more beer than I recall to solder these things up so I thought I'd take a break and recheck the wiring with less blurry eyes. Not sure if I will try to mount them tonight or not. I had fun, but recall why VR3 earns his money on these...so here is my all claritycap ESA LSi9 xo mod project for my maple LSi9s

cincycat13

Not the best photos, but has been a busy day and needed to get these together so I could clean up the area. And I did have some solder errors to fix, but I am not gonna rat myself out. See if I can get some wires on them after I get my chores done...

cincycat13

DSkip wrote: »

Hey, I remember those pups. They had some time playing at my place about 15 months ago.

Yup, these certainly have some miles on them. They may have earned frequent flyer miles with fed ex. I modded the cherry ones at the start of the thread right out of the box. I ran the isotek break in cd last night and listening to pf wywh bluray now. If I didn't find the LSiC so underwhelming I wouldn't even be tempted to break the lsim 703/706 out of the boxes. I already had this mod in the works when I picked those up. These sound pretty decent so far...maybe some dynamat for the bass port.

camaroguy

Hi Trey, a review of the Fortress Plus mod. on my 7's is coming. I just want to put some more hours on them (I have about 150 on them now and they are still improving). Right now I'd say the biggest improvements are smoother highs and tighter, deeper bass. Best regards, Ron (camaroguy).

maximillian

I'm terrible.... I have had this kit hanging around for over a year, but finally getting to it. I built the back plates so far and am looking at picks and the schematics to see where the components go to. So I have a question... original LSi9 schematic specifies a 250uF in parallel with a 0.47uF cap that appear to be C5 (260uF). These two do not equal 260uF however.

Could someone clarify this?

Thanks

VR3

3.09 is within 5% tolerance

250uf is within 5% tolerance

You may also send questions to Vr3Mods@GMail.com

cincycat13

Have fun building. If you look at the second picture in the first post, the bottom board is the Lower Driver circuit. Yes, C5 which is 260 on the schematic is replaced with a near value capacitor with a bypass. I can tell you it sounds good. Other alternatives take a lot of space and cost quite a bit more. As VR3 responded above I'll leave the technical stuff to him.

maximillian

Thanks for the clarification.

Currently doing only one speaker for now for a bit of A/B comparison. I got the inductors off. I thought I was going to damage one of them since they are hot-glued on.

Trey, do you know what the threaded post spacing is? I would like to pre-drill the mounting holes in the perf-board, but need to know the dimension. I can measure it later tonight if you don't know, I don't have this part with me.

Any photos of the process anyone want taken?

VR3

You can use the stock circuit boards as a template, they are identical drop in measurements.

maximillian

After a weekend hiatus I got the one speaker completed last night. I listened for about 20 minutes (it was late) and noticed a lot of what other people have said already, although it is hard to compare one speaker modded and one unmodded in the same system. Having this hybrid setup the sound of the two speakers intermingle too much to give an accurate comparison. My other problem is that my listening room is my basement and it is current stuffed with moving junk. For the time being, I didn't notice any significant difference in the low end. But again, short listening session and non optimal listening environment could be the issue here.

What I did notice is that the highs were definitely more detailed and not as veiled as the un-modded speaker. It was if the channel balance was off (I don't use one). And the more pronounced highs were not fatiguing either. I had RTi 6's that I found fatiguing. The modded speaker didn't sound like that. I am going to run it for one or two more days before I mod the second speaker. Overall, a wonderful improvement.

On the build itself.... it isn't an easy one. I am mechanically inclined and good at soldering. I have an electronics workbench with Weller soldering irons too. The mod simply takes a long time to do. As Cincycat mentioned earlier, next time I will get Trey to do the work. Frankly, not sure how Trey makes any money off of this due to the amount of labor involved. So anyone thinking of saving money and just buying the parts as a kit, my recommendation is to get Trey to do it. He has surely done many of these that it's much easier for him.

The only real difficulty for me in this build is the FR4 perf board and the threaded posts. I have an older kit and I think Trey has switched to using Delrin. Having a pre-drilled board would make the build a lot easier. Also, I had difficulty with threaded posts and getting some of the nuts to thread. I switched to a slightly larger (thus looser) metric nut then used Loctite to ensure they didn't come loose.

The rest of the kit is a solid build. Trey has put together a nice collection of parts that made the rest of the build straight forward. The plate is nicely done and looks great. Using the photos in this thread and also on Trey's site, along with the crossover schematic (PDF on this site somewhere), then the job is pretty straight forward. Albeit with quite a bit of work.

I can't wait until I get the other modded and I clean up my room. Since this system is also my HT, I'm going to have to mod the LSiC too (probably have Trey do it though). I'll post more of a review once I get the second speaker completed.

Anyone that has LSi speakers you should definitely consider this mod.

cincycat13

Congrats on getting 1 done. My last build was in October according to the post dates and I have been sitting on the LSiC components since then. The cabinet of the center is just soooo much smaller I have not tried to figure a layout and I have been working on other projects. I really need to bump that up as I am not fond of the lsiC as it is. I used a plastic tote bin as a table and a rat shack iron so I am jealous. My wife was home so I could not use the kitchen table that I used the first time. I also concur on the changing from the perf board format to the delrin as a huge upgrade. I used a fair amount of hot glue on and around those nut connections to secure them. I am still working on my "office" remodel so I can set the modded lsi9s next to the lsim703 for my own evaluations.

maximillian

Got the other one done last night and did some listening tonight. There was an initial wiring glitch that was immediately apparent when I first powered the second unit. The upper driver was simply not as active as the other speaker. So I had to take back apart to check the wiring and find the mistake. Once found the improvement was obvious..

They do sound quite fantastic. I was always a bit skeptical about the improvement since I have done a few tweaks to my system over the past few years with only a slight improvement each time. It's hard to say just what a "big" improvement is so not sure if I can call the improvement "big". However, this upgrade has been the most significant improvement to my system. Not only are the speakers more detailed, but the sound stage seems to have opened up a bit. I didn't have to mess with precise speaker placement either - just put them back on their stands and played. The speakers disappear with more recordings whereas previously this only happened while playing only a handful of songs.

As mentioned before, this is a worthwhile mod for any LSi owner who is still sitting on the fence. I haven't heard LSiM 703's yet so I can't compare. Some people say a modded LSi9 is not as good and some say it's better. But I haven't read enough opinions or tried myself to say. Regardless, I am liking the renewed sound.

Trey, you do LSiC's?

rooftop59

just wanted to bump this thread so folks could see pics of Trey's fortress crossover upgrade...