monitor 4's

TrashyTrucker

Hey all,

Building a garage rig and ran across these monitor 4's locally. (4 of them)
Purchased them for $25 ea.
I had the mini monitors (purchased them new in 95')
Would like to upgrade xo's in one pair of them.

As you notice in pics there will be a problem. There is a small opening on the back, if I use oversize caps (sonicaps)
Perhaps I can remove the MW and can secure the caps inside the cabinet and then run jumper wires off the caps back to the xo board? any suggestions?
I will do my research on values:
so far I think I need a 1 ohm 5w resistor. (mills)
and two 12 mh caps (sonic)
I can pick up some cardas wire from sonicraft with my order.

TrashyTrucker

more pics

TrashyTrucker

Here is what appears to match what my xo looks like. 1 inductor, 1- 1 ohm resitor 5w
2 12mh electrolytic caps 50 v
Q: do I stay with electrolyic's


I will call elliot @ sonic tommorow.
Thanks for looking

Matt

schematic_m4a_rev.pdf

Outfitter03

You will see an improvement. The cost issue will be the deciding factor on brand of capacitor. You may want to go with a less expensive brand of caps than the sonics for the woofer. Dayton, Clarity PX, Solen or Erse. Sonics are better but pricey.

Definitely replace the resistor with a Mills from Sonic Craft.

TrashyTrucker

Placed a order to Sonic Craft today, the order is as follows:

4-12mf sonicaps gen1
2- mills mra-12 (talked to jeff at sc and he explained that the 12 will give the high's a different sound.) :eek:

I will be upgrading 2 xo's with this order.
More later, wating for parts...

TrashyTrucker

Got the parts in and here are the pics. The room inside the monitor 4 is minimal. I had to loosen the xo and then remove the mw to solder inside the cabinet. Since the caps from SC were axial I had to also extend leads with 18ga. cardas neo tech wire.

Burning them in on FM radio but my source of choice in the garage is siruis sat.
Thanks for looking,
Matt

Outfitter03

Looks good Matt. Let us know how they sound when you are done.

TNHNDYMAN

Nice job Matt- I'm waiting to do a crossover upgrade on my Monitor 10's and enjoy reading others efforts. I've never sodered before so I'm going to practice on some cheap thrift store spkrs first just to learn my way around. Hope they sound great for you.

TrashyTrucker

Tomorrow I will have 100hrs on the xo's already. The highs are getting close to being there. I have to admit the highs were soft and dull since beginning breakin and have improved a little. Was wondering if I had made a mistake sticking the mills mra-12w instead of the 5w. However they are getting what I percieve as brighter. The lows are coming in faster than the highs. Perhaps more time?
thanks for reading,
Matt :biggrin:

TrashyTrucker

Okay,
Have got over 120+ hrs of burnin already and I must say I am impressed to say the least. They have really opened up. For bookshelf speakers, the monitor 4's sound nothing short of amazing! The bass has increased and the vocals have blended in nicely with the highs. The highs have also brighten up too. I am sure this upgrade has not been a waste of time or recources.
Note: Since this is a garage rig, I am powering these little jewels with an 110wpc avr.
I am using AQ 14/2 speaker cable as shown below.
Thanks for reading,
Matt :biggrin: