Crossover Mod for Monitor-40
Comments
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The cap bypass idea is dead. There are far more informed opinions on why it's a bad idea than arguments in favour of it, so out it goes. Not looking back on it either.
So after reading the entire Capacitor Shootout Thread, I am going to get a few more pairs of inline caps for the high pass section and do my own comparison in the Monitor 40's. The contenders will be Jantzen Super Z's (cuz I already have them), Clarity Cap ESA's, Sonicap G1's and for kicks (the dark horse) - Dayton 1%.
The price difference between the Jantzen/Clarity/Sonicap Caps and the Dayton Caps is huge, but I have heard so many good things about the Daytons, I have to give them a shot. At right around $12/pair, they are by far the most affordable and might very well be a logical choice for a more budget modification to this budget-priced speaker.
There seems to be a pretty loyal following for the Clarity MR, however, it's cost prohibitive for this modification. Those puppies cost more than the fricken speakers, hence the decision to step down to the ESA line - which also has great reviews in the Polk community. Interestingly enough the Jantzens don't seem to be as popular a fit (for Polks in general), but I am definitely NOT writing them off. I already shelled out $77.00 for a pair of Super Z's and they do make one hell of a difference. The Sonicaps also have good reviews and are definitely affordable. Then of course, there are the dark horse Daytons....The comparison should be very interesting.
The component choices for the low pass will remain. I'm confident this filter will produce a marked improvement in the low end.
LOW PASS SECTION - PE Perfect Layer Inductor (1.2mH 14 AWG), Mills resistor (1.0ohm), Solen Polypropylene Cap (9.1uF) -- Total cost for low pass = $70.50 (for the pair)
HIGH PASS SECTION - Mills resistor (1.2ohm), Reusing OEM air core inductor (1.5mH) -- Total cost for Mills resistors is $8.50
Inline Cap choices (what I'm going to test):
Jantzen 8.2uF Z-Superior Caps = $76.62 (pair)
ClarityCap 8.2uF ESA Caps = $51.30 (pair)
Sonicap 8.2uF G1 Caps = $32.60 (pair)
Dayton PMPC-8.2 8.2uF 250V Precision Audio Caps = $11.98 (pair)
Any thoughts? -
Don't bother with the Dayton 1% caps. They are the same make up as the 5% Dayton caps and the 5% caps have all measured withing 2%. The stock caps are 10-20% caps.Please. Please contact me a ben62670 @ yahoo.com. Make sure to include who you are, and you are from Polk so I don't delete your email. Also I am now physically unable to work on any projects. If you need help let these guys know. There are many people who will help if you let them know where you are.
Thanks
Ben -
Don't bother with the Dayton 1% caps. They are the same make up as the 5% Dayton caps and the 5% caps have all measured withing 2%. The stock caps are 10-20% caps.
You're just saying to step down to the 5% Dayton's, right?
Should I throw in some Solens to test for the high pass? I'm starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and I have not even placed all the orders!! :eek: -
Skip the Solen's.Please. Please contact me a ben62670 @ yahoo.com. Make sure to include who you are, and you are from Polk so I don't delete your email. Also I am now physically unable to work on any projects. If you need help let these guys know. There are many people who will help if you let them know where you are.
Thanks
Ben -
Everything ordered
It would have been nice to do one-stop shopping somewhere, but I found myself at Parts Express, Madisound, and Sonic Craft to gather all the parts.
The plan is to do external crossovers for the tests so I can easily swap out caps. I'm keeping fingers crossed that everything ultimately will fit on the back of the terminal cup, but going with the low pass air core inductor is going to make for a rather heavy and bulky crossover.
I'm also toying with the idea of keeping the new crossovers external in case I decide to dismantle the components and put them to use in a higher end pair of speakers at a later date.
More to follow..... -
It's easy enough to undo 4 screws. Keep it internal.Please. Please contact me a ben62670 @ yahoo.com. Make sure to include who you are, and you are from Polk so I don't delete your email. Also I am now physically unable to work on any projects. If you need help let these guys know. There are many people who will help if you let them know where you are.
Thanks
Ben -
I've got about 60 hours on my Jantzen Super-Z's and I have to say they are starting to sound awesome :biggrin: -- much different from my first impression in which I noticed some missing silkiness from the tweeters. The stereo imaging seems much wider and the sound stage is definitely more realistic and transparent. I'm no authority on capacitors by any stretch of the imagination but I can beyond a shadow of a doubt tell that these caps beat the OEM electrolytic + bypass setup all day long -- well worth the upgrade!!
Very much looking forward to testing the other caps and hearing the rebuilt low pass section.
Stuff should be here next week. Have a good weekend. -
PE never fails to amaze me. I got a package of parts from them today that I ordered on Wednesday using free standard shipping!! Parts Express rocks!!
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Clarity Caps arrived today. Just waiting for the Sonicaps now and I should get started on this later in the week.
The Clarity Caps are large like the Jantzens. In the picture, the Clarity's are compared to a Solen and a Dayton. -
Sonicaps in hand. Now I have a question. What are THE tunes to test these caps?? All suggestions welcome..... Hit me up and let's get the test started!!
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Makes no difference, play what you like.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Make sure you burn those caps in real good. The SonicCaps really need a lot of time before you should critically listen to them. The ESA's are most likely in need of a long burn-in time too. Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" is a good test song and your choice of a female vocalist that has a high range would be a good pic too.Please. Please contact me a ben62670 @ yahoo.com. Make sure to include who you are, and you are from Polk so I don't delete your email. Also I am now physically unable to work on any projects. If you need help let these guys know. There are many people who will help if you let them know where you are.
Thanks
Ben -
Make sure you burn those caps in real good.
I thought about the "burn in" factor and that's going to be a potential problem with my test....at least in so far as publishing worthwhile results for the critical crowd is concerned. I have about 100 hours on the Jantzens and all the other hi pass caps are sitting on my desk right now -- never been hooked up. I was thinking of just doing an initial comparison with each cap with a couple hours of burn in and documenting the results. My plan is to build external crossovers for demo purposes and then test each cap for a few hours. Make a "snap" decision by comparing them to my Jantzens. The winner gets to be burnt in proper. Then we do it all over again.
Let's be clear. The original crossover in the Monitor-40 is subpar for sure- especially in the hi pass section. I will be rebuilding the entire crossover, and then swapping hi pass caps for the comparison. No matter what, I expect to be enlightened -- I look forward to hearing differences, nuances, characteristics of each cap, etc.
Thoughts on speeding up the burn in process?? I'm not in any rush though. We're dealing with a very economical (yet very good) set of speakers. I have time on my side. -
I was thinking of just doing an initial comparison with each cap with a couple hours of burn in and documenting the results.
Don't bother, it's completely worthless information.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Don't bother, it's completely worthless information.
Wow...really?? Why? because it's not a $3000 vintage set of Polks?? -
No, because until the caps are fully burned in (at least 200 hours), you cannot judge the sound quality of them, period.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
No, because until the caps are fully burned in (at least 200 hours), you cannot judge the sound quality of them, period.
I don't think everyone is in that camp but that doesn't matter. I have nothing to lose by doing it my way. Like I stated above, I fully enjoy how my first cap swap is burning in. There's nothing wrong with documenting burn in along the way. ---just takes somebody to do it and document it.
There's something to be gained here. I'm taking a $300/pair set of speakers, that you can have right now for $100/pair and making them sound better with a simple crossover mod.
Only the third time I've done such a project, so I am in no way disputing your knowledge/facts. Just doing it my way. -
I don't think everyone is in that camp but that doesn't matter.
It's fairly well documented that caps need to burn in, just ask any of the guys that make them. And yes, it does matter.There's something to be gained here. I'm taking a $300/pair set of speakers, that you can have right now for $100/pair and making them sound better with a simple crossover mod.
No one is disputing that, just that any judgement on the sound quality is completely useless until full burn in.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
It's fairly well documented that caps need to burn in, just ask any of the guys that make them. And yes, it does matter.
No one is disputing that, just that any judgement on the sound quality is completely useless until full burn in.
So other than piping music or white noise thru them 24/7, is there a quicker way to burn caps in, especially several pairs at the same time?? -
is there a quicker way to burn caps in
Good question. I am not aware of a quick way, perhaps someone else might know of something. I do know that one major cap manufacturer does it the same way we all do, install and let run 24/7 for 8 days/200 hours.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
I am making a cooker to burn in wire and caps. Like F1nut said observations of the caps without full burn-in would be worthless. The SonicCaps for sure would probably sound the most grainy till burned in, and then they would be up there with the Clarity ESA's. To burn in the XO's you could get a dummy load resistor and download a few signals for burn in. I would get pink noise, 20-20k sweep, and a musical selection like Money for Nothing. Burn these to a CD and play them on repeat for 2 days with the volume knob turned up fairly high.Please. Please contact me a ben62670 @ yahoo.com. Make sure to include who you are, and you are from Polk so I don't delete your email. Also I am now physically unable to work on any projects. If you need help let these guys know. There are many people who will help if you let them know where you are.
Thanks
Ben -
Sorry -- A bit of a setback as my Grandmother has been in and out of the hospital and nursing home over the last few weeks. As much as I want to get kicking on this project, first things first... The actual crossover build will be a bit delayed. However, for testing purposes, I've nailed a few songs that I really know well, and I'd like to share. Please feel free to narrow or expand. This list will at least give some insight into my musical taste. Trust me, I have a lot of music....so suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks to ben62670 --- You made me remember Brothers In Arms!! See thumbs--
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To burn in the XO's you could get a dummy load resistor and download a few signals for burn in.
Ok...so a couple questions on cooking the caps with a dummy load.
I have a Sonamp 260x3 which outputs 6 channels @ 60wpc (8ohms). I plan to use this for the burn in instead of my Marantz in case I screw something up, which is entirely possible. Since I have 3 pairs of caps to burn in, this would work perfectly, right? But.....as an alternative, can I simply run all the caps together in parallel and burn in with a single channel output? Does this question make any sense or am I completely out of my mind? Or....is either solution possible? I'm assuming I DO NOT have to build the complete crossover if I'm only interested in burning in the expensive tweeter caps. Again, am I out of my mind? Do I have to build the complete crossover for burn in purposes?
Now, the resistors. I need a dummy load to handle 60w @ 8ohms without frying a hole in whatever it is mounted to. It seems to me that a parallel/series combination of wirewound resistors like these should work. It would be cheap enough to wire each of the 6 outputs with a cap and then the dummy load and let it run for several days.
However, if lumping all the caps together in parallel to burn in at the same time is possible, should I just opt for something like this instead?
Thoughts? Should I throw in the towel yet? -
Yes,simply complete and install the crossovers and start listening.bkeane1259 wrote: »
Thoughts? -
Yes,simply complete and install the crossovers and start listening.
That's the eventual plan, but I don't have the listening setup to burn in the caps properly (200 hours) without being tossed from my place by my wife, kids, or neighbors. Plus I need to burn in 3 pairs of caps for the comparison. Thus, the cooking inquiry. :biggrin: -
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Here are the OEM components for the Monitor-40. All of these will be replaced save for the tweeter air core. The mylar bypass will be eliminated.
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New XO mock-up done and tested - looks right - sounds right.
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I will get these mounted to boards this week with binding posts in the tweeter hi-pass section to enable easy swapping of the testing caps.
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Cooking half the caps for 125 hours (till Saturday night). Then I plan to do a DBT with these three pairs (Clarity, Sonicap and Dayton) to see if we can tell the difference between the cooked caps and the brand new (never been used) caps.
Then I will cook the other half for the same amount of time and do a DBT of the four different pairs of caps (Jantzen, Clarity, Sonicap and Dayton) to try to determine which pair sounds the best in the XO hi-pass section of the Monitor-40's.
