RTia7 & CSia6 mod thread

Toolfan66

PrazVT wrote: »

F1nut, I think you're right - with street traffic and perhaps my positioning of the mic, I may have repeatedly been off a bit each time. I just ran it one more time after adjusting the mic and both speakers measured exactly the same.

Trey - sorry, didn't mean to cast any doubt on your work. You did an incredible job Perhaps I'm getting a little too obsessive about this stuff!

I just had someone PM and tell me it's a sickness!!!:biggrin:

PrazVT

I just had someone PM and tell me it's a sickness!!!

lol ... 'hobby' is just a more delusional word for it probably :biggrin:

Tungx2

moding Csi-a6.

Those capacitors are a 8itch to take out.

once I got the hang of it, it's easier. I still broke a 0.47uf resistor as the glue was too tight.

Damn glue!!!

Tungx2

Thanks to Vr3MxStyler2k3 for the encourage and tips.

i've got my csi-a6 modified.

I think it'll take time to be burned in.

i've been using just the fronts and rears while i work on the csi-a6.

Not sure if it's placebo, but when i hooked up the csi-a6 again, it sounded absolutely wonderful.

Will put pictures on soon

Tungx2

I currently got parts to mod 4 x RTi8

but i love the look for RTia9 to match my Csi-A6.

i rarely listen to music, it's usually the odd time that when my friends come over to drink.

So it's 90% HT and 10% music.

even then, i can't crank up the volume at night as i live in an apartment.

I wanted to upgrade to the RTi-A9, but i dunno if it's worthwhile when i'm modding RTi8 as fronts and rears.

I can keep them and perhaps move some furniture around to make the 2xrti-a9 and 4xrti8 fit. I think i should sell a pair of RTi8 (unmodded) as they are pretty big for surround rears.

I'll be getting an svs sub anyways, sooner or later, depends on budget.

VR3

Point to point CSiA6 on my stacked breadboard - was tricky laying out the wiring and so forth!

deviusdragger

So how would one go about doing such mod to their speakers. I have a set of rti a7's that id like to mod. Would i notice the difference...probably, probably not, but it will fix my addiction to mod stuff!! if someone could pm me or show some instructions. Thanks guys!

pdxfj

Tung,

I would say mod one set of your RTi8's and see what you think. It does make a noticeable difference. I did a simple cap and resistor swap on an older pair of Polk bookshelf speakers and it really brought them to life. I'm only using them as back surrounds so they don't get a whole lot of use, but the before and after has sold me on upgrading my F/X surrounds, RTi A7's and CSi A6. Since you have all the parts there you have nothing to lose, other than your time.

Devius, there are a ton of topics on modding your crossovers. Read the mod threads and you'll get an idea of what is involved. If you can use a soldering iron you can mod your XO's. It's really not too difficult, but figuring out where to place larger caps can be an interesting challenge. Vmr3 has done an incredible job keeping everything together in an easy to install unit.

VR3

So - mixing things up once more on the A7 mod -

Decided to throw some 14 gauge to go from the terminals to the inputs on the crossover -- also used an isolation nut at the base of the stack and a small perfboard - hmmmm!! I think this will correct some issues other owners have had in the past

Tweeter is using DH Labs 14 guage and the woofers are using Supra 13 gauge cable. I really am digging the Supra stuff, extremely high strand count...

The owner also opted to use a heavier gauge wire on the midbass and tweeter, which we are going to be using the Supra 13 guage!

More pics to follow!

:-D

VR3

So I think I may have found my final version of the "top" of the A7 mod which will actually make assembling the entire crossover much easier and I feel possibly more reliable long term. There for a bit I was placing the bypass caps in between the inductors which was tedious and was vertically mounting resistors - so I think this will work better..

F1nut

I think I mentioned this before, but......when upgrading a crossover to superior film and foil caps, bypass caps no longer serve the purpose they were used for in the first place and can, in fact, cause weird artifacts.

VR3

And I will say it again...

I agree but I feel the PX series still benefits from it.

And that is my stance and that stance shall stay!

SA series and up = no bypass, PX series and down = bypass.

Your feedback though, as always, is appreciated!!

Thanks!

I would love to use SA series but they are double the size and just wont fit without going external

VR3

Also not everyone shares that view point and a few disagree with it -

Dannie Ritchie at GR Research is one along with Skiing Ninja

F1nut

That following quote sums it up nicely,

So why use a bypass at all? There are actually components of very high frequencies in some audio waveforms. Some are high order harmonics. If you think of a square wave, the right angles at the top of the wave are extremely high in frequency. Sometimes there are high frequency components in very fast audio sounds, for example, the instantaneous tap of a drum stick on a cymbal. These are the sounds that should be "helped" by including a small-value bypass capacitor in a high pass crossover.

Well, I don't think so. If the 8 ?F capacitor blocks frequencies below 5000 Hz and passes frequencies above 5000 Hz, why do we need what is actually another crossover for the same tweeter, but operating at frequencies already passed by the big cap? I am sure engineers have a very good reason, and a couple of them have tried to educate me on this subject. I respect the science and electrical theory on this subject, and my technical background helps me to understand it fairly well. But there is one small problem: the bypasses all sound bad! They add a quality that at first sounds like an increase in air and detail, but after a couple of hours becomes an intrusive harshness and discontinuity in the upper treble. Remove the bypass: all of the detail is present but without that grating and annoying sound. The high frequencies are cleaner, smoother, and much more enjoyable. It doesn't matter if the bypass cap is Teflon?, polystyrene, or common polypropylene, the results are very similar. And to be avoided.

Bold added by me.

It is exactly that added air and detail that people hear and think is cool, but in reality live music doesn't contain that. It's hard enough trying to reproduce that live sound as it is and adding a fake artifact certainly isn't going to help.

Face

Bypass caps in the HF and MP have a negative effect on spacial info.

VR3

We can argue on and on, the issue here is I agree with you. The only reason I do this in this particularly set of mods where I use PX (because of size) I am trying to insert more quality into the mod.

if I could use SA or ESA size parts in this mod I certainly would. Any mods that use SA+ I do not use a bypass.

But Sonicaps entire product line is designed around bypass as all of their nice stuff is pretty much bypass size from what I saw.

Either way - I agree but no one has had nothing but positive things to say about this configuration so I feel it is working. Until that day - if that day ever comes, I will change it...

We can stop talking about bypass caps or start a new thread about bypass caps but this is about the A7 mods, thanks!

VR3

Wooo!

Forgot how much work the top portion of these crossovers were!! (AHHH)

But they are wired up and sound freakin sweet, pulled and double pulled on all connections with more force than they would ever encounter and everything appears solid!

Will run these overnight and see what happens!

VR3

Second one is done and throwing them to the coals right now!

Sounds fantastic! Trimmed my build down by 45 minutes on the second one - I think I like the new top! :-D

Here is a pic of the original crossover -

pdxfj

Curious that you used a heavier (14awg?) cable for the mid and tweeter, but left the original 18awg in place for the bass drivers.

Looks great!

VR3

As far as upgraded wiring?

The bass section is not near as picky (in general) as far as micro details and so forth so I usually recommend throwing all of the quality you can at the mids and highs.

Granted we could have thrown some generic 14 guage on the lows - but the wire we used was a higher end wire (3-4 dollars a foot)

Thanks!