Upgrade Kit From EBAY

deronb1

I recently upgraded my Polk RTA 8Ts with a kit offered on ebay. The kit contained two Bennic low pass poly caps and two Bennic high pass poly caps.

After some careful listening, I have noticed a slight improvement in sound. This is how I rated it on ebay. Seems fair enough for 25 bucks and I am not really dissappointed.

The thing is, the vendor keeps contacting me, saying it must be my components, wire or something else, because he feels the improvement should be dramatic.

I priced the same polys used at Madisound and they cost about three bucks apiece. I did an adequate job on the upgrade and I assume that had I not, there would have been a definate negative effect on the sound quality.

Am I crazy? Did I do something wrong? The vendor can't seem to let this go and can't understand why I am not wowed by this upgrade. He says others, including himself had experienced a dramatic increase in sound quality (what ever that is). I am thinking that maybe those speakers had cap issues to start with and sounded crappy anyway. Mine did not. Mine sounded great and I only did the upgrade for the experience and thinking that after 22 years, maybe it was time.

Actually, I am kind of impressed that someone would actually care enough to keep following up after a sale, but on the other hand, I feel a little disrespected and now a bit confused.

Outfitter03

What type of capacitors were replaced? Were they electrolytic. If they were electrolytic and they had leaked or dried out the change would be dramatic. If they were still in good condition, then not so much difference.

I just completed a capacitor and resistor upgrade on two sets of speakers, although not Polks with Sonicaps Gen I and Mills resistors. When I first began using the speakers for the first 10 minutes it was questionable whether I had good solder connections, within an hour they sounded alright, now after about 300 hours they sound incredible. For some capacitors the amount of break in time will affect your impressions also.

Kudos for trying an upgrade. Now you have the experience, read some of the posts on here and experiment with some of the higher quality capacitors, especially in the tweeter circuit and see what a difference they make. Sonicraft is still running their 20% off sale and they carry many brands of capacitors and probably the most complete line of Mills resistors. As most of us have experienced in life you frequently get what you pay for in quality especially in a competitive market place.

dorokusai

DO NOT buy these kits from eBay! I believe this is thread worthy as the complaints about them keep coming back here.

Deronb1 - Not crazy. Good job and I believe that you're totally within your rights to post your opinion accurately. As far as the work, only you know but if you really did something wrong, it wouldn't even play music. Better? Those components are not high quality but certainly fine to be used and not everyone experiences the same shift in change as the next guy. Just give it some time and the speakers some break-in, then make another evaluation. Let us know what happens after 100 hours or so....deal?

deronb1

Thanks for your reply on this and you certainly have a deal doro.

deronb1

Outfitter 03: Thanks for your reply on this as well. I don't believe the caps are electolytic. There was no leakage in the old or new caps.

F1nut

Your original caps were electolytic and they do not have to leak to have gone south. To start off with the tolerance of the originals were at best +/-10% and may have been +/-20%. Replacing them with tighter tolerance, superior poly caps will result in better sound even if the electolytics were brand new. As for the level of improvement, that will vary with the brand of cap and what they are being used in. Therefore, dramatic to him may only be so-so to you.