SDA-SRS 2.3tl Crossover upgrade

Soundq22

Hi everyone, I am a recently new member (new to forums altogether) and wanted to post some work I did on my 2.3tl crossovers. Being new to forums, I am not very good at finding info on here that I am needing. I found some but just wanted to put out there what I thought may help someone else preform this upgrade or mod.

First of all, the Parts list from Soniccraft,

2 Mills MRA-12 0.5 ohm
4 Mills MRA-12 22.5 ohms
2 Sonicap 5.8uF 200VDC
2 Sonicap 8uF 200VDC
2 Sonicap 16uF 200VDC
2 Sonicap 18uF 200VDC
2 Sonicap 27uF 200VDC

With 20% off sale and shipping from Arkansas to California the total was 219.15

I called and added on some Cardas Solder which is a dream to work with. 4% silver content, 20awg, and it has a 430 degree melting point. $6.00 for 20 feet.

I will post some pictures and info in next post.


Soundq22

First off, some instructions on how to dig in...

The crossovers are located behind the passive radiator on the back wall.
Reach in and unplug the 3 harnesses. Dont worry, there is no wrong way to plug them back in. A 6 pin, 5 pin and 4 pin with that cannot be plugged in upside down or anything. There is a allen bolt through the back wall holding the crossover on. The nut is glued to the coil mounted on the bottom of the crossover. Just hold the crossover and use an allen wrench to loosen it and remove.

Here is what you will have. Apparently my speakers had an old and a newer crossover. From what I hear, they used old stock as well as new stock on speaker cabs.

jim 249

Welcome to the Polk Audio forums! There is lots of info here on upgrades for the 2.3TL's.

Soundq22

Here is a picture I found of a bare board. You will be removing the following.
C1 , C2, C3, C5, S1, R3, R4, and the 5.8uf capacitor just under the R4 and R5 thats leads are in the holes labeled A and L. A is just under the mounting hole under R3, and L is directly to the right, just next to C3. Everything else stays the same. You must have a solder sucker or some other way to remove the solder. A cheap solder sucker can be bought at radio shack for around 10 bucks.

Soundq22

So I didn't take step by step photos, but here is the finished product and the steps I took..

First I put in the resistors. Here are the 2 22ohm resisters.



And then the 0.5ohm resistor at S1 to replace the Poly switch.

gimpod

Your pics aren't showing up.

Soundq22

The next steps were in this order,

1 Replace the 5.8uf below the resistor pair.
2 Replace the 16uf on C3.
3 Replace the 18uf on C1. The legs were just long enough.
4 Replace the 8uf on C5
5 Replace the 27uf on C2. This one took extending the top leg. Use a pieces off the legs you already cut off the others.

And here is the finished work..

During the process, I hot glued the caps in place. I used tuff tac sticks. They are commercial grade and work way better than the crap at home depot. Its pricey but worth it.
http://pyrosupplies.com/shop/page/product_detail/Product/9d00c44a0ff334488f5c3aba00abee32.html

Soundq22

gimpod wrote: »

Your pics aren't showing up.

Like I said, I am new. I used flicker to host the pictures, Is there a better option?

gimpod

Soundq22 wrote: »

Like I said, I am new. I used flicker to host the pictures, Is there a better option?

Just attach them to your post using the "Manage Attachments" button.

Soundq22

Here are the photos that didn't work in the first few posts. Hope they help

drumminman

I just did the Xovers on my 2.3TL's so reading your posts and looking at your pics is like deja vu all over again

I used the same components. You may already know this, but it'll take a while before the sound improves permanently. For me at 115 hours things really improved - much better imaging, smoother, and the bass (which had become very recessed) began to return.

I was surprised at some of the cap values I found when I began removing stuff from the board.

I'm interested in your impressions of the change in sound as you start the burn in process, so keep posting!

And welcome to the Club!

Toolfan66

Nice congrats!!!

inspiredsports

Nice work. Welcome to the journey!

headrott

Very good, please let us know what you think of the upgrades.

Greg

george daniel

Sweet-- enjoy them--they are special

gimpod

Very nice job, clean layout. Welcome to the rabbit hole, next you'll be wanting something with tubes.

Toolfan66

gimpod wrote: »

Very nice job, clean layout. Welcome to the rabbit hole, next you'll be wanting something with tubes.

The only thing he is missing is a set of your Boards..:cool:

gimpod

TOOLFORLIFEFAN wrote: »

The only thing he is missing is a set of your Boards..:cool:

And your rings. :cool:

Soundq22

They have been playing since 4pm on the 28th. Im approaching my 48 hour mark. Cant wait till monday night. getting to 100 hours.

I would have got the boards from gimpod but I was impatient. They are a great deal for $100 and would have been a lot cleaner.

One other mod I have done is replaced all the screws with brass, and torqued them to 20 lbs per inch. The wood was in really good condition and they tightened up without any problems. The brass is supposedly non ferrous and won't allow any electro magnetic problems and they dont resonate like steel screws. Musical instruments use brass for this reason and I just thought it made good sense being these are my instruments of sound.

Anyone else's thoughts on this?

Tubes I am actually wanting. I am running an Aragon 4004 to them and I'm pretty impressed. Cant imagine what that tube sound would give me. Bad thing is, It sucks to do all these things at once. Better to get a new sound every few months or so.

Emlyn

Soundq22 wrote: »

One other mod I have done is replaced all the screws with brass, and torqued them to 20 lbs per inch. The wood was in really good condition and they tightened up without any problems. The brass is supposedly non ferrous and won't allow any electro magnetic problems and they dont resonate like steel screws. Musical instruments use brass for this reason and I just thought it made good sense being these are my instruments of sound.

Anyone else's thoughts on this?

I did this a few years ago with my SDA-SRS, although it was with brass machine screws rather than wood screws because this pair was built with metal inserts. Not sure if it was just having a better seal from re-torquing for the midwoofers, tweeters and passive radiators or if the brass really made the difference over the regular screws, but whatever it was it definitely tightened up the imaging on my speakers. I have seen the brass screw tweak recommended in a few other places. Even if using brass didn't make a difference, it's still cheap to do and the bright brass heads does make the speakers look different. I still need to get around to installing Larry's rings on this pair, but I've been moving house the last few months and haven't got to it yet. I really suspect this is the ideal way to mount the drivers to the cabinets.

Soundq22

Here's what they look like with the brass screws.
Oh I forgot, I put spikes on them as well.

villock

What kind of spikes did you use?

Soundq22

I had some brass spikes that came with my Sanus speaker stands. They worked perfect.

headrott

Are the wood caps stock finished? Or, did you redo them (in black)?

Greg

Soundq22

The tops and bottom can be removed with 4 nuts on the inside of the cabinet. They were painted to match everything else. I can't take credit though, The fellow I bought them for had painted them. He did a perfect job. No idea how or what he used to keep the wood grain looking so great.

F1nut

One other mod I have done is replaced all the screws with brass, and torqued them to 20 lbs per inch. The wood was in really good condition and they tightened up without any problems. The brass is supposedly non ferrous and won't allow any electro magnetic problems and they dont resonate like steel screws. Musical instruments use brass for this reason and I just thought it made good sense being these are my instruments of sound.

A waste of time. The trick is getting the baskets clamped to the cabinet as tight as possible and that just can't be done with wood screws. You got 20 inch lbs. of torque. Using Larry's rings or Hurricane nuts will allow you to get considerably more. Furthermore, the resonating problem resides inside the speaker with the stamped steel baskets. Adding Dynamat Extreme will solve that issue.

Soundq22

At what point though is enough, enough? You can put a considerable more torque on your engines head bolts but all you need is a tight seal. I do plan on upgrading to rings when I notice the screws will not remain tight in my baffle, but until then, I believe those may be a waste of time.

If I do ever need rings, I believe I will cut rings of a wood I deem best. If I am spending time putting dynamat on my baskets to reduce resonance, I will not be adding more metal to the mix.

F1nut

Sorry to be blunt, but you don't know much about this subject.

Soundq22

Thanks for your opinion F1. I realize you voice your opinion everywhere and I was wondering how long it would take for you to come spread it here. Your opinion on what works best is just that. Others may follow and thats fine. But this thread is what I have done to my speakers and me voicing my opinion on what I think is good. Coming from the audio industry, I have my own unique opinions on what is best or not that I won't try to shove down your throat. When I am all done, I will post my RTA testing of my speakers before, and after my mods. It will show what they gained or loss, and it will be my offering for people to use or not. Just an offering, to help people should they want it. Thanks for stopping by.

michaeljhsda2

Soundq22 wrote: »

If I do ever need rings, I believe I will cut rings of a wood I deem best.

The rings are made out of metal, not wood. Nice job on the xovers. Here's a link to the rings.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1613171

Toolfan66

WOW!!!

Thanks for stopping by..