Xover questions

drumminman

Just been wondering about this, so I thought I'd ask folks here more knowledgeable than I.

Many or just about all speaker manufacturers use electrolytic caps in their crossovers. Decent film caps don't seem to cost that much more, so I'm wondering what other reasons there might be for this.

Here's what I've come up with:

1- Space- electrolytics are physically smaller, and easier to fit in tight spaces

2- Burn-in - Do electrolytics require little to no burn in? IOW do they sound good from the beginning? In my experience with sonicaps, speakers with rebuilt xovers using them definitely sound better after at least 100-200 hours of playing.

That's all I can think of for now. Anyone else have opinions/ideas or experience with this?

Thanks!

TNRabbit

Cost is the overriding factor in most cases, unless you're talking an esoteric brand; space a secondary factor.

Face

TNR hit it.

Tbone289

TNRabbit wrote: »

Cost is the overriding factor in most cases, unless you're talking an esoteric brand; space a secondary factor.

+2

There is a large difference in both cost and space aspects when comparing electrolytics to film-type capacitors.

Also, electrolytics are much more reliable and don't have the aging issues they did decades ago, so manufacturers won't hesitate to use them. I've recently pulled 20+ year-old electrolytics out of crossovers that measured within spec, and were still very closely matched in pairs.

Joe08867

Plus for the average person, they don't as easily hear the differences between Electro and Film.

As far as price is concerned there is a huge gap between the two. I could replace a POLK SDA crossover for 10-15 bucks using electrolytic and upwards of 100 for film caps.

drumminman

I suppose margins are tight, but I would think manufacturers would get much better prices than hobbyists like ourselves. I guess every little bit helps.

As to sound quality, the difference, i.e. improvement, to me seems fairly dramatic. Too bad there's not a way to A/B xovers built w/ each, you know, swap 'em out quickly and painlessly.

The other thing I was wondering is do electrolytics require a burn in period for the speaker to sound its best? If not this may be as important as cost when manufacturers choose their xover components. The speaker sounds close to its best right out of the box.

Tbone289

drumminman wrote: »

I suppose margins are tight, but I would think manufacturers would get much better prices than hobbyists like ourselves. I guess every little bit helps.

They definitely would get a better price than we do but, considering the scale that electrolytics are produced on, the price difference may be even greater between the two when purchased in mass quantity.