Review of New Solen inductors in 2.3TL's

drumminman

This is a review of the Solen 16mH 10awg Inductors first installed by DarqueKnight. A big thanks to all your pioneering work and excellent write ups DK. I literally would have had no idea to do this without your posts.

This review is a little problematic in that it is based on around 30 hours of burn in accomplished by playing tunes through my CDP. I would like to have burned them in a little longer before posting this, but then the NOS RCA clear tops I ordered arrived. I couldn't wait to install 'em. They're phenomenal! (but that's another story.)

Upon unpacking the Solens I was a little surprised at how truly large they are. DK's posts describes and pictures this, but for me it was still a a little eyebrow raising when they were sitting in front of me. :eek: Just like the new tubes I couldn't wait to install them.

I prepped them by scraping off the enamel insulation on around an inch of each lead, and then used 0000 steel wool to polish for a smooth surface. I pulled the PR, unhooked the quick disconnects to the old inductor and pulled the xovers I had already rebuilt. I unsoldered the leads from the board to the old inductor and soldered longer leads so I'd be able to move the Solens around until I found the placement that produced the best sound.

A previous owner had made some alterations and attached the xover boards to one side of the cabinet wall. I placed the inductors on a piece of closed cell foam flat on the floor of the cabinets on the opposite side against the wall (hole in the middle pointing straight up). My thoughts were that this would be far enough away from the small inductors on the xover board, and oriented so that the metal PR basket and MW's would have little to no interaction. I then soldered the leads together and wrapped the new connection with Teflon gas pipe tape - the yellow stuff.

At this point the Solens were simply lying there and not attached to the floor. I wanted to be able to move them if necessary.
I buttoned everything back up, powered up the system and put on a CD. Nothing blew Up and it played correctly! ! ! !:biggrin:

At thirty hours here's what I heard: stronger imaging in the center of the soundstage, clearer imaging front to back, side to side maybe a little better but not dramatic. The bass sounded a bit cleaner, and dug deeper, instruments sounded more full, complex passages became easier to hear and pick out the individual instruments/vocals, vocalists sounded more "there", more in the room. Drums had more impact, better transients. Overall, the sound became smoother top to bottom. IOW, I was hearing what I hoped for.

The amp I'm driving them with is an Odyssey Stratos Stereo Plus (with cap upgrade to 120,000 uF) stable to 2 ohms. After 6 hours of playing music at high volume (don't know decibel level as I don't have a sound meter), the amp was slightly warmer than usual, but nowhere near hot. No worries there.

Since everything sounded so good and met my expectations I decided to go ahead and mount the Solens to the floor. I couldn't find any bolts that were non ferrous so I came up with a different solution.

I cut 4 "feet" per cabinet, 1" x 3" each out of 1/2" plywood, and glued and screwed them to the floor with JB Weld and 1" #10 brass screws. I used the screws to both clamp the feet while the glue set and to provide a little extra insurance. Next I cut platforms out of 1/4" plywood a little larger than the inductors. Using the same brass screws I fastened the shelf to the feet, without glue. That way if I ever need to remove the inductors the only thing permanently attached is the feet. I used 4 large nylon locking ties to fasten each inductor to its shelf through holes drilled into the shelf, each tie rated at 175lbs. They ain't going nowhere and the nylon ties won't change the measured performance of the inductors.

I bought the inductors through Parts Connexion during their 20% off sale. Even though they had to special order these they gave me the discount. That brought the price to $156 each plus shipping.

Well that's about it. Is this an easy mod to do? Absoutely. Is it worth it? To me it definitely is. Even at discount the Solens are expensive, but the improvement is about equal to what I heard with my new xovers. These also remove one of the design compromises made to accommodate the amplifiers of the day.

I left the old inductors in place in case I wanted to go back to them - that ain't gonna happen

inspiredsports

I'm really impressed with what the Erse replacement did for my SDA 2B's and am eyeing Solen 10AWG inductors for my higher power handling capable SDA SRS 2's.

I'm curious about your observations now that you're out of the "honeymoon stage" of listening

DarqueKnight

Thanks for the review. I'm glad everything turned out to your satisfaction.

audiocr381ve

Great review, and your words carry more weight since you're a fellow drummer :P

I don't have a single complaint about the Erse 17mh 16awg's I ordered a few weeks ago. They made a dramatic difference for the better, and they're actually smaller than the original inductors.