Polk Audio 8TL crossover update
YOG
Posts: 2
I have 8TL's that were from a bad home. One driver was missing and another one was locked up when I got them. They were also missing the front covers. But they were next to nothing and I like a good project.
Managed to find original spec drivers and the covers. They cleaned up nice and didn't sound bad, but it always seemed like something was lacking. (Especially to some of my other Polk speakers M5, M5jr, SDA CRS, etc.) Midrange not fully there? Bass a bit muddy? Not sure how to describe it, but something was off. Decided the crossovers needed to be freshened.
Today I tackled the crossovers. I replaced all the capacitors with new 250V MPT film capacitors. I checked the new capacitors and uF values were all good. I also checked the original caps and they were also not far off either. I was expecting to find something a bit further off or even non functional the way they were sounding.
I also checked the original resistors and they measured slightly higher than spec, but I reinstalled them.
Question is this: Why do they sound so much better with new caps even though the values of the old ones were within uF specifications? Is it the way the new caps are constructed or the higher 250v spec? I'd like to learn as they sound so much better now. Imaging, Midrange and detail is better. Muddiness went away. I wasn't expecting them to be this much better.
Managed to find original spec drivers and the covers. They cleaned up nice and didn't sound bad, but it always seemed like something was lacking. (Especially to some of my other Polk speakers M5, M5jr, SDA CRS, etc.) Midrange not fully there? Bass a bit muddy? Not sure how to describe it, but something was off. Decided the crossovers needed to be freshened.
Today I tackled the crossovers. I replaced all the capacitors with new 250V MPT film capacitors. I checked the new capacitors and uF values were all good. I also checked the original caps and they were also not far off either. I was expecting to find something a bit further off or even non functional the way they were sounding.
I also checked the original resistors and they measured slightly higher than spec, but I reinstalled them.
Question is this: Why do they sound so much better with new caps even though the values of the old ones were within uF specifications? Is it the way the new caps are constructed or the higher 250v spec? I'd like to learn as they sound so much better now. Imaging, Midrange and detail is better. Muddiness went away. I wasn't expecting them to be this much better.
Current members of the ever changing, too many speaker collection:
Polk Audio - SDA CRS, Monitor 7C, Monitor 5, Monitor 5JR, ES20/ES30, RT55i, CS400i, FX500i, RT25i, RT15i, RT1000P, 8TL, TL1, TL2 and TL3's
Infinity - CS3006, Reference Four, Column II, R162
DQ-10's, GoldenEar Triton 7, Klipsch KLF-20
Polk Audio - SDA CRS, Monitor 7C, Monitor 5, Monitor 5JR, ES20/ES30, RT55i, CS400i, FX500i, RT25i, RT15i, RT1000P, 8TL, TL1, TL2 and TL3's
Infinity - CS3006, Reference Four, Column II, R162
DQ-10's, GoldenEar Triton 7, Klipsch KLF-20
Post edited by Ryan_Soundunited on
Comments
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There are other relevant measurements for capacitor quality, such as ESR (which is very important in audio)."Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right."
-Ezra Taft Benson
