Crossover upgrade on the SDA IA

nspindel

ben62670 wrote: »

...I have not done a solid test whether the Mills are better than stock(I can't imagine them not especially at higher power levels...

Thing is with the resistors, if you're already pulling the crossover apart, why not do the resistors along with the caps? The Sonic Craft bill for the caps and resistors when I did my 2B XO's was about $240. I think $6 of that was the resistors. To me it's the same argument as changing the thermostat and the water pump at the same time you change the timing belt on your car - as long as you're pulling half the car apart, might as well change those too. Anything wrong with the existing thermostat and pump? Don't know, but I'm not planning on doing this again for another 60,000 miles and the parts are cheap enough...

Face

nspindel wrote: »

Thing is with the resistors, if you're already pulling the crossover apart, why not do the resistors along with the caps? The Sonic Craft bill for the caps and resistors when I did my 2B XO's was about $240. I think $6 of that was the resistors. To me it's the same argument as changing the thermostat and the water pump at the same time you change the timing belt on your car - as long as you're pulling half the car apart, might as well change those too. Anything wrong with the existing thermostat and pump? Don't know, but I'm not planning on doing this again for another 60,000 miles and the parts are cheap enough...

Exactly, it's called preventive maintenance.

ben62670

nspindel wrote: »

Thing is with the resistors, if you're already pulling the crossover apart, why not do the resistors along with the caps? The Sonic Craft bill for the caps and resistors when I did my 2B XO's was about $240. I think $6 of that was the resistors. To me it's the same argument as changing the thermostat and the water pump at the same time you change the timing belt on your car - as long as you're pulling half the car apart, might as well change those too. Anything wrong with the existing thermostat and pump? Don't know, but I'm not planning on doing this again for another 60,000 miles and the parts are cheap enough...

I'm not sure if we are on the same page I get confused sometimes. I never have done an XO upgrade without changing the resistors;)

nspindel

Oh, I know you haven't. I know I don't have to convince you to do it. My point was rather that I didn't need to read a solid comparison of Mills vs. stock to convince me to pull the resistors and change them. It was more like: 6$? Pfffff, done. As opposed to the other $234 on the caps, where I was a lot more diligent about reading up on what's what before deciding what to use.

heiney9

candyliquor35m wrote: »

Are you planning on doing any scientific before and after comparisons to see how the upgraded x-over and tweeter sound compared to the old ones?

None are needed. The improvement is dramatic. Were not measuring sub atomic particles here. His auditory memory should be good enough to notice a difference both before and after break in.

H9

heiney9

nspindel wrote: »

Thing is with the resistors, if you're already pulling the crossover apart, why not do the resistors along with the caps?

I agree 100%. Plus usually the resistor is in the high frequency circuit and that seems to be where the most notable difference in sound is. The Mills resistors are fantastic.

Also if you are not the original owner of the speakers and don't know the history of the speakers I've found burnt resistors when upgrading a x-over. This is even though there was a fuse or poly switch. Had I not pulled the x-over, I would have never known.

If your in there just replace the resistors.

H9

dcmeigs

Looks like I'm gonna need a new MW6501. ebay is fresh out. Please post or PM me if you happen to a $urplu$ one you can stand to part with.

nspindel

F1nut wrote: »

The Squeezebox guy's advice is a bit hard to take. Even Jeff Glowacki, the guy who makes them, says 200 hours. I had far more than that on them.....yuck!

Ok, I have a bit of an update here. I traded a few emails with Wayne at Bolder about the Squeezebox break in. He clarified things a bit. First of all, he said that he misspoke when he used the word "continuous" for me. He said that he was referring to to the fact that the SB3 needs to be playing, not just powered on, in order for the caps to be breaking in. The hours do not need to be continuous - the break in is most definitely cumulative, where breaks in between are no problem.

As for the number of hours that the Platinums require, here's what he said:

"There is a point around the 100-400 hour mark where the sound may regress. This will go away and everything will clear up and open up. 600 hours is the point where everything sounds REALLY good. There will continue to be improvements, but they will be very subtle."

Marty913

nspindel wrote: »

Ok, I have a bit of an update here. I traded a few emails with Wayne at Bolder about the Squeezebox break in. He clarified things a bit. First of all, he said that he misspoke when he used the word "continuous" for me. He said that he was referring to to the fact that the SB3 needs to be playing, not just powered on, in order for the caps to be breaking in. The hours do not need to be continuous - the break in is most definitely cumulative, where breaks in between are no problem.

As for the number of hours that the Platinums require, here's what he said:

"There is a point around the 100-400 hour mark where the sound may regress. This will go away and everything will clear up and open up. 600 hours is the point where everything sounds REALLY good. There will continue to be improvements, but they will be very subtle."

I'm pretty ignorant on electrical engineering stuff. Why would it take 600 hours to "break in" a fairly simple electrical component? AT 3-4 hours a day listening it will take a half a year to sound "really good".

nspindel

I asked the same thing here:

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65894

MillerLiteScott

I did my crossover modifications in mid October. I think my crossovers turned another corner @ 2 months ago because my speakers do sound better than they did in January and before.

Scott

candyliquor35m

You "think"? but nobody knows for sure because they're not willing to do one x-over at a time

Shirley at one of these get togethers, someone can bring a stock pair and someone else can bring a upgraded pair?

Marty913

nspindel wrote: »

I asked the same thing here:

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65894

This "idling" process described in the Black Gate white paper is interesting. If I'm reading it right, each time you listen to your Polk's you're XO's will not reach their optimum state until the 30th hour of listening. :eek:

MillerLiteScott

CL35. If your response was directed at me.

I have a pair of modified 2B's to the 4.1 TL spec and a pair of stock 1C's. The 4.1 TL spec 2B's walk all over the stock 1C's. I think that is enough to convince me and many others of the benefits of crossover rebuilds and the RDO vs Sl2000.

Threadjack over, I am sorry.

Scott

candyliquor35m

MillerLiteScott wrote: »

CL35.

I'm not surprised. If I had to choose between my srs's, 2.3's and 2b's (all stock), I would probably choose my stock 2b's. The others have their strong points such as being able to smoke the 2b's in the loudness arena but the 2b's are very intimate and crystal clear.

dcmeigs

I was kinda enjoying the threadjack, but I have a question for you folks that understand the circuit theory better than I.

To refresh your memory, I'm doing a semi-franken polk here. I'm 2b-ing these 1As buy not connecting the array tweeter. Consequentially, I'm not going to recap that section of the x-over, just the driver section. I'll leave the wires and caps for the array tweeter so I can compare and because I can't think of a reason not to (I can also call it a simi-frankenpolk rather than a full tilt frankenpolk).

So here's my two questions.

1) Is it good enough just to pull the fuse so this section is out of the circuit or is there another consideration that I'm overlooking?
2) Would it be a bad thing if the fuse were one day replaced by a well meaning fellow and that section of the circuit operated without a load (the tweeter)

ben62670

dcmeigs wrote: »

I was kinda enjoying the threadjack, but I have a question for you folks that understand the circuit theory better than I.

To refresh your memory, I'm doing a semi-franken polk here. I'm 2b-ing these 1As buy not connecting the array tweeter. Consequentially, I'm not going to recap that section of the x-over, just the driver section. I'll leave the wires and caps for the array tweeter so I can compare and because I can't think of a reason not to (I can also call it a simi-frankenpolk rather than a full tilt frankenpolk).

So here's my two questions.

1) Is it good enough just to pull the fuse so this section is out of the circuit or is there another consideration that I'm overlooking?
2) Would it be a bad thing if the fuse were one day replaced by a well meaning fellow and that section of the circuit operated without a load (the tweeter)

1, and 2 no problems.

dcmeigs

Thanks, Ben. Tweeters are here. Still waiting for Caps and Resistors. Boards clean. Photos soon. Going to install the new tweets in the SDA 2Bs tonight.

ben62670

Cool. I'll be watching:)

candyliquor35m

dcmeigs wrote: »

Tweeters are here. Going to install the new tweets in the SDA 2Bs tonight.

At some point be sure and put one of the old tweeters in one speaker and the new tweeter in the other speaker so you can hear what you might be losing with the new tweeter. That's what I did and realized it's a dramatic loss. If I hadn't done that, I may have never been able to hear the differences.

F1nut

You can't judge how a PAIR of speaker sound by doing that. In other words, your idea SUCKS!!!

candyliquor35m

F1nut wrote: »

You can't

No comment.

dcmeigs is smart enough to make up his own mind.

F1nut

No comment means you have nothing to say, but then you go ahead and make a comment. HELLO! The lights may be on, but no one is home.

candyliquor35m

F1nut wrote: »

No comment means

You're talking to the wind.

heiney9

F1nut wrote: »

You can't judge how a PAIR of speaker sound by doing that. In other words, your idea SUCKS!!!

Not only that but he has lousy hearing. I only say that because if you couldn't hear the difference between RD0's and sl2000's without doing your silly process then your hearing just isn't that good.

The best way to compare is too use a couple of tracks you are extremely familiar with and let those 2-3 tracks be your baseline before and after. One thing Darqueknight does is to take notes (using those 2-3 familiar tracks) for a before and after and then during the break in process.

IMO, that's the best way to do it. You can sit in your normal listening position and take in the entire sound with the new tweets and/or x-over parts. Cupping your hand to listen to each tweeter or using a balance control to listen in mono while one old tweet and one new tweet is in a L/R speaker is not how you normally listen to music.

With extremely familiar music auditory memory is excellent. Jewel is my favorite artist and I've probably listened to most of her music thousands of times. I can tell immediately if something sounds different on certain tracks.

H9

dcmeigs

I just finished doing some listening and I had an interesting experience. My method is not unlike H9s above. I listened to Miles Davis' Generique for those haunting horns, Miles Runs the Voodoo Down for the amazing soundstage, Erin Jaimes Ocean of Tears for the raw, emotional, passionate vocals and Layla for the variety (guitar and piano) and familarity.

Generique. I could hear no difference. Period. Nada.

Voodoo. Yep, still a wonderful soundstage. Maybe a little more detal in the high hats but nothing I would comment on otherwise.

Erin Jaimes. Ocean of Tears is an blues number by a talented Austin blues artist who is probably pretty obscure outside of Austin. I have noticed that the vocals are something of an acid test for speakers as I have played the track on others equipment. Some speakers that do other things quite well fail miserably to reproduce the raw emotion in her voice. I'm talking unlistenable. Phase Techs are a good example. The SDA 2Bs with the SL2000s do a very nice job. Ditto the RD0194s. It's an average quality reording from an independent label and I didn't listen for much else, frankly.

Layla. I listened to the recording twice and was beginning to hypothesize that either my hearing was becoming crap or you folks are replacing really worn out SL2000s. The RD0194s must come out sometime for the SDA 1A application, so I decided to yank them and put the SL2000s back in and listen some more. Then it hit me hard. On the now third listening of Layla, the added harshness of Claptons vocals was apparent. I'm not quite sure how to describe the difference, but there was a difference in the timbre (if that's the correct word here) that made me want to turn the volume down; the fatigue set in fast. I took a lunch break and returned to listen again to Erin Jaimes. Same deal.

I'm listening to Miles again (all instrumental) and can sense none of this at all. So folks, for me the difference is non existant to my ear outside of the vocal range but a nice improvement there. I'm going to put the RD0194s back in again and, tomorrow, see if I can notice a difference in fatigue over several hours of listening.

ben62670

You have just installed them. They will not sound very good for at least 20hrs running, and take up to 80hrs to get near where they are going to be. If you can stick them in a closet, turn them up fairly loud, and leave;)

nspindel

Throw some blankets over the speakers as well.

dcmeigs

ben62670 wrote: »

You have just installed them. They will not sound very good for at least 20hrs running, and take up to 80hrs to get near where they are going to be. If you can stick them in a closet, turn them up fairly loud, and leave;)

You know, I have kinda threadjacked my own thread, and I bet I have lost you. While this thread is about the crossovers I'm doing for my buddies SDA 1As, this post is about hanging the 194s for his project on my SDA 2Bs that are playing in my living room while I wait for the caps to arrive. These tweeters are working on 20 year old crossovers. I suspect they sound as good as they ever will.

ben62670

dcmeigs wrote: »

I suspect they sound as good as they ever will.

Certainly not:)