LSI owners your speakers suck!

SolidSqual

Oh jeez. . . you guys are going to take him down with the small incremental upgrading just like you did me.

One other thing to think about Nik, is whether the upgrade will increase or decrease the overall sale value. Since this sounds like a new mod experiment, I'm not sure whether there is a whole lot of market confidence. Of course here at CP, most will trust ben62670 and his skills, but not as likely on A'gon. That limits your resale pool.

Face

m00npie wrote: »

I thought the first upgrade was on you....

Labor, yes.

ben62670

SolidSqual wrote: »

Oh jeez. . . you guys are going to take him down with the small incremental upgrading just like you did me.

One other thing to think about Nik, is whether the upgrade will increase or decrease the overall sale value. Since this sounds like a new mod experiment, I'm not sure whether there is a whole lot of market confidence. Of course here at CP, most will trust ben62670 and his skills, but not as likely on A'gon. That limits your resale pool.

Most anyone looking for LSI's would probably know that better caps make a difference. The stock 5w resistors are way under rated for a 4ohm tweeter. That XO chokes the life out of LSI's. The one thing I really don't get is the "experiment" part. The suggested upgrade is just swapping better caps, and resistors of the same value. The performance upgrade is a night, and day difference not a

small incremental upgrading

Other XO upgrades I have done have put a smile on my face. This one flat out gave me goose bumps. What upgrade are you talking about that was not substantial?

Ben

mmadden28

I'm willing to try it--I have no plans on selling my LSI9s

Ben and Nick, I pulled my XO out and snapped some pics--...

ben62670

I have had them on for 48hrs straight now. I was never a huge fan of LSI's. Never a hater either, but Jerry is going to have a hard time getting these from my house! I am now working on a speaker designed around the Vifa. Stay tuned on that one;)

mmadden28

This last pic its hard to see the yellow cap value-the flash made some glue show up--naked eye it says 12uf.

ben62670

Thanks so much. Those are excellent pics. I'll try to figure out the parts list for you guys. Notice how much glue they used. It is a mother to get the old stuff off! One question. How much clearance is there from the XO to any other objects inside the cab?
Thanks
Ben

ben62670

Thanks again. C1 is 1uf;)

OK parts list for all caps that the signal travels through.
2 1uf's
2 12uf's
2 18uf's
Sonicap doesn't have 18's so you can get 2 10's, and 2 8's
On the bottom you can replace the 18uf can with a Poly cap. This should help tighten up the Bass. I would use the Dayton here. Its much cheaper, and comes in 18uf. The case is smaller in diamater than the other offerings in its class, or better.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=027-434
There is also a 260uf, but to get that much in a poly would be expensive, and take up a massive amount of cabinet space.
Resistors
I wouldn't even touch the 10w1r stock resitor. It will be real hard to get that off the board. It's 10 watts, and not in the signal path. Trust me you will make a mess trying to get that off the board;)
2 1ohm(optional)
2 3ohm
PE has Mill's both in the correct values

mmadden28

ben62670 wrote: »

Thanks so much. Those are excellent pics. I'll try to figure out the parts list for you guys. Notice how much glue they used. It is a mother to get the old stuff off! One question. How much clearance is there from the XO to any other objects inside the cab?
Thanks
Ben

Hmm, I only recall seeing some white filler-nothing was evident-Damn what the heck-I didn't even look inside-My curious nature must be dwindling

I do recall that getting the XO out was tight

I'll check again tomorrow-time for bed.

mmadden28

ben62670 wrote: »

Thanks so much. Those are excellent pics.

Macro focus and soft flash-gotta love it.

ben62670

Yep we should crash it's almost 5am AGAIN!
My old nikon used to take real good pics. It died. I bought another "nicer" model. The pics suck. Good outdoors, or shooting people indoors with good light. That's it:(
Ben

mmadden28

nikolas812 wrote: »

It looks like I will because I won't be able to afford them for about six months.

So in the six months I'll upgrade the nines and see what is does. But my guess is upgrade or no upgrade the nines couldn't even compare to the Emeralds. Apples and oranges IMO.



Nick

You're going to be completely down for 6mos?

mmadden28

ben62670 wrote: »

Yep we should crash it's almost 5am AGAIN!
My old nikon used to take real good pics. It died. I bought another "nicer" model. The pics suck. Good outdoors, or shooting people indoors with good light. That's it:(
Ben

Its hit or miss with this camera (Casio Exlim EX-S770).I has the previous iteration (dropped it):(, I liked it so much I had to get this one. Small, slim, ultra portable (for when I don't want to lug around my fuller size Canon G5). Best feature on it? Past-movie mode-it records a loop of about 6 seconds, when you see something you press record and it records the previous 6 secons as well. Great when you're trying to capture the kids doing something funny without recording nothing all day.

I'm out -good night..

steelervic

ben, would i be better off building new xo's instead of trying to modify them? i have only built a few and by far am no expert, i hate to risk damaging them and if i don't like the new xo i could just use the stock ones. what do you think? do you know about how much it would cost to build new ones?
thanks, vic

gwh

I have one crossover from a LSI 15 if someone is serious about trying this mod.

$10 shipped for a practice run.



G

AsSiMiLaTeD

Since when did stock LSi speakers begin to suck? I haven't been around much lately - did my speakers start sucking and I not even notice????

ben62670

steelervic wrote: »

ben, would i be better off building new xo's instead of trying to modify them? i have only built a few and by far am no expert, i hate to risk damaging them and if i don't like the new xo i could just use the stock ones. what do you think? do you know about how much it would cost to build new ones?
thanks, vic

You would be better off using the stock XO board. You will need an X-acto, de-soldering braid, and/or a solder sucker. The leads of any component that needs to be removed should be snipped, and the component carefully removed from the board. You will not want to go back after the upgrade.
Ben

ben62670

LSI's don't suck
That would be like me saying that the old monitors suck, or the SDA's suck.
The Cabs are very well built, and beautiful.
The drivers are very very good.
The tweeter is top notch.
The fit, and finish is top notch.
The XO's have an issue with the tweeter resistor burning out when driven hard.
The 5w resistor can not handle being driven hard with a 4ohm tweeter. A 4ohm tweeter puts twice the load on the resistor than an 8ohm tweeter would. It limits the mid/highs. Look at the caps on the board. They are generic caps.
What I am sayingIs that the LSI's with moderate mods can be transformed into a much better than stock speaker. I have heard a bunch of different speakers. The LSI's with moderate upgrades can hold their own against many speakers costing much much more. Nearly everything that is mass produced has some compromises. I am not bashing here. Most of the people on this forum are in the top 1% of people that actually care about sound. This is not a WalMart crowd full of HTIB fans, or Bose fans. If this was a forum on HP cars, or trucks people that were into such things would strive for better performance. To what degree is an individual thing. The LSI's are better constructed than the SDA's. The SDA's that many love came with the same style resistors, and caps. People are all for upgrading them. Why keep yourself in a little box and think that the LSI's are as good, or nearly as good as they can get.

I never truly thought the LSI's sucked.
The heading was a humorous attention grabber.
I just wanted to make this clear so any newbies that are looking at LSI's don't get discouraged. Seeing WE CAN'T EDIT here any more I can't fix the first post so people that don't get the sarcasm could have it spelled out for them.
Ben

nikolas812

mmadden28 wrote: »

You're going to be completely down for 6mos?

LOL!! Never.. I don't know where you got that idea. I just won't be able to afford the speakers I really want for another six months(Tax Return Time).

I'll have tunes in the meantime. You can bet on that.;)



Nick

jerryj12

ben62670 wrote: »

I have had them on for 48hrs straight now. I was never a huge fan of LSI's. Never a hater either, but Jerry is going to have a hard time getting these from my house! I am now working on a speaker designed around the Vifa. Stay tuned on that one;)

Woohoo I get the big boys.... Sounds like a deal to me.lol:D

jon s

How did you remove the crossover from the speaker cabinets? The wiring is pretty tight going to the upper cabinet. isn't the midrange/tweeter cabinet sealed from the lower part?

mmadden28

jon s wrote: »

How did you remove the crossover from the speaker cabinets? The wiring is pretty tight going to the upper cabinet. isn't the midrange/tweeter cabinet sealed from the lower part?

ben62670

jon s wrote: »

How did you remove the crossover from the speaker cabinets? The wiring is pretty tight going to the upper cabinet. isn't the midrange/tweeter cabinet sealed from the lower part?

There is a caulk like plug between the two cabs. The drivers must be removed, and you pull the wires all at the same time. Save the ball of caulk as it is non hardening. Just roll it back up, and insert it again when you are done;)

mmadden28

ben62670 wrote: »

Thanks again. C1 is 1uf;)

OK parts list for all caps that the signal travels through.
2 1uf's
2 12uf's
2 18uf's
Sonicap doesn't have 18's so you can get 2 10's, and 2 8's
On the bottom you can replace the 18uf can with a Poly cap. This should help tighten up the Bass. I would use the Dayton here. Its much cheaper, and comes in 18uf. The case is smaller in diamater than the other offerings in its class, or better.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=027-434
There is also a 260uf, but to get that much in a poly would be expensive, and take up a massive amount of cabinet space.
Resistors
I wouldn't even touch the 10w1r stock resitor. It will be real hard to get that off the board. It's 10 watts, and not in the signal path. Trust me you will make a mess trying to get that off the board;)
2 1ohm(optional)
2 3ohm
PE has Mill's both in the correct values

The Sonicap (or do you have a better source) web site is horrible. Hey Soniccraft its 2008!
For the Sonicaps, which model do I want? GenI, GenII or Platinum.

What should I get for the 260uf (as opposed to the poly)? Or is it not necessary to replace???

Best place to pickup some 16awg Silver hookup wire? Might as well...Is that stranded or solid. Or will silver plated do fine?

Thanks

ben62670

Just call sonicap. The website is good for pics only.
There is the 260, and the 18uf's in the bass section that are not in the signal path. There would be improvement , but it would cost about $150, and the work would be real tough. I don't know if it would be worth it to upgrade them. The 15's have a 130uf in the signal path that helped considerably, but the real big improvement is in the tweeter section on the nines.
Ben

mmadden28

ben62670 wrote: »

Just call sonicap. The website is good for pics only.

So no difference with GenI, GenII or Platinum? Or is only one of them a current product?

ben62670

Gen I is the only one that has the values you need.

mmadden28

Thanks! What about the 260uf? What should I do about that-leave it as is or replace with big expensive poly? Another electro? I'm about to finish my partsexpress order.

mmadden28

ben62670 wrote: »

Gen I is the only one that has the values you need.

I see that now-the GenII's and Platinums are much more limited in selection.

What do you think about this site?
http://www.gr-research.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=4
Prices are the same.

I didn't see an 8uf at either place, perhaps an 8.2? or 7.5?

ben62670

8.2 is well within spec;)
Never ordered from those guys. Its easy enogh to order from sonicraft. They are the ones that actually make them.
Ben