Monitor 7A recap question(s).

rickb119

Just recapped some 7a's and the improvement in sound and clarity is amazing! They are actually more detailed than my Boston VR-M50's. I'm sitting here doing an A/B with them and I hear things on the Polks that I never did on the Bostons. Doing the A/B, I hear that yes, it is there on the Bostons, I just never noticed it before.

Anyhow, to the questions.

I used all Dayton caps and resistors. Although the clarity is very good, it is also somewhat tinny, thin sounding and harsh compared to the Bostons.

1. Will the sound improve after a reasonable break-in time?

2. I used a Dayton .10 bypass on both caps. Should I have used a better quality and if so, how much will that improve the sound?

3. Should I bite the bullet and re-do everything with Sonicaps and Mills? Are they really "that" much better?

I did not replace the internal wiring or binding posts (yet). Thought I'd see what the caps did for them first.

Thanks,

Rick

Face

Forget the bypass caps and replace the tweeter cap with a Sonic Cap.

heiney9

rickb119 wrote: »

Just recapped some 7a's and the improvement in sound and clarity is amazing! They are actually more detailed than my Boston VR-M50's. I'm sitting here doing an A/B with them and I hear things on the Polks that I never did on the Bostons. Doing the A/B, I hear that yes, it is there on the Bostons, I just never noticed it before.

Anyhow, to the questions.

I used all Dayton caps and resistors. Although the clarity is very good, it is also somewhat tinny, thin sounding and harsh compared to the Bostons.

1. Will the sound improve after a reasonable break-in time?

2. I used a Dayton .10 bypass on both caps. Should I have used a better quality and if so, how much will that improve the sound?

3. Should I bite the bullet and re-do everything with Sonicaps and Mills? Are they really "that" much better?

I did not replace the internal wiring or binding posts (yet). Thought I'd see what the caps did for them first.

Thanks,

Rick

1) yes absolutely about 150-300 hrs break in

2) delete the bypass caps they are not needed

3) you could use Sonicaps if it's in your budget or a nice cost effective compromise are the Clarity cap PX series or for more $$$ the SA series. The Mills resistors are very, very important as they are in the signal path and 1000 times better than the old cheapie sand cast resistors.

Replace the resistors and use them for about 150 hours if you are still unhappy try Clarity or Sonicaps

H9

rickb119

Thanks for the replys.

OK, I removed the bypass caps, ordered the resistors and some binding posts. Any suggestions for the internal wiring?
Also, any reason why I couldn't bypass the fuses? The holders are riveted in and the wires look to be epoxy'd in place, making it difficult to replace them.

heiney9

I bypassed the fuses in my 5B's so have at it. I just used newer slightly larger ga stranded copper wire for internal wiring. No need to knock yourself out on that. I'm sure the original stuff has oxidized.

All I did was tie the ends of the wires that lead to fuse holder together using solder and shrink tubing (obviously at the fuse holder end not the PCB). Very simple actually no need to remove any wires or epoxy or rivets, etc.

H9

rickb119

Got it covered.

Thanks