A crossover is a beautiful thing...

[Apfelsauce]

Laying out and soldering up crossovers is one of my favourite parts of building speakers. I'm not sure why. Anyway, I finished these puppies up this morning - a redesigned replacement for a design I wasn't happy with - and was a bit sad to seal them up in a black box, never to be seen. They sound great, at least!

[Pano]

Very nice work!

Do you bring the wires thru to the other side and solder them there? Looks very neat and tidy.

[Jonathan Bright]

As someone once said: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

I know how you feel. Some people just don't get it though.

Cheers, Jonathan

[ianpengelly]

Very tidy indeed! You could always mount them outside the speaker cabinet with a perspex top on for all to see, then you could continue to admire your work for a long time to come. :-)

[Top Shelf]

Originally Posted by ianpengelly

Very tidy indeed! You could always mount them outside the speaker cabinet with a perspex top on for all to see, then you could continue to admire your work for a long time to come. :-)

Definetly! Unless the wife has something to say about it! They're a beaut!

[ShinOBIWAN]

JM Lab make a feature of the crossover in some of their designs by way of a perspex window in the rear of the cabinet.

[madisonears]

I'm glad you like the sound, because that's the important thing, not the appearance. I hate to spoil the party, but I'm not impressed. Anyone can lay a bunch of colored sticks equally spaced in a straight line. Let's see the "business" side of this xover, where the real quality of work and proof of proper layout is to be found.

Those nice inductors are in the correct configuration, but they're awfully close together and may still couple.

Solen and Bennic caps. Well, lah-dee-dah! And nickle-plated connectors with plastic nuts, inside the enclosure--ugh! Soldering leads would be more secure and probably sound better.

I don't mean to be cruel, but I wouldn't want some novice builder to see this and think that it's necessary or even proper to have all their soldiers in perfect formation to make a good xover. Indeed, it does NOT need to be a beautiful thing, and may even benefit from some parts being akimbo to others.

Peace,
Tom E

[tinitus]

Originally Posted by ianpengelly

You could always mount them outside the speaker cabinet with a perspex top on for all to see, then you could continue to admire your work for a long time to come. :-)

or just open the lid and have a look, when ever you feel like it

[Apfelsauce]

Originally Posted by madisonears

I don't mean to be cruel, but I wouldn't want some novice builder to see this and think that it's necessary or even proper to have all their soldiers in perfect formation to make a good xover. Indeed, it does NOT need to be a beautiful thing, and may even benefit from some parts being akimbo to others.

Peace,
Tom E

I'm new to this board, but I must say, so far its savagery hasn't ceased to surprise me! Even when opening with clauses like, "I don't meant to be cruel...," I'm just charitably looking out for the welfare of next wave of novice builders (Apfelsauce excepted; he's already a lost cause), etc.

The terminals are because this is a redesign, and at the risk of needing to change it again, and tall, narrow cabinets that prevent easy access to the drivers to resolder new internal wiring at that end, I just wanted to plug and play. (And they're nickel plated rather than gold because I needed sixteen of them, and the nickel ones were $0.32 each...and besides, you'd have a hard time selling me on the superior sonic conductivity of one plating material over another.)

Everything is spec'd per Solen's design, because I'm just that kind of sissy: after stuffing it up (sort of, anyway) the first time, I deferred to some professionals. The "expensive" caps are because for me this is still a hobby, not something I've convinced myself is the other side of real life, so I don't need to buy thirty-seven and test each one for paramount accuracy, and then be left over with a pillowcase full. And luckily I'm at a place in my life where I can justify the difference between $0.20 and $2 when I only need a whopping two of the item in question.

Anyway, here's the business side. I pray to one deity or another that it meets your approval and doesn't put the next wave at risk of imminent and amateur demise, thereby robbing the hobby of any hope of a viable future. (And no, I don't know the dielectric qualities of hot glue. Perhaps you can save the next wave from that folly, too.)

[von.ah]

Well put, councilor.
I slathered together some crossovers designed by someone else on pcbs designed and manufactured by someone else and I had the same sense of satisfaction.
Build on, sir.