Increasing transparency without tonal change

[river251]

I recently obtained some ProAc One SCs, in beautiful condition in yew wood.

Compared side by side with Tablette Anniversaries, the later are more transparent. It uses different drivers.

Can I improve the transparency by upgrading parts in my One SCs? Would better caps and inductors keep the same tonal character if I carefully match values?

Thanks,
Jim

 

[RockLeeEV]

Can I improve the transparency by upgrading parts in my One SCs?

No. The limitations on transparency will be from things like its drivers, cabinet, and crossover design, and ultimately room interaction, not the parts, which are mostly an aesthetic or durability consideration.

Would better caps and inductors keep the same tonal character if I carefully match values?

If the stock inductors are poor, switching to air cores can impart a more "dry" bass character as linearity will rise, now limited only by the driver. But it's not really a worthwhile investment. Remember that matching inductor values requires not only the Le to be the same, but also the DC resistance should stay close. Else you may find changes in the tonal balance and bass tuning. An equivalent air core to a cored inductor will require much heavier guage wire to keep DCR the same - about 10 awg air core is needed to replace a typical 14 awg cored inductor. Many Steel Laminates still have very good performance though, and will not saturate unless you use power levels much higher than the drivers' thermal and mechanical limits.

 

[john dozier]

One of the major components of "transparency" is innate driver distortion. Another is box "talk". You are probably hearing a combination of these factors. Regards

 

[river251]

A belated thanks, guys.

Jim