Upgrading my KLS10 kitset speaker

[Luke]

I built these World Audio speaker kits a few years ago now and reasonably happy with them.

My amp was an LM3875 gainclone and found the highs were very bright. I then Built an Aleph 2 and found it took some of the edge off the highs, the sound was warmer and more relaxing. It did however still sound a bit fatiguing at times and I got annoyed with it and decided to do some tinkering with cheap parts from my local scrap merchant.

I was lucky enough to come across some 5uF Siemens MKV caps for a couple of bucks a piece. I bought 4 of them and started with the tweeter caps.
The tweeter is the Audax HD3P and it has a crossover that from memory comes with the driver. On the crossover is a cheap Solens 4.7 uF Polyprop.


Here is the schematic of the crossover.
http://www.worldaudiodesign.com/pdf/kls10xd.pdf

I replaced the cap and reassembled to do some listening.
The change was drastic. The sound was sweeter and smoother, all in all a beautiful cap I thought, however I felt I was loosing some detail in the music, strings were not quite as vibrant and the breath in vocalists pauses were not quite as clear.

I have three questions.

1./ Is it possible that replacing the 4.7uF cap with 5uF could change the frequency response or introduce a bump in the response curve and Im missing stuff I used to hear?

2./ Should I change the capacitor C1 (Also a 4.7uF Solen) in the midrange? Will this have a simmilar effect on the sound or wil it be less noticable than the tweeter cap? (Ill try it anyway:-))
Will the the value change change he response curve?

3./ Would the change be this drastic if I replaced the crossover with an active crossover?

Think I need to put a switch in and do some a/b testing for a while. Perhaps its just more balanced and Im not used to it?

To all those that are bored and have some spare cash for nice caps try swapping some out, you might be amazed

regards arthur

[5th element]

Interesting, fatigue usually comes from peaks around 2-4k or something adding a forwardness to the sound. Yes altering the cap value from 4.7 to 5uf will alter the crossover, but imo only very slightly.

It seems to me that altering the cap solved your woes but at the same time caused a problem. This is probably just a slight tonal balance alteration which you need to adjust to. A loss in detail usually corresponds with a dip in the frequency respose, and its entirely possible that you created a small one.

Going active is a possibility but you really will need some measuring equipment and software to get good results esp as the world audio xover will have been well optomised.

[pinkmouse]

Well, the harshness is unlikely to be from the tweeter, the HD3P is one of the sweetest devices I have ever heard, and having built several sets of KLS10s, as well as others using the 3P this is not something I recognise

When I modified my crossovers in my current hignly modded KLS11s, I raised the crossover frequency a little, but this was more to do with the congested upper mids than harshness in the highs.

This may sound contrary, but could you try a little experiment? Try listening with a cushion or pillow or something over the woofers, and see if the harshness continues?

[Luke]

Hi 5th Element and Pinkmouse,

I had a freind over who agrees with me, so i wasnt imagining it:-)
Whats seems to be the problem is I had an accident with the KLS10 Sub port tube. I took it out to tweak it, glued it and now wont fit in. So this is the first critical listening I have done since my little cockup, an it seems its doing nasties to the bass not having a port tube. This is causing the speakers to sound a little unbalanced, so I need to get back to sorting out my sub before i can have a good critical eval.
I do suspect however the highs are a littel rolled off.
I guess fatigueing is a bit of an exageration, finding the right words to describe what you hear is hard. But definietly too bright and not sure I would call it sweet.
Ive had a busy weekend so I will have another go at it adn let you both know how it works out.

Thanks for your help

[guerardo]

hello
can you give me the schematic crossover of the kit kls10 please? (hm170c0 and hd3p) thanks