chario silhouette 100 crossover recap?

[xykapec]

The yellow cap is the most dangerous one to replace!!

It's not just electrolytic vs. film, but 1980's caps vs. modern too. Honestly they tend to be much better.

I would strongly suggest you measure the ESR of the cap before replacing, and add missing R. Mistakes here can lead to unfortunate tanking of the impedance curve. The fact that it has NO resistor in series with it makes me believe it could have a naturally high ESR value.

You can also validate your work by measuring the impedance of the entire speaker before and after.

You can buy Dayton DATS or use a jig with Room EQ Wizard:

Impedance Measurement

Than you for your reply.
I talked to guys from SET crossovers site.
They have this 22uf capacitor (CER22) at their inventory page
Capacitors
But not sure I can buy it directly from them. No other place I can find.
They said that following about this capacitor:

ESR measured @1kHz is 155 ohm.

Normally a PP capacitor with the same value may have
50 times the ESR value, it depends on their PP film quality and size.
50 times higher: it could be 8/9 kohm (8,000 ohm!)

Not sure how to understand this
I thought that PP capacitors (for example like MEO-22T3.450 from Mundorf) have very low ESR in comparison with Electrolytic capacitors.

Measuring ESR and impedance for whole frequencies range is not simple job to me as currently I have no knowledge and not tools for this.
I think that only way to go here will be finding exact such capacitor.

 

[xykapec]

Thanks fro your reply.

+1 with Waxx and Erisquires


15 years is not that too much long for a lytic, so esr can be measured and will be a little worse than if it was new... The capacitance should not have move already and perhaps they choose a radial cap for the specific inductance of it and indeed the specific esr (sort of zobel?). You really have to know how it is measuring... 22 uF exactly ? concistency number after checking the two speakers for this yellow cap ?


check also if the tweeter has Ferrofluid, if yes try to know the grade and go for a little refurbishing here...

leave in place the polyester please, this choice is not by chance... mainly the Philips.

Too complicated stuff for me here. I need exact such caps for replacement. That's all.

So are you saying that Philips cap with low capacitance is put there by purpose (by design)?
If you read whole thread that you should know that 1.5 uf Philips comes in parallel with another 4.7uf that in total gives 6.2uf instead of schema 6.8uf one. And this kind of lack of capacitance on tweeter network.

Tweeter is something small. Looks exactly like at this picture.
Not sure if it can have Ferrofluid at all.

 

[diyiggy]

Not sure I understand what you meant about the polyester caps : according to me, they are good, chosed carrefuly not only for the precise capacitance, and a polypro would had costed nt much, so make your conclusion. No so hard to find more precise values with polypro outside standards capacitances. Less choices of brands, that's all. In your shoes I will just measure the yellow cap for the future ! 15 years is ok for modern lytics, this is not a 70s' speaker. That's what I meant to rephrase it.

For the tweeter, you could ask Chario themselves if it is FF or not. Idem for the yellow caps at the customers dpt. Anyway : capacitor should be capacitance measured : such tool is around 40 usd. Measuring ESR on the whole range needs a LCR tools which asks a zero usd more for a precise enough portable device or a little DIY as pointed out above with free soft/soundcard and few resistors.


I am not sure they took a radial by chance over an axial for the yellow cap. Maybe it's for a narrow layout but maybe it's for a better inductance ? Who knows ? so better the day you experiment is try both after having measured the capacitance of this cap before as the tolerance of lytics is quite high and same when you bought one (accordings brands & models : 5% to 20%, sometimes less, often more whatever the marking and the reputability of the brands : been there already.


The yellow radial I don't know the brand can be swapped if you judge it should - what I doubt for the moment- by a radial nichicon bipolar for speaker or a panasonic : radials have worse ESR than axial and as noticed Erisquires, I don't think it's by chance - or fir a narrow layout as I illustrated- Just be sure to take the same voltage ratting.


launch the dices, up to you, nothing wrong with exeriments....


hope that helps, never easy than refurbishing lytics with old speakers because all those parameters...

 

[xykapec]

diyiggy, thanks for your comments. Very helpful.

I talked again to authors of crossover (someone from setcrossover.com) and got an answer that yellow capacitor is good audio capacitor that they use and that it has pretty high ESR value. So it can not be replaced by low ESR MKP capacitor without impact on whole performance of mid bass driver. Good news is that this yellow capacitor replacement is famous ELNA RFS SILMIC II AUDIO Kondensator 22uF 100V 10x20 85°C!
So I am going to buy 10 such capacitors and will select from them closest capacitance pair for my crossovers.
But I will check also how 22uf MKP capacitor with some 1.5 Ohm resistor in series will sound in place of yellow capacitor (without any series resistor and with 1.3 Ohms resistor).
I think that ELNA will win the race.
Anyway I will keep yellow caps for any future purpose.


So for now I plan to buy following caps for my tests (Germany shop):

2 Jantzen Audio Cross-Cap 1,5uF 1,50 uF 400VDC MKP 5% EUR 2,2
2 Jantzen Audio Cross-Cap 3,3uF 3,30 uF 400VDC MKP 5% EUR 3,8
2 Jantzen Audio Cross-Cap 4,7uF 400VDC MKP 5% EUR 4,0
2 Jantzen Audio Cross-Cap 6,8uF 400VDC MKP 5% EUR 4,8
2 Jantzen Audio Cross-Cap 22uF 400VDC MKP 5% EUR 8,4
10 ELNA RFS SILMIC II AUDIO Kondensator 22uF 100V EUR 6,4
2 SQP20-001R5 - Resistor wire ceramic 1R5 20W 5% 14x14x60mm EUR 1.68
+ some 7-8 Euros shipping.
Still not sure about which exact resistors to buy.

 

[diyiggy]

I talked again to authors of crossover (someone from setcrossover.com) and got an answer that yellow capacitor is good audio capacitor that they use and that it has pretty high ESR value. So it can not be replaced by low ESR MKP capacitor without impact on whole performance of mid bass driver. Good news is that this yellow capacitor replacement is famous ELNA RFS SILMIC II AUDIO Kondensator 22uF 100V 10x20 85°C!

Sure, that's what most posters tried to say to you.
I don't know how a Silmic II could have changed from polar to bipolar by going from the brown to the yellow !
However you do from two Simic II in serie with the polarity arrengement : +--+ or -++- : a bipolar with ESR doubled -I'm not sure about ESR, at least Loss factor should be affected somewhat by the serie layout-

Elna should have however true speaker bipolar caps! You must understand than the axial bi-polar are stronger with ripple current. The Silmic II is a simple polarized decoupling cap for pcb, not for speaker . What I know is the Nichicon EB or EP : radial bipolar for speaker should have the smooth sound an Elna has... same same but diferent, sort of !

diferent bipolar lytics, MKT, MKP : all have different ESR in relation to the frequencie measured, some good lytics premium grade will have better esr at 5k or 10 k hz than some MKT.



I'm not sure adding a resistor is that good : you add noise here ! Loss of resolution and clearness with a cement resistor : it should be worse than a good lytic imho.

The crosscap are said to be good, it's no risky to try then keep them for a further project if you don't like them in the Chario. MKP has trully less esr, it is not however always a good sound gauranty.

Imho, you may just degrade the sound of the speaker : 90% of the tweaks... but hey, oe has to start somewhere . The only thing you have to understand is : a cap, a resitor are chosen fr a purpose, it's not like a TV or car model where the mst expensive or the best spec on the paper will give you what you expected in a speaker croosover... It may, but with long try & error to try to do best than the designer or to adapt to your taste or change the croosover for your room/hear : often better to redesign a new speaker

 

[system7]

This could all be a waste of time. Film capacitors used in the tweeter circuit are unlikely to have deteriorated.

Have you tested the tweeters?

Usual troubleshooting for tweeters is to measure the voicecoil resistance with a meter. Expect 3 to 6 ohms, or it's open circuit if broken. If resistance is good, look at the state of the black or brown ferrofluid oil in the gap. Has it dried solid?

Simple test for tweeters is just to wire a 1.5V battery across it using a paperclip or wire. It should crackle if it works. Otherwise you might be cleaning out the fluid with blotting paper and WD40 and replacing: Blue Aran - The UK's no.1 Loudspeaker Component Stockist > Sonitus Audio > High Frequency Drivers > Ferrofluid

You can run a tweeter without ferrofluid, just keep the volume down.

 

[diyiggy]

Greetings System 7,


Do you know what Tweeter they used at Chario ???
The woofer seems a modified Peereless ???

 

[system7]

Looks like Chario make the drivers:

Chario_Sonnet

Don't know if the tweeter even comes apart. Looks glued.

 

[xykapec]

Sure, that's what most posters tried to say to you.
I don't know how a Silmic II could have changed from polar to bipolar by going from the brown to the yellow !
However you do from two Simic II in serie with the polarity arrengement : +--+ or -++- : a bipolar with ESR doubled -I'm not sure about ESR, at least Loss factor should be affected somewhat by the serie layout-

Elna should have however true speaker bipolar caps! You must understand than the axial bi-polar are stronger with ripple current. The Silmic II is a simple polarized decoupling cap for pcb, not for speaker . What I know is the Nichicon EB or EP : radial bipolar for speaker should have the smooth sound an Elna has... same same but diferent, sort of !

diferent bipolar lytics, MKT, MKP : all have different ESR in relation to the frequencie measured, some good lytics premium grade will have better esr at 5k or 10 k hz than some MKT.



I'm not sure adding a resistor is that good : you add noise here ! Loss of resolution and clearness with a cement resistor : it should be worse than a good lytic imho.

The crosscap are said to be good, it's no risky to try then keep them for a further project if you don't like them in the Chario. MKP has trully less esr, it is not however always a good sound gauranty.

Imho, you may just degrade the sound of the speaker : 90% of the tweaks... but hey, oe has to start somewhere . The only thing you have to understand is : a cap, a resitor are chosen fr a purpose, it's not like a TV or car model where the mst expensive or the best spec on the paper will give you what you expected in a speaker croosover... It may, but with long try & error to try to do best than the designer or to adapt to your taste or change the croosover for your room/hear : often better to redesign a new speaker

Thanks for noticing.
But as I understand this 22uf capacitor is used in parallel with mid-bass for some impedance correction.
Do you think that we really need here bipolar capacitor? Maybe we can have here polar one? Please look at schema.
I am not much competent in types of capacitors )


I will make pictures of drivers and post here.

 

[diyiggy]

That's a good question I often ask mysef (I'm a newbie too, perpetual sort of), I prefer experienced people to answer you here. We are in the AC domain with a speaker vs DC though, hence bipolars...

 

[xykapec]

That's a good question I often ask mysef (I'm a newbie too, perpetual sort of), I prefer experienced people to answer you here. We are in the AC domain with a speaker vs DC though, hence bipolars...

So question to GURUs - can we replace bipolar 22uf capacitor in schema above by polar 22uf capacitor?

I think we need bipolar cap.
Membranes of driver are moving in both direction due to current that flows in both directions, so current that flows in both direction in turn is caused by voltage applied in both directions. Checkmate.

 

[eriksquires]

ESR measured @1kHz is 155 ohm.

That has to be 1 . 55 Ohms!!



Right, and a film (and any modern bipolar) will come in around ~ 0.3 Ohms. So, you would need to add a high power resistor ~ 1.2 Ohms in series to compensate. My suggestion is buy a film cap (Axon? Cheap, good in bass), and a 1.2 Ohm 10 Watt resistor.

Then try with and without. You can bypass the cap with a jumper. My guess is you'll find the resistor makes the amp sound better and more full.



Best,


E

 

[giralfino]

But as I understand this 22uf capacitor is used in parallel with mid-bass for some impedance correction.

No, it is the usual cap for a 2nd order LP crossover. Changing its value will alter the slope and/or the crossover point of the LP filter. I usually suggest replacing an electrolytic cap with another electrolytic one, so the chance of maintaining the same ESR is pretty high.

Do you think that we really need here bipolar capacitor? Maybe we can have here polar one?

You really need a non polar cap as we are dealing with AC.

I suggest you don't change caps in the tweeter circuit as there is nothing there that really needs to be replaced (polyester caps doesn't degrade).

Ralf

 

[xykapec]

Thanks everybody for your input.

The code of capacitor that setcrossover.com guys are using is CER22.
I searched in internet more and found following page:
Elna Cerafine Electroytic Capacitor

Here we can see that this CER22 is Elna Cerafine Elecrolytic capacitor.
Looked in specs page and saw that this capacitor is same size as mine.
https://hfc-fs.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/elna_cerafine.pdf
Most of chances that this is the capacitor that setcrossover.com are using under different lable.

The only problem is still polarity. They say in specs page "For bipolar capacitors, consult with us".
Not sure what it means. I will write to ELNA with this question.
Not bad progress by now

 

[giralfino]

As I already said, you need a non polar cap, and unfortunately those Elna are polar ones. Just as an example, buy something like this (if you lives in the USA):
Bennic 22 mfd Electrolytic Caps
or
22uF 100V Electrolytic Non-Polarized Crossover Capacitor

Ralf

 

[xykapec]

As I already said, you need a non polar cap, and unfortunately those Elna are polar ones. Just as an example, buy something like this (if you lives in the USA):
Bennic 22 mfd Electrolytic Caps
or
22uF 100V Electrolytic Non-Polarized Crossover Capacitor

Ralf

Thanks for suggesting options!
Both ELNA caps that I mentioned should have non polar versions (I contacted ELNA on this matter, waiting for their reply).
Also the old one Elna Cerafine has higher ESR and probably exact cap that I need, so I will try get these as top priority.

 

[giralfino]

You can contact Elna for info, but it is highly unlikely that they will sell you anything unless you buy some hundreds caps (or even more). If you want to buy only 2 caps (or 10, it doesn't matter), you need to go to a shop, physical or online.

Ralf

 

[diyiggy]

To reassure xypatec, one experienced guy should tell him how a NPE measures about its capacitance & ESR when new, 15 years old and 30 years old.... with rel datas he has.


Is the yellow cap now off board and measured - at least capacitance- ?


Anyway Cerafine dielectric has a specific sound signature, so at least possible to find in an asian shop two cerafine 47 uF /100V polar for a serie +--+ arengement to make a 23.5 uF bipolar with wasted esr. But good luck with 20% preision to find 4 caps that measures the same, one should buy 20 units minimum for sorting out 2 pairs, lol !



Ralf advice seems much wizer, it's not a Magico, is it ? Bennic caps are in many speakers with the speaker brand rebadging.



If living in Europe, here the radial bipolar I advised to stay near the genuine esr of the radial cap : Nichicon GB & DB Type | Hifi Collective.


Hope xypatec will review after listening all his changes on the crossover


Edit : Elna RBD (bi-polar) Electrolytics | Hifi Collective

 

[xykapec]

Hi guys, sorry for no reply for so long. Had many other things to handle.
Thanks for all your advises and notes.

1) Drivers pictures are attached to this message.
Tweeter is glued, so no point to open it for checks. It sounds pretty much OK, so I don't think there is any issue with it.
Mid range driver is 9-6071/012 Bravox (this is what google search gave me).
I think both tweeter and mid range are cheap and it will be not very smart to expect for very high sound quality here

2) I did not measure yellow capacitor as I don't have any tools (yet). Bought some tool to check capacitors capacity. Waiting for it to arrive.

3) I was not sure if mid range drivers can perform good at all, so I used them in other speakers setup. I have Two Pure Accoustics speakers, so I put this driver instead of original drivers there and yes, I can hear biiig voices playing OK from these mid range drivers. They sound OK, so I suggest that problem of Chario is really in crossover.
By the way this setup sound pretty good inside of Chario boxes, so I am thinking about keeping it as is if it will sound best from all setups that I will build later!

4) For case when I am right in previous suggestion I bought:
a) set of Jantzen Cross-caps to for replacement of all polyester capacitors for tweeter,
not sure if I will do this replacement, bought them for experiments
b) for yellow capacitor replacement I bought two capacitors to try:
1 - 22µF 400VDC 5% MKP Jantzen Cross-cap
2 - electrolytic Jantzen Audio 001-1030 | 22 µF | 5% | 70 V | Premium ELKO
will check out how they will sound
I had some other options, but decided to forget in between about complicated stuff like ESR, ESL, etc and put these options on hold I also decided not to buy any resistors for now.

All capacitors that I bought are matched (as good as seller could find in his stock).

5) Yellow capacitor is ELNA Ceraphine bipolar and I could not find such capacitor in any place in internet. Even if I can find it there is no guarantee that its not old stock or fake stuff. So I let it go. ELNA guys did not reply to me, sure. But I tried!

Will update this thread with final results.

 

[xykapec]

Short update on my situation, guys.

With your help I understood several things:
1) Film capacitors are not degrading that fast as electrolytic capacitors, so no need to replace film capacitors right now (10-15 years old).
2) Without actual listening time with every setup of crossover there is not possible to understand if there was actual improvement of sound from crossover capacitors replacement.
3) No need to go from start with expensive capacitors for replacement.
You can start with cheap replacement then, after some listening time, if not satisfied, switch to new pair of other more expensive capacitors.
In this way you can have several iterations like these and then stop at point where you will get satisfied with sound (hopefully!). End of story.

As I already said, you need a non polar cap, and unfortunately those Elna are polar ones. Just as an example, buy something like this (if you lives in the USA):
Bennic 22 mfd Electrolytic Caps
or
22uF 100V Electrolytic Non-Polarized Crossover Capacitor

Ralf

So what I did is I ordered several pairs of capacitors.
Cheapest pair is simple non polar capacitors from Jansen Audio (M.D.L.):
Electrolytic Cap - Jantzen-audio.com

Probably they are the same as Bennic capacitos suggested by giralfino.
Replaced original yellow electrolytic capacitors with these M.D.L. and I got my big voices back, bass improved and I enjoy the music with speakers!
Still I don't have an equipment to measure capacitance or ESR/ESL, and I did not perform any measurements of actual sound characteristics (like frequency amplitude charts) but improvement is just obvious. Probably these original ELNA Cerafine are almost dead.

In addition I have other pairs of capacitors to try:
Elna RBD Bi-polar Electrolytic Capacitors
Jantzen Audio Premium ELKO Bi-polar – Electrolytic capacitors 70V 5% tolerance
Jantzen Audio Cross Cap Bi-polar MKP 400V

It was pretty easy job to do with M.D.L. as they are small. Elna RBD is also small, but other two pairs are big. There I will need to do more complicated job, as I will need to extend crossover plate to attach new big capacitor. Also some thinking is required about correct positioning of these new big capacitors relatively to existing coils, so they will not interact with each other.

Will try them as I will have time and desire or not satisfaction with existing setup