Crossover Component Upgrade Pitfalls?

[AllenB]

Gootee, if you are concerned about the response, get your hands on an equaliser and play around with that. If you change the crossover you will want to ensure the drivers stay in phase. Since the crossover has few components, almost any changes you make will affect this with little recourse to bring the other driver into line.

If you redesign the crossover then you will obviate these issues, but redesigning is the can of worms unless you do this kind of thing for fun.

As it stands, individual component replacement should be fairly straightforward. Why not try replacing the 33u and 0u1 with a single poly cap. If it sounds bright then try some series resistance. The woofer capacitor should be easier to replace. You can use resistance here too if it doesn't sound right.

 

[henrylrjr]

I,m building outboard xovers with the intent of matching the values of the original xovers. The original xovers were made with very cheap no name components and mounted inside the speaker enclosures. My plan is to use better quality components. The original woofer filter has a iron core coil wound with 1mm (.04") diameter copper wire. I am switching to air core coils. I measured the original coil, with a BK LCR meter, the results were 1.033mh Q 15.0 and D .067. The new air core coil is 14AWG and it measured 1.022mh Q14.9 and D .067. Are these coils really equivalent or is there some other factor/value, related to the different wire AWG, that will change the woofer response?

Thanks,
henrylrjr

 

[gootee]

That's a pretty good match. Good work!

They are almost equivalent, in terms of lumped-component models. So behavior should be similar but the air core won't have hysteresis distortion, or any possibility of saturation.

 

[AllenB]

Sometimes the response/channel balance can be dependent on the specifics of the component so a measurement before the change would settle it.

 

[speakerdoctor]

That's a pretty good match. Good work!

They are almost equivalent, in terms of lumped-component models. So behavior should be similar but the air core won't have hysteresis distortion, or any possibility of saturation.

Gootee, your last posts about 2 years prior to the above post indicatea you were still vasilating on whether or not to do the xover upgrade and thus, there's been no closure to your OP. Any updates on whether or not you went thru with an upgrade? If so, your listening and/or measuring impressions please?

I also question your OP statement that your goal was the most-accurate reproduction of the source material.
Judging from your concerns about cap ESR and coil DCR changes, I'd say your goal was to not alter the original voicing of the speaker that could result from those changes. Was that then based on an assumption that the original voicing was the most-accurate reproduction of the source material?