Since I was asked.. Yes- I knew Jeff very well, both in the hobby, and personally. He told me of his resistor story at one point as well in person.
To say that he used even moderately 'expectant' parts, really would not be all that accurate. Jeff really only used a step higher in cost when he felt it was applicable, and he didn't do it very often. He would save and buy NOS surplus parts from places like Apex Jr, or watch for a good sale price. He would use lower cost steel-laminate coils for the lower DCR, sandcast resistors, and film caps more often than not.
That said, I am one to try various capacitors, and Jeff knew that. At one point he and I were at his place, and he stated that he didn't really care to try various types. He also said though that he likely would have been "able to perceive differences if there were any." He worded it as such that his answer really gave me no answer as to how he really thought about them, and let me think as I do. I do know that Jeff thought the Helios deserved the Clarity CSAs on them, whether better or not. I also know that the original Davids had Audiocap Thetas as bypasses on the tweeter. He said he did that just because he could, not that they mattered much. I know he was also proud of a RelCap PPMF buyout he stumbled onto once.
He also told me once that someone had come to his place to get some measurements taken, apparently not me, and liked to roll caps as well. Turns out the tweeter was out of phase on one cabinet, but no cap-rolling will fix that issue.
When Chuck and I went through Jeff's parts, there were Meniscus Cebos (though we don't think he ever got to use them), Solen FC, Panasonic mylars, one big litz coil, one big foil coil, and a bunch of: steel-laminates, smaller air-cores, NOS surplus capacitors, and a couple of: 1500uF NPEs, Audiocap Theta 0.1uF, and some Eton caps. That's really about it. He voiced in mono for the kits and things he designed, so he only needed singles at times.
Even so, with all of this information that just "good solid parts" work well for one of the best xover designers I've known; I never actually got a straight answer out of him on this subject.
To classicalfan, I actually heard both of Jeff's versions of the Piccolo in his home, the original sealed and the later vented design. I must say I also liked them. I did feel the vented option seemed to get the weight of the bass a little better than the sealed option however. He voiced them to be similar to that of the Continuums, but with SB drivers for the proprietary kits.
I DO feel that the Q4 caps are fantastic, sound great, and are fairly inexpensive. I will use these over Dayton caps whenever possible. I only use Dayton caps on inexpensive/cheap builds, because the Q4 sound that much better.
Anywho, enough of my ramblings,
Wolf
To say that he used even moderately 'expectant' parts, really would not be all that accurate. Jeff really only used a step higher in cost when he felt it was applicable, and he didn't do it very often. He would save and buy NOS surplus parts from places like Apex Jr, or watch for a good sale price. He would use lower cost steel-laminate coils for the lower DCR, sandcast resistors, and film caps more often than not.
That said, I am one to try various capacitors, and Jeff knew that. At one point he and I were at his place, and he stated that he didn't really care to try various types. He also said though that he likely would have been "able to perceive differences if there were any." He worded it as such that his answer really gave me no answer as to how he really thought about them, and let me think as I do. I do know that Jeff thought the Helios deserved the Clarity CSAs on them, whether better or not. I also know that the original Davids had Audiocap Thetas as bypasses on the tweeter. He said he did that just because he could, not that they mattered much. I know he was also proud of a RelCap PPMF buyout he stumbled onto once.
He also told me once that someone had come to his place to get some measurements taken, apparently not me, and liked to roll caps as well. Turns out the tweeter was out of phase on one cabinet, but no cap-rolling will fix that issue.
When Chuck and I went through Jeff's parts, there were Meniscus Cebos (though we don't think he ever got to use them), Solen FC, Panasonic mylars, one big litz coil, one big foil coil, and a bunch of: steel-laminates, smaller air-cores, NOS surplus capacitors, and a couple of: 1500uF NPEs, Audiocap Theta 0.1uF, and some Eton caps. That's really about it. He voiced in mono for the kits and things he designed, so he only needed singles at times.
Even so, with all of this information that just "good solid parts" work well for one of the best xover designers I've known; I never actually got a straight answer out of him on this subject.
To classicalfan, I actually heard both of Jeff's versions of the Piccolo in his home, the original sealed and the later vented design. I must say I also liked them. I did feel the vented option seemed to get the weight of the bass a little better than the sealed option however. He voiced them to be similar to that of the Continuums, but with SB drivers for the proprietary kits.
I DO feel that the Q4 caps are fantastic, sound great, and are fairly inexpensive. I will use these over Dayton caps whenever possible. I only use Dayton caps on inexpensive/cheap builds, because the Q4 sound that much better.
Anywho, enough of my ramblings,
Wolf
..........
I agree with you "Toto", your F1 team is seriously threatened by some crazy people at the wheel !
2021 Monza Hamilton Verstappen big crash!!! - YouTube
Going back to reality, I swapped JBL PIO capacitors many years ago for Clarity Cap "audiophiles", and yes, it is subjective if it made the sound worse or better, but they sounded different. Nowadays the differences do not seem so important to me, I cannot understand what happened in my ears ...
I agree with you "Toto", your F1 team is seriously threatened by some crazy people at the wheel !
2021 Monza Hamilton Verstappen big crash!!! - YouTube
Going back to reality, I swapped JBL PIO capacitors many years ago for Clarity Cap "audiophiles", and yes, it is subjective if it made the sound worse or better, but they sounded different. Nowadays the differences do not seem so important to me, I cannot understand what happened in my ears ...
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Wolf,
I really need to thank you for being part of my reason for building the Piccolos.
You are mention in Jeff’s write up for these speakers as liking them very much. He actually says that the three of you listening to these speakers were “blown away” by them. And I agree.
Here are a few excerpts from his write up on the Meniscus website:
This is a small speaker designed to deliver the highest level of performance at entry level prices. In fact, it is a very high level of construction and performance competitive with the finest small speakers at any price. You are just able to have this performance at entry level prices...
Over the holidays I had a couple of guys over - Wolf and Rory Buzka, and we listened to several speakers and discovered some new music that each other brought. It had been a while since I had listened to the vented Piccolos, and this was probably the first extended listening session with them since venting them with the ports. All of us, including me, were blown away by these little speakers...
These are really a top-of-the-line mini-speaker: Excellent low distortion drivers, low crossover point, near perfect phase tracking, flat response, stable impedance, great bass extension, a solid cabinet - I would put them up against anything in their size range at any price...
And here is another comment by Jeff found earlier in the write up about the Piccolos;
The tweeter is the SB29RDCN-004 ring tweeter with neo magnet. It is extremely linear and, like the woofer, has very low distortion in its operating range. This tweeter is already developing quite a following and is used in some very high end commercial speaker systems.
But a lot of people here are trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be so easily satisfied. That I need to experiment with different capacitors in the crossover in order make sure I’m getting the best possible sound.
That is really bad advice and it is driven unfortunately by the idea that there is a big variation between brands of capacitors that can easily be heard. In this design Jeff used just garden variety relatively inexpensive Audyn Cap Q4s.
If someone else thinks that they can improve on the sound with a different brand capacitor they are welcome to try. However, I wouldn’t waste my time on it.
I really need to thank you for being part of my reason for building the Piccolos.
You are mention in Jeff’s write up for these speakers as liking them very much. He actually says that the three of you listening to these speakers were “blown away” by them. And I agree.
Here are a few excerpts from his write up on the Meniscus website:
This is a small speaker designed to deliver the highest level of performance at entry level prices. In fact, it is a very high level of construction and performance competitive with the finest small speakers at any price. You are just able to have this performance at entry level prices...
Over the holidays I had a couple of guys over - Wolf and Rory Buzka, and we listened to several speakers and discovered some new music that each other brought. It had been a while since I had listened to the vented Piccolos, and this was probably the first extended listening session with them since venting them with the ports. All of us, including me, were blown away by these little speakers...
These are really a top-of-the-line mini-speaker: Excellent low distortion drivers, low crossover point, near perfect phase tracking, flat response, stable impedance, great bass extension, a solid cabinet - I would put them up against anything in their size range at any price...
And here is another comment by Jeff found earlier in the write up about the Piccolos;
The tweeter is the SB29RDCN-004 ring tweeter with neo magnet. It is extremely linear and, like the woofer, has very low distortion in its operating range. This tweeter is already developing quite a following and is used in some very high end commercial speaker systems.
But a lot of people here are trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be so easily satisfied. That I need to experiment with different capacitors in the crossover in order make sure I’m getting the best possible sound.
That is really bad advice and it is driven unfortunately by the idea that there is a big variation between brands of capacitors that can easily be heard. In this design Jeff used just garden variety relatively inexpensive Audyn Cap Q4s.
If someone else thinks that they can improve on the sound with a different brand capacitor they are welcome to try. However, I wouldn’t waste my time on it.
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Wow dude let it go…….nobody here told you to molest Jeff’s design……there are plenty of other speakers to test the theory on.
Your take away should be SOME people can hear differences in capacitors while others can’t , then some are just brainwashed into thinking they never would so why bother.
The ones that do notice a difference can use this as a tuning tool to get a preferred sound.
The ones that don’t shouldn’t go around on some sort of attention seeking rant about how if it’s not replacing a old electrolytic with a PP the only differences they’re hearing are delusional bias.
Please excuse my bluntness..….carry on
Your take away should be SOME people can hear differences in capacitors while others can’t , then some are just brainwashed into thinking they never would so why bother.
The ones that do notice a difference can use this as a tuning tool to get a preferred sound.
The ones that don’t shouldn’t go around on some sort of attention seeking rant about how if it’s not replacing a old electrolytic with a PP the only differences they’re hearing are delusional bias.
Please excuse my bluntness..….carry on
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The purpose of starting this thread is to let others know that there is no good explanation for the claims some people make about significant changes in speaker sound by simply changing from one brand of capacitor to another.
There is no science to back up those claims nor are there any well controlled independent tests to support them either.
Perhaps someday there will be proof of those claims, maybe not. But everything in the meantime is just hearsay and totally subjective opinions. And many of those are driven by confirmation bias.
People are free to choose any route they like. Just as you are free to choose not to read this thread if it bothers you.
There is no science to back up those claims nor are there any well controlled independent tests to support them either.
Perhaps someday there will be proof of those claims, maybe not. But everything in the meantime is just hearsay and totally subjective opinions. And many of those are driven by confirmation bias.
People are free to choose any route they like. Just as you are free to choose not to read this thread if it bothers you.
>There is no good explanation for the claims some people make about significant changes in sound by simply changing something.
The oldest audio "debate" flavor. 35 years ago when we were all using ASCII terminals, one guy claimed he could hear the difference after connecting Radio Shack RCA right-angle adapters onto his preamp outputs (He couldnt slide the component back into position on the shelf otherwise, due to the stiff high end interconnects he had). A hundred replies to that thread and he wouldnt back down, over maybe 1.5" of extra metal the line level signal was conducted through.
Well, it used to be fun...
The oldest audio "debate" flavor. 35 years ago when we were all using ASCII terminals, one guy claimed he could hear the difference after connecting Radio Shack RCA right-angle adapters onto his preamp outputs (He couldnt slide the component back into position on the shelf otherwise, due to the stiff high end interconnects he had). A hundred replies to that thread and he wouldnt back down, over maybe 1.5" of extra metal the line level signal was conducted through.
Well, it used to be fun...
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I did not know science could listen or speak.
Science and theoretics are not always right.
Wolf
As I've already discussed I haven't tried to make any changes to the Piccolos and have no intention of doing so.
I'm a believer in "if ain't broke, don't fix it." And these Piccolos definitely "ain't broke." Quite to the contrary, they sound superb.
And I think, Wolf, you have had a similar experience with Piccolo speakers as I reported above.
If I wasn't happy with sound of a speaker I would likely look into making some changes. But worrying about the specific brand of crossover capacitors would be very low on my list.
You won't accept good explanations because you want proof, same old story, understood.
I think you have it backwards.
I'm not the one worrying about things. It's the people that keep playing around with a bunch of capacitors trying to tweak their crossovers that are worrying about things.
And I fully enjoy the music just as it is. Certainly don't want to put an equalizer in the system to screw things up. I don't even use the tone controls on my amplifier. Have it set on Straight Through and don't touch it.
So thanks for your interest, but as I've already expressed I'm very happy with things just the way they are and am not looking to make any changes.
But I do like the idea of listening with a beer. That's a good suggestion from you.
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Well, what you consider to be good explanations I find to be pretty flimsy.
They are primarily based on anecdotal evidence obtained in completely uncontrolled circumstances and rife with potential confirmation bias.
You might consider those to be good explanations, but I certainly don't. Nor do many other people who have my same reservations about them.
And yes, I would like to see some proof. Since when did that become a bad or unreasonable thing? Last I looked proof was considered to be a good thing.
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When you say “the science tells me there is little if any chance of it making a difference” , are you referring to a specific cognitive/perceptive peer reviewed study made in the field of psychology using randomized double blind testing proving your point or are you referring to the lack of any such study?
Classicalfan, can you answer the question posed by Jakob2 in this thread? What kind of evidence do you consider as sufficient?
What I am referring to is the fact that these suggested capacitor changes cannot be shown to change the output from the speakers. Assuming, of course, that the same value capacitor is used.
That is saying you cannot measure any change. And if you cannot measure it you cannot hear it. Pretty simple.
But I'm glad you brought up the subject of randomized double blind testing. That is exactly what is necessary to prove once and for all if these capacitor changes can be heard and make any difference. To the best of my knowledge such tests have never been performed.
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