Acoustic Zen Crescendo speaker crossover capacitors ... who makes them?
I own the MKl version of the Crescendo and see the crossover uses all Acoustic Zen branded capacitors. Most are blue in color with the smallest values bring black. Does anyone know what company makes these for AZ? I did email the builder, but no answer. Love any information the community may have on this topic.
These speakers are very respectable But,the Xovers are very lacking especially for Speakers including the Adagio the Xovers made in Taiwan ,I helped a friend on the flagship and I owned the Adagio the Audyn true Copper and Mundorf supreme caps are 3x in size as well in weight far better quality .for a few hundred dollars A dramatic upgrade across the board . My uncle is a pro audio engineer and knows the Chinese pricing model well being there several months a year.the cabinets at most 500 each and 250 on the Adagio a substantial profit margin for even the drivers are made in Taiwan which Like tang band very good, but far less expensive then scan speak , seas,or Dynaudio. I am just stating facts .I feel if being charged $5k and up I should get at least decent quality boutique Xover parts .Even Clarity ESA capacitors, and Mills resistors are a substantial upgrade in sonics at a minimal cost and still leave a very good profit margin .this is a pretty accurate statement. At least offer premium upgraded Xovers for just the price of the parts ,I think that would be fair. When just being built easy to install .I had to take everything apart to modify to mount the bigger parts a lot of extra work after they are built.
Audioman58, my thoughts exactly to be frank here. It was a ton of work putting in the parts that should have been used upfront after the speakers were built. Mills or other good resistors would have cost perhaps $3 each instead of $.30 cents each. A $20,000 speaker should use a $3 dollar resistor :)
I see this all the time in high end gear however and it does cause me to shake my head.
Audioman58, I still have the bass boards to upgrade. Each speaker uses two 1000uf, 100v caps. Yes they are low cost electrolytics. Any suggestions here? These boards have 8 ohm and 12 ohm 20 watt resistors which I will replace with 2 Mills MRA 12’s in parallel. But the caps? Not entirely sure a better electrolytic cap from Audio Note will help much here or not. Film caps in parallel would be very expensive and perhaps take up too much room. Not sure bypassing electrolytic caps with film bundles is advantagious on a bass crossover board. I know it works great in amplifiers, but crossover boards?
Absolutely a good price used for a great sounding speaker in stock form. It is a wonderful speaker! Along with the Harbeth 40.1 it is the finest speaker I have owned and I have owned many good ones!
I agree with Bill, 9K for the AZ Crescendos is a very good price for what you'll get. Just my observation but this speaker impresses me more than the Wilson Sasha or the Magico S3 or S5 when heard under similar show conditions. This is not meant as a knock on the other two speakers which are well regarded and popular, just my opinion.
The Cresendo with the right amplifier match is capable of producing beautiful sound that engages you. YMMV. Charles
Why not bias the electrolytic caps in the woofer cross over all you need it two (4 for the set) more 1000uF capacitors which Madisound sells, put them in series with the existing capacitors then bias the mid point with a number of 9V batteries in series, four should probably do for 36V. Positive goes to the midpoint via a 1M Ohm resistor negative goes to ground. JBL use this technique in their flagship speakers
Alternatively buy 40 100uF metabolized polypropylene capacitors - with that quantity you should be able to get a discount :-)
Peter thanks so much for the post. This is new to me and I need to learn more about it. I will see if a can become more familiar with the idea and implementation.
Have you done this? I ask as I wonder if this will make these cheap electrolytic caps sound as good as decent metalized poly caps? Very interesting.
So I hook up 4 nine volt batteries in series with the positive lead of the first battery going directly to a 1mohm resister then to the junction point of the series caps and the negative lead of the last battery going to the negative return of the low pass circuit. That simple? I better test that no DC is getting through. The electrolytic caps should be non-polar correct?
Yes I ave used this technique and it defiantly improves the SQ of a Bipolar Electrolytic Capacitor. All capacitors in a Speaker Crossover should be Bipolar as this is an AC circuit. If you google this there are many diagrams on how to connect the circuit, and you are describing it correctly, you must however use a separate feed from the battery to each set of capacitors - luckily 1M Ohm resistors are very inexpensive.
One small correction to above post - since you are connecting the capacitors in series each should have a value of 2000uF, a series connection of capacitors results in half the value of each - i.e 2000uF in series with 2000uF = 1000uF
In all honesty the whole Xover only passes small voltage through a Loudspeaker Everything is converted through the amplifier before the Loudspeaker. Myself learning well over 20 years ago Electrolytic are by far the worst possible Way to conduct a signal the only reason used in power supplies normally for is you needed say 10,000uf in capacitance, poly caps are night and day less distortion and noise but are Huge vs same UF- Microfared in capacitance. In a Loudspeaker largest are in bass caps say 80uf for example.Bass nowhere as critical to the ear such as midrange a decent cap like Clarity ESA, or top shelf for Bass Which I use a Munforf Supreme if in your budget.Duelund way too expensivefor Bass., but for midrange On a good speaker yes. In a speaker Never would consider leaving electrolytic All ways a poly cap. Go to magico, yg acoustic,marten, b&w only poly caps Electrolytic in power supply like my amp over 200k in capacitance,I then bypass with good Audyn .1uf Caps Poly caps just to clean up the. high frequency noise.This is very common practice. I just follow what the leading builders do. That being said you do whatever with your monies.
Regarding thd Crescendo I heard on several visits stock as well as modded. That is how I was aware of the caps in there .IMO they have no business at all in a over $10k Loudspeaker. At least name brand boutique caps like a Clarity ESA At the least .
Well my speaker does use two 1000uf caps per speaker so you are saying to bundle film caps and replace those electrolytics? The cost will be outrageous and I am not sure for bass frequencies it is worth it. Just imaging buying 20 -100uf caps per speaker! Will they even fit! The cost is crazy high.
@pbnaudio suggestion would cost very, very little and I have read that this battery biasing approach does indeed sound very good. As good as film caps on the bass Board? I don't really know.
I personally wouldn't bother with the bass capacitors in the Crescendo, for the effort and money required the ROI is small in terms of sonic impact. Bill you did a fine job making modifications where it matters by far the most. I'd just enjoy the improved sound quality you've discovered. Unless you just can't resist the urge to tinker further.
Ha! Charles, I can’t resist😀 I do honestly believe the bass can be improved with even the low cost battery bias mod. I know JBL and Vandersteen do it with great results. Peter who makes wonderful PBN speakers also shared it would be an improvement. The thought of those poor sounding $5 electrolytic caps will never settle well with me.
The bias mod would cost about $150 total. I think that is a modest investment for improvement. Plus I learn and execute a new mod that would be fun.
That approach makes sense and is of very modest cost. I was referring to replacement with film caps at those very high uf values. It’s funny, the stock Crescendo sounds very well "with" the dreaded electrolytic caps. You are really enjoying your sound now with those caps still in the crossover. However you’re right in that they can be improved upon.
You are right that the dreaded caps still manage to produce great bass. Design is always the most important factor. This parts thing is next, but still important.
The type of capacitor used depends on where in the crossover it is used, in some cases the only reasonable solution is to use a Electrolytic capacitor.
Use the above speaker design as an example, in the bandpass for the midrange driver there are two series capacitors and two shunt capacitors, the two series capacitors certainly in a speaker this quality needs to be metalized poly propylene 100uF is a standard value and the 180uF is made up by paralleling 2 each 90uF capacitors, the two shunt capacitors both are 27uF, since this is a relatively small size it only makes sense to use polypropylene here too and luckily 27uF is a standard size too with a pretty tight tolerance too as compared to an Electrolytic capacitor. Now for the Impedance correction network in parallel with the midrange driver, here a 820 uF capacitor is needed - the only reasonable choice is an electrolytic capacitor, in this case to get the 820uF, 320uF uF is paralleled with 500uF and then I typically use a small value polypropylene to bypass with, something like 3uF
I understand completely Peter. Thanks for sharing that link. I love the idea of building a nice kit like that. Great idea. I think the designer of my speaker did what was reasonable with the bass board. No doubt about it.
I like thinking and planning on ways to improve what is reasonable and done with perhaps more cost constraints in place for the builder.
@pbnaudio and others. The two 8 inch woofers are parallel wired. I have drawn out the circuit and taken photos of the board. Please take a look. The 1000uf caps, smaller inductor, and 8 ohm resistor all seem to be included parallel to the amps output to raise the impedance of the bass filter. Two 8 ohm woofers in parallel would deliver a net impedance of 4 ohms. The builder wanted to keep the speaker friendly to tube amps and thus implemented this impedance filter. The speaker is 6 ohms nominal. I am not sure if this impedance filter reduces the impedance peaks of the vent/port and drivers or raises the nominal woofer impedance the amp sees? Or both?
Question. Will the quality of the parts in this impedance filter impact bass quality? On paper it seems like no, but I know from experience they can very well have an impact on sound quality. Thanks in advance.
Looking at your schematic, you have a impedance correction network across the positive and negative, not knowing the value of he inductor is impossible to tell, you where it corrects, you could disconnect it measure the impedance and see where you get a raise in the impedance. Changing the caps or bias them in this circuit will not do much to SQ but you could certainly try.
The woofers are connected to a standard 18dB/Oct electrical filter consisting of two coils in series and a 200uF capacitor as a shunt via a 12 Ohm resistor between them, pretty standard stuff. However parts seems to be a extraordinarily high quality.
The caps are Taiwan or were .I have Never known them to use name brand On the few Adagio and crescendo over the last 5 years. They still sound very respectable with a Xover upgrade with boutique caps. In thd Bass just put in a bunch of poly bypass caps Solen would ge good enough. 01uf 400v would be fine that would clean it up a bit. Good Copper gold or rhodium loudspeaker terminals another easy fix. If you are open to spend around $700 while you are replacing the Loudspeaker terminals VH audio has a special. 2 years ago these were $ 1300. Bybee Golden goddesses on the hot side and then black ones on the minus. I guarantee you a more detailed quieter backgrounds and just more real soundING. I did these for a friend, I am more surprised at the results and I Allways do upgrade mods. First read a few reviews these were $4k when they first came out. They replaced the 24k hold with a matrix of things. Your call.
I recently emailed Robert Lee, owner of Acoustic Zen, telling him that I was following a thread on Audiogon where certain people had upgraded the crossovers in their Crescendo speakers with superior boutique parts with excellent results. I didn't mention any names. I asked him if he would give me a list of cap and resistor values of the Adagio so that I could experiment with upgrading parts in my speaker crossovers. His response was basically, " Please don't mess with my crossovers. They are perfect the way I have designed them. I don't know why they want to change it. I would recommend that you experiment with speaker placement and room acoustics. Please call me for recommendations. Email me photos of your system and room." I thanked him for his response, but haven't followed up with him at this time.
Sherod, I have sent him my before and after pics and asked some questions, but no answers or responses since his first initial response.
You can do it yourself easily. Your speaker is not as complex. Several great on line pictures and examples of others upgrading the speaker. The values are printed right on the caps and resistors. Easy to see and order! Don’t change out the inductors and order the parts matched within 1%. The Mills MRA resistors are already within a 1% tolerance. They are only $4 each at Sonic Craft.
I just finished my bass board today. They sound so much better after the upgrades! All owners would be so pleased and impressed with the NEW speaker!
Be sure to use two MRA12 resistors in parallel when replacing 20 watt sand cast resistors. For example you need to replace one 8 ohm sand cast 20 watt resistor with two 16 ohm Mills resistors in parallel. You can replace the 10 watt sand cast with one Mills MRA12 as they are rated for 12 watts. The sand cast resistors are clearly marked. Get those sand cast out! All of them must go.
I can tell you the speaker is so much better sounding after the upgrade. I thought they were wonderful before, but now I know what I had no idea I didn’t know:)
I now think the tweeter and mid board is fully burned in and the end result is spectacular to be sure. I plan on upgrading the binding posts in the future as the final step in the transformation of this great speaker. A great design that is begging for top end crossover parts. The drivers are very high quality as well as the speaker cab. The crossover design is first rate. Robert should be proud of his effort with this speaker and the crossover upgrades I performed just helped his fine design be all it could be! I changed no part of his design or schematic. I did not mess with values.
I think Robert should offer this speaker with upgraded crossover components as the speaker responds so well. The Super Crescendo option would cost more, but there is a market for the upgraded speaker I have in my home.
Sherod, I’ve met Mr. Lee on several occasions and he is very gracious, friendly and accommodating. He’s proud of his speakers and deservedly so. They are the result of much time, effort and talent he has put forth.
I believe that he takes the position of "hey I’ve put everything I could into making this a sucessful speaker ". He may feel a sense of resentment that someone would come along and "tamper " with a speaker he’s put so much thought and energy into building. I can appreciate how he and other builders could adapt this attitude. Some may even feel insulted.
Yet I have to agree with Bill that clearly acknowledged excellent products "can" be improved further with carefully selected higher quality parts . Better quality parts will upgrade performance compared to lesser quality parts. In fact some manufacturers do recognize this and enthusiastically offer upgrade packages.
Just as someone can resort to tube rolling to improve sound quality, one can "roll" capacitors, resistors and wire using the same rationale. Charles
I am a firm believer in upgrading with better quality capacitors. I have improved my Reference 3a Dulcet and MMC crossovers with Audyn True Copper Max with spectacular improvements. I also have refurbished at least six vintage tuners by replacing all electrolytic caps with Elna Silmic II and Black gate caps with amazing results. I have no doubt that just replacing all the sand cast resistors in the AZ Adagio crossover would make for an improvement.
Finished the bass board upgrade and again I am happy with the results. Nothing like upgrading the mid/treble board to be sure in terms of total improvement, but a nice little improvement in bass resolution or articulation. Very slight.
If someone else wants to upgrade their Crescendo speakers, I would be happy to help any way I can. I would suggest an outboard crossover if you have the room and a spouse that is ok with it. Good idea to get these parts out of the vibration woofer box😎 Behind and under woofers are not the ideal spots sonically for crossover boards. It would be fun to place them in external boxes With vibration mitigation footers etc...
The speakers are now totally broken in and sound so wonderful. They sounded great after just 24 hours of break in, but now have improved in the areas of openness, ease, and realism.
I am actually thinking of getting another set to do the same exact mod, except putting all the parts in an external crossover! We will see as I have to run it past my wife. More boxes in the room :(
Ok Crescendo owners I have an upgrade you can do and it will cost you nothing. It will improve your sound in real immediate ways that you will notice very easily. If you are somewhat handy you can do this! No soldering.
The mod is to bypass those aweful sounding binding posts. This is better than spending $750 on those top end posts. It just is.
Here is what you do.
1) Remove the binding post plate on the bottom back of the speaker by removing the 4 wood screws.
2) Mark the wires going to the top and bottom binding posts. Cut them off right at the solder point on the binding posts. Make sure you have enough wire to protrude out the plate some 1.5 -2 inches as well as enough extra slack to work with the plate. You can pull out more slack by carefully pulling the wires toward you if a couple of more inches are needed. Be sure to reseat the black putty covering the small hole the wires are coming out of behind the plate.
3) Your plates are now free to work on. Drill two holes in each plate to pass the wires through. The holes should be between the top and bottom set of posts. Like this...
post O post post O post
4) Run the wires through the holes and seal the back of the plate with more putty/plumber putty etc....
5) Thread the wires through he holes of the proper post. Be sure to strip enough bare wire to extend just beyond the plastic binding post nut on both sides.
6) Now you can place your spade or bare wire around the post just behind the hole with the wire going through it. The binding post nut will simply clamp your speaker cable run to the internal speaker wire for the best sounding connection possible.
The result will shock you. I do the same thing at the amp end for double improvement. The posts on our Crescendo sound bad folks. Bad.
Email me me for Pics! Contact me through Agon and we can go from there.
The mod is easily reversible should you desire. Simply plug the holes with a nice looking black cap/plug and resolder the wires as original. Music just sounds more real and less electronic. Improved sense of the instruments there with you in the room.
Hi Grannyring i have the MK2s and would be very interested in doing these mods into outboard crossovers. Do you have pics of the original c/os as you mentioned they were upgraded to MK2. I could compare them to mine. For some reason i can't view the pics on this post nor your listing so i sent my email through your listing
Hi Grannyring. I am about to buy your old speakers. The black Crescendos. Anything I should look out for or should shipping be an issue since they will be shipped to me in California? Nothing will come apart? Also if I may ask, why did you sell them after all that great work?
Shipping is always a possible issue depending on how rough they are on them. In terms of why I sold them, well that’s what I do! Build.... sell. Modify ....... sell. It’s part of the journey.
Thank you for the response. How did they sound when you finished and do you know if an Anthem 720mrx is enough to drive them? Thanks again for the info.
I spoke with Robert Lee at Acoustic Zen recently because as I was attempting to extract the crossover boards out of my speakers(Adagio), there was so much hot glue under the boards that I damaged the boards to where they were no longer functional. I asked Robert if he could sell me another set, not mentioning that I was going to upgrade the caps and resistors, but he told me that he discontinued the 3rd order crossover configuration about a year ago and is building his own 1st order -6db crossovers for all his models. He agreed to sell me a set of his new crossover boards and before I install them into the speakers, I will upgrade for sure the caps. Robert said he would provide instructions for easy installation, this time using special screws instead of hot glue. I know this is an older thread but if anyone is interested in the results I get, I'll post back again later.
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