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B&W 803D crossover caps

I am considering an upgrade of the crossover capacitors in by B&W 803Ds, particularly the mid and HF coupling caps.

I took out the top bass driver to find out what caps were installed. It looks like for the diamond tweeter B&W uses a Mundorf Supreme silver/gold, 4.7 mfd 1200V. For the mid driver there are two; a 47 mfd Mundorf MKP 400V series coupling cap (in series with the driver) and a 10 mfd Mundorf Supreme siver/gold bypassing cap (parallel to the driver).

I was thinking about changing out all three, but have a few concerns.

I was going to replace the 10 mfd, 4.7 mfd Supreme silver/gold with Supreme silver/gold/oil. Would there be enough of a difference in these two types to justify the cost? I also do not want to make the upper end any brighter.

I am also concerned about the long term reliability of oil filled caps, as some failures have been reported in warmer environments. I wonder if B&W did not use the silver/gold/oils for that reason.

The biggest impact I suspect will come from the replacement of that series 47 mfd MKP. I would probably use either the Mundorf MCap EVO (Al metalization), MCap EVO oil (Al/oil), or the MCap EVO silver/gold/oil. All three are the same size for 47 mfd, and will fit to replace the MKP. Barring the issues about oil, which might be the best sounding? Again, I want to avoid too much enhancement of the upper midrange.
dhl93449

Showing 1 response by erik_squires

erik_squires
16,733 posts
 
The issue of Mundorf vs. Copper film:
Mundorf Supreme caps have their very own house sound. To me it is like a disney / Fuji film sheen with hypersaturated colors. Scintillation is also a good way to describe it.

This is what Magico and B&W like to use in their top end.

If you bought your speakers for that, stick with the capacitor and speaker brand.
If you are getting into swapping to copper film caps, which are my choice, you maybe need different speakers altogether, because they are not going to sound the same and you are going to end up in a lot of expensive upgrades before you realize that.
A good cost effective compromise IMHO is to use Clarity's top end with copper film bypass caps for anything over 5uF
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