Clarity MR caps for external crossover?
I recently initiated a thread on the same topic, which you might find informative. You can read it here. Clarity, Mundorf, and Duelund all came up. Wish I could advise more, but I'm just starting down this road myself. Good luck. Bryon |
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html An EXTENSIVE list of caps and thumbnail review of each. Name your price: name your quality level: Take a chance! Some combos with bypass caps are listed and given good marks. Some of the downline Clarity caps are both affordable and an improvement on as-issued caps. My panels come with Solen caps. Easily improved upon without taking out a home loan. |
We don't know what the speaker system is but I'll offer some thoughts, FWIW. The MRs are very nice to my ears. The lesser Claritys seem to be not much different in sound to Sonicaps. So if you can afford the MR, go for it. Actually, the 2% Solens are pretty good but no where near the MR and other caps. Some of your values are rather large and I'm guessing at xover points around 100, 500, and 4K? If possible, you may want to think about an active line level solution for the 100Hz pole. Anyway, your best bet for improvement while keeping the cost low is to by-pass larger value caps with smaller value, high-dollar caps. Some folks don't like the sound with by-pass caps so as usual you just have to try for yourself. Good luck and have fun. Let us know how things turn out. |
I'll get ZERO traction with this, but you may want to look into improving the inductor(s) in the bass circuit. This has the greatest need for power handling and may benefit from air cores. Stock inductors are probably iron/laminated/ferite cored. Matching DCR will gain power handling / headroom and not change the crossover point. The other thing I see on 'stock' crossovers is incorrect placement of inductors. Many are on the same plane and edge to edge where they interact....badly. ALL coils should be at right angles to one another with as much spacing as reasonably possible. An external crossover maximizes these possibilities while keeping the capacitors safe the pressure changes inside an enclosure which breed microphonic effects. |
Better to keep old network intact build new one compare the 2. How can you tell If its a real improvement unless you have a base to compare too. Best is to have 2 of the same model keep one stock make upgrades to the other compare measure changes. If not then its a true shot in the dark. For what I see some spending on over costly crossover parts they could afford this with ease. |
The MR's have perfect synergy with Tannoy drivers. For the values that CC does not make, split the value in half. Using unequal values, especially in series with the tweeter, will have a negative effect on spacial information. As for the 200uf, I would consider ESA's though. And I agree with Magfan in using an air core inductor for the LF circuit. Be sure to match the DCR withing 10, preferably 5% or you'll be sure to create undesired effects. |
OH! one other thing. Many online inductor calculators exist. Some allow for more changes in dimensions than others. All can use any wire gauge. My inductors for my Magnepan 1.6s is an aircore near-duplicate of the iron core stock. New is 14 ga. and 0.38ohms while the original is 16ga and .040ohms. Within the 5% suggestion of Face. Also, my inductor is 13 layers of 13 turns, so it is the theoretical 'perfect' shape for an inductor. And to ice it, I managed to use as a core, some PVC so the size is both available and cheap. I started an Excel spreadsheet and just started entering data spit out by the calculator I chose. Once I discerned a pattern, I zero'd in on what I wanted. THAN I checked my work on a couple other calculators. All agreed. |
Thanks to all for your comments. After months of study, I have selected all parts for my crossover project. Decided to go with Clarity MR because of (IMHO) the price/value ratio, and because it's what Tannoy chose for its new flagship Kingdom Royal. Will report my results some months down the road... |
