Crossover mods and speaker efficiancy?

If the speakers are drawing more current (=using more power) to produce the same volume, then by definition they are less efficient. This could be because your mods changed the impedance of the crossover network and more current is bypassing the drivers. The impedance will change unless the new components are exactly the same value as the ones they replaced, and since caps and coils are notorious for having actual values that are quite a bit different from the stated value, this is highly likely. Plus or minus 20% is not unusual. If this is the case, you most certainly changed the crossover frequencies and the resulting increase or decrease in volume at certain frequencies around the crossover points may be what you perceive as being an improvement in the sound.

All crossovers waste a certain amount of power, and your new crossovers may waste more than the originals due to the change in impedance. This is not neccesarily bad if they sound better and the amp has enough oomph to provide the extra current.

The other explanation is as above, you are listening at louder levels without realizing it. This would explain why the sound is "bigger." It's louder so it sounds bigger.

Unless you took measurements before and after the mods you'll never know for sure which it is.

Sean, he never said he used "heavier gauge inductors and lower loss components," that is an assumption on your part. He used different components. There is no telling whether they were more or less anything with the limited information given. Perhaps Hales used higher quality components than the modder. If Hales did their job then they listened to a wide variety of components and settled on the one that delivered the best performance (sounded best to them) at their price point. Replacing that component with one that is more expensive may or may not result in better performance. Perhaps a certain value of coil is replaced with "higher quality" heavier guage coil that has the exact same inductance but lower resistance. The new coil will sound different, but will not neccesarily sound better because the speaker was voiced with the higher resistance coil.

In any case, the wasted energy I'm refering to is not in the components, but what is directed around the speakers. A coil in parallel with a tweeter will create a high pass filter and the lower frequency currents will flow through the coil. If am inductor with a different impedance is used then the amount of current will be different, altering the cut off frequency and the amount of current that amp has to deliver.

I also don't accuse Hales of being sloppy with tolerances. Tolerances are what they are. Maybe the coils they used were a little higher than labeled (lets say 10%) but well within spec. Hales doesn't care as long as they got the sound they wanted. If the mod then chooses coils that are a little off the other way (say 10% low) then you have a 20% difference between the new and original, plus the differences in the resistance of the wire.

I guess my point is this. There are too many variables and crossover design is too complicated to answer the original question in a brief post. In general I agree that more money will give better performance, but it never ceases to amaze me that one would assume that just because they spent a lot of money on new cap or coil, that it will perform better than the component the manufacturer chose.

I think we are all on the same page here. I agree with Mitch that what he did was a gamble, and I'm glad he won the bet. I'm sure the manufacturers do have to look long and hard at the components in the crossover. If they used the quality of stuff that Mitch used it would raise the retail price quite a bit.

The bottom line for me is that I don't think just replacing the stock components with more expensive (higher quality?) ones is always going to yield superior results, and since they are so expensive it is a gamble I'm not willing to take. In an ideal situation you would build the crossover and then play the same game the manufacturer does and try different values in different combinations until you hit on the best combo, but with each component costing so much few can afford to pay for all of the uneeded, leftover stuff.

Glad it all worked out for you.

You bought $14,000 20.1's for less than $1,000??

Do they have anymore for sale at that price? That is an incredible deal.