Jantzen Wax Coil or Mundorf M-Coil CFC

I have found the huge company  Solen (French Cap) to be every bit as good as expensive "audiophile" caps. It wouldn't surprise me if they made them for these boutique companies. And you can get them in just about any value.

http://solen.ca/product-category/capacitors/

http://www.parts-express.com/brand/solen/192

Cheers George

Ooops sorry (brain fart), saw Mundorf, Jantzen and M and thought cap.

If that’s the case get over value air coil ones and with cheap inductance meter, take some winding off till you reach your preferred inductance.

Cheers George

If the originals are air core and replaced with good quality air core with the same inductance and same dc resistance as the originals, I don’t think it matters too much.

But if you replace an iron core with an air core of the same inductance and dc resistance, then you "may" hear a difference, as an iron core will saturate earlier than an air core on big transients.

They sometimes use iron core chokes (coils) as a cost cutting (less copper needed) and for smaller physical size.

Cheers George

Debatable if you would hear the expense difference. Just change any iron core inductors for air core of the same value and dc resistance.

Cheers George

ok. So no need for fancy inductor?

Yuviarora, interesting.  I am considering Jantzen wax coils versus Mundorf, but don’t know what you mean by “Mundorf plastic coils “.  Mundorf’s best foil air core is “Copper Foil Paper”, is that the one you mean?

Timely posts for me! I purchased both Jantzen Litz wire wax and Jantzen solid wire inductors some time ago as final mods for my Klipschorn crossovers. Can't recall exactly why I purchased both solid wire and litz wax wire, seems I remember something about litz being preferable to solid for tweeters, or maybe I have it backwards. Can anyone inform me as to preferences here?

I agree with @yuviarora —-crossover inductors make a massive difference in sound quality.  People like to swap caps but rarely do you hear comments about coil comparisons.  In my high efficiency speakers with 12db crossovers, I have tried quite a few coils and I ended up with different types for the woofer and midrange/tweeter.  On the woofer I prefer Solen 14g Perfect Lay air cores which have a warm, rich, dynamic sound.  On the midrange/tweeter I prefer JantZen 15g Air-Core (solid wire); in this spot the Solen Perfect-Lay sounds too soft.  I have also tried JantZen 14g C-Coil toroids which can sound pretty good on woofers but too edgy with mids and tweets.  JantZen iron core with discs are nice and cheap but too edgy and fuzzy.  I tried a number of foil inductors and didn’t like any of them.  Vintage iron coils are too edgy.

I haven’t tried the new JantZen wax coils.  From the description in this thread that’s now on my list of things to try.

By plastic, I mean the Polypropylene used to insulate the foil capacitors. 

Both the Mundorf and Jantzen wax are amazing inductors...but for me, that paper housing has a more vintage/analogue sound, and the background is jet black. 

You will not go wrong with either to be honest......Mundorf also makes a papper coil capacitor, that is encased in paper and a proprietary resin. 

On my next speaker project, I will be getting some Duelund inductors, and all Duelund foil capacitors to do my crossover. 

Seems many reviewers like litz for tweeters and mids. One takehttp://alkeng.com/

Correction, The polypropylene is used in the MCoil inductors. 

The VCoil are the paper and resin inductors. 

I have only used the MCoil inductors, and that is they have a plastic housing.

The VCoil foil inductors should be a very good competitor to the Jantzen wax though. 

Yuviarora, I assume you are, in your next project, using the Duelund CAST inductors? Any idea how they’ll perform vs the Jantzen wax based on speaking with others, or will you not know until you try?

@gererick Honestly, I can only go by what others have said, they are supposed to be the best inductors on the market. I have extensive experience with Duelund capacitors and they are worth every penny.  Their performance for me has been phenomenal. 

I will be getting some Magnepan 20.7s at some point this coming year, and of course I'll leave some impressions...till then it's fingers crossed.

Yuviarora, thanks! Do you have any perspective as to optimal gauge (AWG) of inductor? I am hearing via audiocircle that 12 gauge sounds better than 14 gauge on the midrange section. Resistance is lower so it will not match the original if the original is higher gauge, but not so much lower that it materially changes dB levels.

in the woofer section, lower gauge than 12 AWG could possibly be better still. The poster felt that two 12 AWG inductors = 9 AWG would be better than an 8 or 9 AWG inductor. Two 12 AWG inductors of 1mH each in parallel does not equal 2 mph, though.

That poster seems to have posted some info that others more reputable did not agree with, so his posts have uncertain reliability.  Nothing absurd, just small stuff.

Thoughts?

I have the first pair of Tekton Design Matrix LS.

12 gauge all the way. I have tried 16 and 12 gauge, and the 12 sounded better in every possible way. The difference in cost is nothing for an $18k speaker :)

I think anything over 12 gauge might be overkill, but then again I have seen others claim otherwise. Mundorf has a 70mm wide inductor, comes out as 10 gauge which might be a good option. 

Jantzen 10 gauges are thicker foils, which I would stay away from. 

You have some very nice speakers, hopefully I get to listen to pair one of these days. 

I am in Southern Westchester County, NY, on the off-chance you are within a drivable distance.

I would definitely take you up on that offer, but I am on the other side of the country.... Los Angeles. 

I hope you can get your crossover figured out 🙏

Those speakers deserve a good one.  

If the Mundorf coils with paper (specifically MCoil VLCU Copper Foil Paper) is available in 9 AWG (and assuming not too thick of a conductor at 9 AWG) while the Duelund CAST inductors are 12 AWG, I wonder which of the two sounds better, and how much better, in the bass and perhaps also midrange sections.  I know Duelund is more costly but am not terribly sensitive to cost unless the improvement is minor, and there may be a long wait time for Duelund inductors.  A friend checked recently and was told close to a year.

You should be fine with the Mundorf honestly.

If the wait was say a month, that would be a different thing, but a year is unreasonable.

The 70mm foil should be perfect for your application, just make sure to also upgrade the wiring on the inside of the speakers.

We can upgrade the tweeter and woofer wiring easily enough. The midrange is made up of 14 forward firing tweeters on each cabinet, 28 in total, and a harness of some kind. Also, they may be in an enclosure, don’t know. There is a rear firing tweeter and mid also, but I am not concerned about that. I am considering whether to upgrade the wire for the woofer and tweeter drivers, but not the mids. If unpleasant, go back to stock.  I have Cardas Clear Beyond speaker cables and access to synergistic Cardas hookup wire with similar geometry.  The hookup wire was used in later model Merlin speakers and was also part of an upgrade package.

My USB and XLR cables are DIY copper foil. 

Speaker cables are 12 gauge Neotech Solid OCC Copper DIY

Internal cables, including crossover are 14 Gauge Neotech Solid OCC copper

Once you build your crossover, just try out a few different ones, see what sounds best in your application. Every speaker is different. 

Must be a tad tricky soldering foil type conductors to those mini usb solder tabs! 

@grannyring My dac doesn’t use the Power and Ground connectors.

It was hard at first, but I have gotten very good at it :) The trick is in the fold at the very ends.   

I use 16 gauge Mundorf foil for my cables. 17mm wide.

And yes, they sound incredible.

Are Jantzen Wax Coil inductors the best solution for mid-bass crossover?

How do they compared to Solen Hepta Litz Inductors?

How do they compared to vintage iron core inductors?

Better in every way. 

Iron cores should never be used in any speakers you care to keep around.

The foils are better than the litz in resolution, dynamics, speed, clarity, timbre to name just a few things.  

Iron core inductors are best for the woofers due to the lower dc resistance. Airs for the high-end.

Absolute low DC resistance in a coil is not always a good thing.

A good crossover designer builds that into his design, and altering the DCR can alter the crossover.  It's often a beneficial thing in that lit becomes part of the work to balances efficiency for bass output.

Alter the DCR of the woofer coil and you alter the system balance.

Alter the ESR of a capacitor going to ground and you can introduce some really odd impedance curve behavior.

Parts Connexion will unroll any of their foil caps for a fee.  Send Chris an e-mail, really a great guy to work with.

https://www.partsconnexion.com/

Hi @erik_squires,

I like https://www.partsconnexion.com/ but they don’t sell inductors that I interest for Jantzen Wax Coils and Mundorf MCoil VLCU Paper Copper Film Inductors.

I experienced one paradox. I have Altec 604E speakers. I used DIY German crossover built with autotransformer. The LPF iron core inductor DCR was 0.2 Ohm.

Now I use n-1500 crossover with original old iron core inductor DCR = 0.32 Ohm and different modern PIO capacitors and Duelund resistors.

Bass reproduction with German DIY crossover was bloated. Despite higher inductor DCR, bass reproduction with n-1500 is much more controlled, textured and detailed. I just want to add n-1500 has around +3dB output on 5K-10K vs German DIY crossover, that can be an important factor.

Regards,

Alex.

https://www.hificollective.co.uk/

they have all the inductors you want. 

Hi @yuviarora ,

Currently I use vintage iron core 1.5mH inductors with 0.32 Ohms DCR. And I like how do my speakers sound with my current crossover configuration.

I’m choosing between Jantzen Wax Coil 14AWG - 0.34R DCR and 12AWG - 0.25R DCR.

Jantzen Wax Coil 14AWG has a very similar DCR to my current inductor. Any reason to go to Jantzen Wax Coil 12AWG?

Regards,

Alex.

@alexberger if it's the for the mids, I'd go 12 gauge, the larger coil just sounds better in every way, at least it did in my speaker setup.  

Two weeks ago I received Jantzen Wax Coil 14 AWG inductors.

My Altec 604E speakers are super sensitive, so I decided 14AWG should be good enough.

Break-in takes a lot of time. In the beginning the sound was similar to my vintage Altec iron core inductors. The single major difference was much less congestion on complex music with the Jantzen inductor.

After a small amount of time dynamics and resolution improved. But the sound was lacking bass. Then the bass amount increased but height frequencies increased even more. Sound is still continuing to change. 

How long does it take a full break in of Jantzen Wax Coil 14AWG inductors?