It all depends on your point of view. Stiffer in general leans a bit lively, softer a bit more full and round. Something like that. You can also do stuff like mix them up, use three vs four, augment with one Nobsound, etc. They are so flexible, I was even able to use them under my crossover! Drilled and tapped the Shelf, threaded studs fasten the Pods to the crossover.
Millercarbon's Mega Moab Mod Meander
One of the all time great automotive engineers, Norbert Singer, was a key player in every one of the 16 Porsche LeMans victories from 1970 to 1998. His dominance was such that at one point Porsche had won LeMans more than all other marques combined. This was all accomplished by building on the already solid foundation of Porsche production models. The air cooled flat 12 in the 917 was really two flat sixes combined to make 12. This car so dominated motorsport the rules had to be changed to stop it!
So Norbert Singer modified Porsche production technology to extract the absolute most for racing. His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle Design https://singervehicledesign.com Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche. It is in essence a hot rod. What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics.
I am not anywhere near the level of Singer. But that is the spirit of what we are doing: taking an already world-class design and hot-rodding it to be even better. Well, better for me anyway- or so we hope!
The early modders started with substituting off the shelf parts to get more power or less weight. That is pretty much all we are doing here. Would be cool if some day people are doing this with a lot more sophisticated approach. Maybe they will. Maybe even I will. For now though we have the current crossover project.
My approach is pretty simple: better parts sound better.
This lesson was learned back in the late 90’s with Linaeum Model 10 speakers. The designer had a new tweeter and told me how to modify the crossover for it. Simple mod, one cap, one resistor. Bought the parts from Radio Shack, put it together, sounded like crap. Absolute horrid crap! Called him up, he said those parts are crap. Said Musicap, Vishay. But they measure the same? Just do it. I did. It worked. Even though they measure exactly the same, the sound difference is off the charts.
Even though they measure exactly the same. There is a lesson here. For those willing to learn.
So this is the essence of it: Eric Alexander has made a speaker the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Even better: an affordable Porsche 911! But after a while with my 911, after learning what makes it drive and feel the way it does, it was only natural to change the shocks and torsion bar and other items to bring out even more of what I like so much about the 911.
That is what we are doing here. Hot-rodding a speaker. Thank you Rick for the metaphor!
The parts are on order. Next week the fun begins!
So Norbert Singer modified Porsche production technology to extract the absolute most for racing. His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle Design https://singervehicledesign.com Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche. It is in essence a hot rod. What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics.
I am not anywhere near the level of Singer. But that is the spirit of what we are doing: taking an already world-class design and hot-rodding it to be even better. Well, better for me anyway- or so we hope!
The early modders started with substituting off the shelf parts to get more power or less weight. That is pretty much all we are doing here. Would be cool if some day people are doing this with a lot more sophisticated approach. Maybe they will. Maybe even I will. For now though we have the current crossover project.
My approach is pretty simple: better parts sound better.
This lesson was learned back in the late 90’s with Linaeum Model 10 speakers. The designer had a new tweeter and told me how to modify the crossover for it. Simple mod, one cap, one resistor. Bought the parts from Radio Shack, put it together, sounded like crap. Absolute horrid crap! Called him up, he said those parts are crap. Said Musicap, Vishay. But they measure the same? Just do it. I did. It worked. Even though they measure exactly the same, the sound difference is off the charts.
Even though they measure exactly the same. There is a lesson here. For those willing to learn.
So this is the essence of it: Eric Alexander has made a speaker the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Even better: an affordable Porsche 911! But after a while with my 911, after learning what makes it drive and feel the way it does, it was only natural to change the shocks and torsion bar and other items to bring out even more of what I like so much about the 911.
That is what we are doing here. Hot-rodding a speaker. Thank you Rick for the metaphor!
The parts are on order. Next week the fun begins!
Showing 50 responses by millercarbon
Yes the crossover got physically roughly 8X the size, if you go by volume. And I totally know about outboarding. Rick was pushing it hard. And really, I wanted to do it. Why I did not, it was a simple calculation of risk/work/reward. Moabs have a really complicated mess of wires to run. It is a lot of work running those wires, and I am not about to undertake that "just" to move the crossover outboard. A project that involved, it is not that much more work to replace all the internal wire. But I was nowhere near knowing what wire would be equivalent to as high a quality as I want. I mean I know what I want, but to get them to build it.... Anyway it is a really good project, or will be, some day.... meantime, BDR, Pods, Mats, is pretty sweet doncha think? I mean, look at the last couple pics. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 😍 |
Originals are still here. The way I did this there was never any fear of screwing it up, I was way too methodical and redundant. Main concern was getting it back in there without snagging a wire and not being able to see. If you saw how it is in there now you would not believe it. There's pictures on my system page but not of the crossover mounted in place. I don't know how it could be any tighter and still fit. |
One thing I noticed with my crossover upgrade, just a huge drop in the noise floor. To anyone who has been here they will probably get a good laugh out of that, or at least a chortle snort. Because my system is far from silent. I am one of these guys when I read people fret and worry about hearing something with their ear to the tweeter, when mine you can clearly hear no problem from the sweet spot. I would hesitate to say noisy as hell, but not by much. Which makes this strange, but true. Huge drop in the noise floor. Huge improvement in resolution of fine detail down to below a level I would have thought possible. Given all the system noise, I mean. But there it is. The reason I mention it is willgolf, you have those ultra high-sensitivity highly resolving speakers. I would think with some of these upgrades the difference might be even greater than in mine. Hard to say of course. Could well be you are coming from a higher level to begin with. Even so..... |
Yeah and thanks for sending that one to me Rick, that is all it took to convince me to go for Path Audio resistors. All the glowing accolades in that review, are what I am hearing now. Truly exceptional performance. Of course I did them all at once, even the shunt resistors are all Path Audio. And of course I did the Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps too. Doing everything all at once means no way to separate out what the resistors are doing from the caps and inductors- and BDR, and Pods! A lot of these contribute to the exceptionally low noise floor, incredible dynamics, and fantastic subtle detail I am hearing now. A local audio bud Steve was over recently and at one point said incredulously, "How much more detail can you get??!" That was before! What it sounds like now with this crossover upgrade, the old sound was thick, muddled, blurred, damped, grainy. The comment in the resistor shootout about hearing really low level detail, totally true. There's stuff now so obvious it is like where was that before?!?! What was that I was playing last night, really wish, oh yeah Steely Dan Aja! Forget which song it was, but there's what I thought was a xylophone or something, only it had a richer texture to it. That was before. Last night it was startling to hear it is not one but TWO very different instruments, one of which has a really distinct sharp attack almost like little pieces of wind chimes tinkling. Thought I knew what was on there. Not even. Freaking blew me away! If it was me willgolf, I would see if he is willing to add Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps to whatever he does (they are only .01uF and so can be added to any cap no problem) and see if he will swap out whatever resistors are in there now for Path Audio. I would hope that speakers at that level would be using parts at this level. But hope, I said. Not expect. Would be interesting to know what is in there. |
Ahh, good, thanks! I thought you were talking the usual general hypothetical sense. Instead this is one very particular case and from what you said I would have to say since you already know you love what you have, and therefore trust the guy who built them, then I have to say go for it. What I did was basically what little I can do knowing what little I do know. If I could instead call up Eric and he said well you know for that money I could upgrade all your drivers and part of the crossover and in a way that sounds better than anything you could ever do yourself, well then I would have to believe him and go for it. Replace Eric with David, and there you go. Either of these guys, since they work daily with their stuff they know it inside out. Some guy like me, I don't have time or money to figure out which cap or whatever in the crossover is so essential it is worth the very best, and which it is almost unnoticeable to sacrifice a little. So in my case it makes total sense to just overkill the whole thing, as that is cheaper than doing it five times trying to find the most cost-effective solution! In your case though you have the designer saying it is totally better. I would trust him a lot more than I would trust me. 😂😉 |
New pic added to my System page, the new crossover with all the parts, values, and connections labeled. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 |
Put it this way. I was just about done researching and ready to buy Ulf when I called teajay, because he bought Ulf and had heard Moab in his system for comparison. He immediately said don’t, get Moab, because Ulf cost twice as much and you will never hear the difference. Okay. So now you can say teajay doesn’t know what he’s talking about I guess. Or you can say of course there’e a difference and he can hear it but doesn’t think many others will. Or you can say there’s a difference but only one big enough to hear if side by side, you would never know otherwise and you will never do that so save your money. You can say any or all of that and have a pretty good point. What you cannot do is say that about the difference between stock Moabs and mine. No way. Unless I am very much mistaken and Eric has taken to using Duelund bypass caps, ribbon inductors and Path Audio resistors, there is no way. Mine will walk all over anything I could buy for the money, Tekton or otherwise. It is just not even close. Now the thing of it is, this should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about manufacturing and/or modding. I’ve been doing stuff like this since the 1990’s. Swapped out cheap parts for expensive high quality parts in amps, speakers, and CD players many times. Each and every time with so much improvement it was like a whole new component. Always wound up with far better performance than if I had sold what I had and bought better. That is why I go to all the time and trouble. Even if I add in my x-ray tech rate of pay for the time it took me to put this thing together, and value my labor at that, it is still killer value. Which is illogical BS, by the way, and flips reality on its head. Reality is the reason we as modders are able to have such fantastic shoot above their weight systems is we don’t have to turn a profit. We just have to make something sound better than we know we could buy for the same money. This we find to be so stinking easy you would not believe. That is why I do it. Come and listen. You will see. |
willgolf- A question for MC or anyone...if you had an opportunity to replace the drivers or all of the components you worked on what would you do if money was not an object. Where do you think the biggest bang for the buck is between the drivers and the caps/ resistors etc? If money was not an object I would call Eric say build me your SOTA Assault Speakers, stat, only make em all Duelund and Path, designed with outboard crossovers and hang on I will be sending you some stuff to go in there. I would call Max say build Eric some F1wires for internal. I would call Krissy say you want to see Utah? Cuz I am flying you out to paint and stuff just load em up, Quantum those suckers to the next dimension. Oh and then you are going on to Texas where you do the same with Dave, since money is no object he will be building me some sweet Raven mono blocks to be run off the Allegri Reference pre-amp Max will be making. Which you can then fly to the UK to massage, or come do your magic here, your call, just so I get my Krissy magic. This was a huge bang for the buck. It was however a lot of work. No doubt about it. For less effort but a lot more money all Be drivers would be a no-brainer. But I like Plan A a lot better. |
nmmusicman- Caps and stuff are clearly and rapidly getting smoother, more relaxed, and more effortlessly detailed. The presentation changes a lot with the recording and can go from being further back and deeper to you are in it envelopment. So sometimes want to say it is a little more recessed or deeper, other times a little more forward. Last night playing Springsteen The Ghost of Tom Joad the Boss was a little further away but with much more realism, his guitar just eerily real, but then as the song goes along the accompanying instrumentals and volume grows and it feels the whole stage expands and envelops me. Some records like Tom Petty Southern Accents are like this from the beginning. So it feels like getting just a whole lot more of whatever is on the vinyl. And yeah it just keeps getting better and better. Early days still. Very promising. nares- Yes indeed. Greatest effort yet. Probably biggest payoff yet too though. Tremendous sense of satisfaction. klh007- Kemper, you were one of the key people motivating me to get Moab in the first place. So thanks for that! This was a huge project but more than half the time went into figuring out what parts to get and how to put them together. Now having done that you could copy my parts and put them on MDF on Nobsound springs and have a huge share of the improvement for a good bit less trouble and expense. Just sayin'. Anything you want to do, happy to help. Repay the favor so to speak. parker65310- Not that I don't want to help, but you need to understand I know zip about crossover design. All I know is how the parts work, and even that on only a general level. All I did was swap out one cap for another better one, precisely because like you I did not want to lose the Tekton sound, just get more of it. Mission accomplished! To do this I mostly studied this http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html in order to choose the right caps. Study this info, look up the caps prices on-line, figure out what suits your budget and space requirements. What little I do know, caps roll off or attenuate low frequencies. Changing the cap value, different microfarads, moves the crossover points. You absolutely do not want to do this! Better caps are always physically larger, they take up more space and may not fit. But while physically larger they must be the same value or you will change the sound you like so much. PM if you have questions, but honestly there are way more experienced guys than me. ricevs- Interesting point about inductors. Eric went outside to inside. Not that that means anything. In my case, to go inside to outside would be very hard to do without adding wire. As it stands everything is soldered lead to lead. It is interesting though because it raises the question of directionality. I wonder if the results you got could simply be due to directionality? The 12AWG Goertz coils in mine are wound so tight they feel like a chunk of solid copper. Then I put a strip of fO.q tape, a bit of Herbies Grungebuster, and a strip of Mat, and wrapped the whole thing tight as I could with packing tape. So yeah I paid attention to microphonics. Thanks! I did consider those Mundorf inductors. Also Duelund. Also Erse, which I really wanted but they stopped making. Oh well it all worked out beautifully in the end! |
Was just being alliterative with the title but this really is mega! I've taken my whole panel apart, ripped out and hauled AC to cryo then put it all back, and a slew more big projects but this easily was the most I have ever done in one day. One 15 hour day, 6AM to 9PM! Twisting and soldering all those hard to get at connections- it doesn't put itself together let me tell you! Even after all that it is not done, not really. But more than enough to use and I did, and you all expect more from me than emoticons so what am I hearing? It was a shock at first but having two days and two nights sleep to let it all sink in... The first thing to hit me was a big improvement in instrumental tone and texture. Been playing Tracy Chapman a lot lately and so put that on first. There's a lot of deep bass and a huge amount of all different kinds of percussion- bongo's, drums - just a slew of different things, and they all sound so much very different, individual, unique, and separate in their own little space, it was blowing me away how the caps and stuff could be so good so fast. It was only after a nights sleep that I realized of course! Because: Townshend Pods! BDR! These things need zero warmup or break-in. They do this right from the get-go. Sure enough, all aspects of the presentation most affected by vibration control shot straight up to a new higher level and stayed there. This was a huge part of my initial impressions. How much better it could be externally mounted I can only imagine but Pods and BDR made a huge improvement without having to go to all that trouble. As for the crossover itself, I'm hearing tremendous improvement in detail, dynamics, and imaging. The reason for all the cutesy emoticons is this all improved so much it really is hard to find words to do it justice. This is just a huge improvement, every bit as big as going from my old phono stage to Herron, or heck even from Talon Khorus to Tekton Moab. There were a few moments early on when there was some pretty harsh glare or ringing, almost enough to get me worried. But it seemed to be one of those new parts settling down kind of things and sure enough it was less and less as time went on and pretty much totally disappeared by the end of the night. Which was a very long night indeed. After working on this thing from 6 to 9 I was then up spinning vinyl until about 2AM. Found myself reaching for Hot Stampers early on. Very unlike myself. Never play these until the system is good and ready, and this had been off 2 days and barely warmed up. Still, the improvement was so great it sounded better than ever even pretty much stone cold. Amazing. I took the time to disassemble and measure all the individual values of the stock crossover and replace only with same value parts, as I did not want to make any changes to any of the magic Eric engineered into Moab. Just wanted to help the magic get out, so to speak. That seems to be the case as record after record takes on a life all its own. It sounds like I nailed the tonal balance Eric built into them, which is good, I did not want to change that at all. Doesn't sound like I did. One reason I think the impact is so staggering, my system is tweaked to the max. The whole electrical panel is tweaked and treated. Every foot of wire from the panel to the room is cryo'd and coated and massaged. Inside the room the wire is all superb M101 Nova and Supernova and Townshend F1. Everything from the source to the amp to the speaker cables is tweaked out on BDR, Pods, and more. The signal is plush and pampered, until it gets to the Moab where it runs straight into ordinary wire and a bunch of parts on cardboard. Well not really cardboard, but whatever you call 1/8" thick MDF. Might as well be. Yes, I know, the wire is still left. Always another project. Working on it, okay? Sheesh. That one is where we really start to get into Eric's magic. Lotta drivers, lotta wires, and not at all clear where they go. Tracing it all out in order to figure out what might be the best geometry is no small task. For sure it will be another huge upgrade- if done right. For sure it will be another huge effort- in order to do it right. This for now is enough. More than enough. Wow I wish you guys could hear what I'm hearing! |
Woke up this morning around 5AM couldn't go back to sleep so started working on the crossover. Incredible how much time it takes to put this thing together with all the tweaks and short leads and tight space. Anyway, just finished soldering it all together. Everything still needs to be glued down but this is pretty much what it will look like. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 One shot shows the parts just laid out to see if they will fit. Most of them are covered over with fO.q tape and the whole thing is mounted on a Tetrault Quantum of Solace, and will be laminated to a BDR Shelf on Townshend Pods. This all goes on a brace behind the lower woofer. Getting it glued down and in there should take up the rest of the day. Really want to hear this tonight!😍 |
Sure. PM coming. But I don’t really "do" crossovers. Barely understand the subject. All I do is swap out parts - caps, resistors, inductors - for higher quality parts of the same value. Done a fair amount of this over the years and with speakers, amps, and other stuff, always with good results. Do it right and you don’t really change the fundamental character of the component much at all- it just becomes a whole lot more clean and liquid, with greater detail and a greater sense of ease. Caps are kind of like tubes or cartridges. The better ones are just plain better, but among the better ones you can choose smoother or more analytical. No matter what you choose even the more analytical of the better caps will seem liquid and make even the smoothest cheap cap sound grainy by comparison. |
Sorry, wasn't even thinking of that angle. Was more like that is how expensive just the caps are. Even with no mortgage I can barely afford Duelund bypass caps! Not that Duelunds would fit in there even if I could afford them! Will have to "get by" with just Alumen Z with the Duelund bypass caps. It will all be good though thanks to my Krissy magic. Heh. ;) |
stringreen- The truth is that Porsches only become the joy they are at speed. Here in Arizona where everyone is doing 80/90 on the highway, mine starts to make me smile.....the car sticks better, the engine is quieter/smoother, the body becomes more responsive....it becomes a part of me. Around town its much like a Honda/Suberu, etc. https://youtu.be/bXRyy-RBuzc?t=581 |
Rennsport Reunion is the pinnacle of Porsche, at least in the USA. Donahue, Redman, and Bell were telling tales at the Mission when Porsche was the featured marque at Laguna Seca one year. Hurley Haywood's plane barely got him there in time to get to the track, hop in a 914/6 and go from last in the field to win in only I think a 15 or 20 lap race. He won by a foot at the line, most exciting race ever and I was watching from the hill above Andretti Hairpin where between the view and the big screens you could see almost the entire circuit. To top it off this was the last race of the weekend- and Porsche won! After passing the whole field! Thrilling! Haven't heard them myself but Double Impacts are his best selling speakers for a reason. Outstanding reviews. Moabs have the full MTM array. A lot more money but guys who have heard both say well worth the extra. At the same time there are guys who say DI is so good it is their end game speaker. Hard to go wrong with any Tekton, far as I can tell. I'm just east of Seattle in Redmond, and would love to have you over any time. There's so many tweaks that just to give an overview, people ask questions, it can be a good 20-30 minutes just to skim the surface. Seems sometimes like this is all I do, but the truth is years go by doing hardly anything, yet after 30 years it really adds up. This being one of those years where it is adding up a lot faster than average!😂 |
If you can just do two mortgage payments a month, plus however much you can scrape together at the end of a year of clipping coupons eating beans never going anywhere and never buying anything, then in just 6 or 7 years when the mortgage is paid off you will be absolutely astounded with how easy it is to buy really good capacitors. DHL has delivered the Pods. I have just about decided to stay up however long it takes tonight to get everything fastened and glued down. If I can do that tonight then all I have to do tomorrow is drill and tap BDR, solder, paint, attach the Pods, cut a brace to mount the Pods, cut the Moab braces so this thing will actually fit in there, hook it up, and put the woofer back. That’s all. No problem. Right? |
sokogear, I am working on another project in tandem with this one. That one in some respects is actually ahead of this one. What I mean, it has passed proof of concept. It has been done. It works. The challenge now is to figure out how to make it cost effective, to sell at a profit and still be good value, and of course to be something people can actually use. Because yes there is a skill level, and there is time. There was a time we had Dynaco and Speakerlab and even today we have some kits people can get a lot for their money if they are willing and able to turn a screwdriver and solder. That is about the level we are talking. That is the way I started, building a Dynaco ST400 in High School. This current project, everything all-in is well over $2k. Probably close to $3k if you count the BDR, Mats, and Pods. Some of this like BDR was already here just sitting around left over but you get the idea. One guy on FB was wanting me to make him one- until I said $2k just in parts! BUT this is more a learning curve thing than an actual problem. The learning curve is what all us who have done mods know very well, that manufacturers always use the cheapest possible parts they can get away with! This means the guy with mere soldering skills can easily do a $5k or even $10k upgrade for $1k worth of parts. We who have done this know this. Problem is hardly anyone else gets it. That is my big motivation for doing this. Already know very well these punch way above their weight even in stock form. With this crossover upgrade, forget about it! Mine are 194 & 195. There are probably by now 200 pair out there. Ten percent market penetration would be huge, but even that would only be 20. So whatever I do will be with the thought in mind there could be a market for this- of a whopping 10-20 customers. Maybe. Michael Spallone does something like this. He figured out a great cap and diode mod for Synergistic Active Shielding MPC. I know, I bought it. Because even though I can DIY he is the man who knows which parts really sound the best. So it would be like that. IF I can get the wiring figured out AND find some really primo wire AND figure out how to deliver something your average motivated screwdriver solderer can handle... but yeah you are right. Any way you slice it, huge amount of work to sell only a small number, just not worth it. That is the challenge all these manufacturers face. Eric's real genius was to figure out a better way of using the same parts to deliver sound at a level no one can touch at that price point. If he made them like mine, even though he would pay maybe $1k for the parts that cost me $2k that would still wind up being $3k for him to profit. At that price people look and see Encore has more drivers. There we are back at the learning curve, they see more and better drivers, crossover components are hidden inside, the average customer just does not and probably will not ever get it. Oh well. We do. Man am I stoked for this weekend!!! |
rushfan71 yes I am sure they will! Ted Denney tells me it is time not power level that soaks and equilibrates dielectrics, so just leave on 24/7 for a week. The Melody blew a tube last week, have been running it on an old spare backup set, might just leave it one and see what happens. At least the first few days anyway, I am off this weekend and next Mon/Tues. Great news! DHL notified me my Townshend Pods are out for delivery! I will have them today! Thank you John Hannant for getting them out so fast! Was thinking the crossovers would have to go in without, then add Pods later. Now it will all be in one fell swoop! Yes!! |
bullitt5094, Ulf would be a much bigger project. Mine with the new parts will barely fit back in. Pretty sure a little cutting will be called for. My bet would be Eric follows the same pattern and you will find yours behind whichever driver is across from the terminals on the back. I have never seriously considered active because every time it runs into the stone wall of reality. Active means more amps, more power cords, more interconnects, more speaker cables. Every single one of these incredibly important they be done right. It just seems way too easy to give up more than you gain, and that is even before considering money. The parts for this will be almost $2k. The improvement should be staggering. But $2k will not be enough to cover even one good amp if I went active. A good thought experiment. But there is a reason we almost never see anyone doing this at a high level. So don't let imaginary perfection hold you back from making real progress. Even just replacing the resistors in there would no doubt be a big improvement. They are relatively inexpensive too- and might actually fit! ;) |
danvignau, One of my best students, Mark Dennie, had a 79 Targa that was his daily and track car. It remained his daily for more than a decade of autocross and track. I hope to move to TN one day. No worries tespilot, there would already be photo's if this site made it easy to put em up when posting. I have one of the parts laid out all nice and new, and will take another before installing, when they are all wrapped in goo. The only thing about doing it this way, honestly don't know which will be the greater effect, the caps, resistors and inductors or the Quantum of Solace Krissy TDF? Either way it is hard to imagine anything but awesomeness coming out of the Mighty Moabs after this! I look forward to standing corrected, rushfan71, because if you are right astonished it will be. Awesome is overrated and overused anyway. ;) pet60, thanks for reading. That was back when I was putting even more energy into Porsche and being a skilled driver than goes today into audio and being a skilled listener. Both are perishable commodities, something my 911 lets me know real quick every time we go out after too long apart. |
79SC. Former PCA Region President. Former PCA Driving Instructor. Scroll down to where it says, "Student Guide". That's me. I wrote that. https://www.pnwr.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=502548&module_id=180363 More than wrote it: formulated the program, organized it, ran it. But, I know nothing about Porsche. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HblPucwN-m0 |
Yes, that is the plan with inductors. Strip of fO.q tape, wrap with Mat, glue and strap em down. Crossover tweaks alone are enough for a big jump in sound quality. Combined with these high end parts you turned me onto it is scary to think how good it will be. Might be. Should be. lol! We will see! After carefully studying your system page Rick I think I have figured out what you are doing wrong. The system will be so much easier and better if you can just figure out how to get rid of the mortgage. |
Still putting it together, haven’t heard music through them. But I have built a lot of stuff and know what it means when something tinks and rings like the bare Jantzen. Herbie’s used only about a 1/2" strip wrapped around each cap near the ends. Huge improvement. Almost stopped right there. Then added strips of fO.q tape a little at a time. Pretty sure the way it will all go back in there it will be possible to reach in and remove a strip or two at a time if need be. Got a hunch at least some of the super smooth yet detailed quality people hear from Duelund is down to the material used around the outside. The casing or whatever its called. The Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps are dead as dead can be. |
It only seems that way because the range is so wide. None of this by the way is anything new. Not even the vibration control. Others have done even more. Others here, even. Year or so ago I even came across one system, the guy had done everything I am doing, and then some. So impressive, PM'd the guy, we had a nice little phone call. He doesn't post. Why? Because certain a-holes (his word) who had nothing to contribute but insults keep at it. This works because on-line bullies never have to face anyone. Or we would find out real quick what cowards they are. This guy, he was all over this stuff, just not thick enough skin to take the heat. Which I can understand. Me, different story. |
Was kind of ticked off Erse wasted two days of my time not answering questions until finally saying we don’t make em any more. Which is one reason why I thank Partsconnexion.com and madisound.com and was going to not say anything about Erse. But since it keeps coming up, Erse sucks the big one. Wasted my time, didn’t do anything to help at all, say they have stuff they don’t even have. Anybody remember Jack Reacher, the scene where Duvall says, "Suck it!" Tried to find the clip, no luck. On second thought this is more like it https://youtu.be/nBG2IxzEn7g?t=52 |
Right now (before this whole thing blows up in my face!) would probably be a good time to thank Rick and Paul for all their help. Paul (sorry I forget his AG handle maybe MJLett?) was a big help early on, and Rick rixthetrick a huge help with details especially towards the end. There were others but these two especially have taken the time to answer all my dopey questions and help me climb a very steep learning curve. Thanks, guys! Also want to give a shout out to Madisound.com and partsconnexion.com for getting my orders out and delivered super fast. Both orders were placed late Thursday night, shipped Friday, and delivered the following Monday. This, with standard shipping! Impressive! John Hannant at Townshend Audio- bet no one ever asked him how to put Pods inside a speaker before! Thanks! Krissy, when she found out what I’m doing, is sending me some of her TDF magic designed to go where no TDF has gone before! Love me my Krissy magic. She is the best. Frank knows, doncha Frank? ;) And Tom. Almost forgot. (How could I?) ;) chicagoblue1977, hilde45, mglik, lawmnsuu, ovinewar1, petg60, nmmusicman, willgolf, oldhvymec, and all my many loyal lurkers, thank you as well. A lot of you prefer to avoid the unwanted attention of the few bad apples. Totally understand and respect that. All the same, so glad you reach out to me. My system will soon be a whole lot better thanks to information gleaned from others very much like yourself. Couldn’t have done it any other way. Was about to add something, but let’s keep it positive: Thank you! |
DHL has my Townshend Pods, to be delivered Monday. Crossover components are now ready to be fixed to the board and soldered together. Then stuffed in there somehow. 😳 So girls, my Saturday dance card is full! 😂 The crossover is mounted on an old Omega e-Mat. Thank you, Krissy and Frank for that one. Frank gave me the speaker idea quite some time ago, it has been brewing in there ever since. Mats however are too flexible to support this much weight. So they will be laminated to a BDR Shelf. Before laminating the completed crossover will be set up on Pods in order to determine where they will go. The BDR will then be drilled and tapped with studs used to screw Pods to Shelf. This will allow me to install the completed crossover and use it on the Shelf, and attach the Pods later without having to remove, drill and tap. I have an idea for a quick-release way to hold them in place that will also reinforce the brace. That's the plan. Iron Mike has a great quote about plans. So we will solder it, stuff it, and listen to it Saturday and Sunday. Then Monday with Pods. Anyways, with an eye out for the left hook! 😂😂😂 |
One of the more useful resources in all my research is this site where caps are compared like fine wine- http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html The top Duelund caps are superb, but would cost more than the Moab - and take up about as much space! So I opted for Jantzen Alumen Z as they come very close for a fraction of the price. Then with a Duelund bypass cap they get even closer. It is one thing to read and look at these things on paper. It is quite another to actually hold in hand. The instant this happens it is quite apparent the Jantzen ring like the proverbial bell. Well they do appear to be rolled inside a thin wall aluminum tube. In contrast, the Duelund caps are in some sort of composite looking material that is thicker and quite inert. Even just a little bit of the Herbie’s material killed a lot of the Alumen Z ringing, and by the time I was done with fO.q tape the Jantzen are now pretty thoroughly damped. The Herbie’s material is thicker and so will double as additional isolation, suspending the caps about 1/8" above the mounting board and apart from each other. Another interesting thing that came up, inductors. There is a very generalized or simplified way of seeing electricity as a current that moves through the core of a wire while fine details ride along the outside, the skin effect. This is really silly simplified, leading to my saying to Krissy one day what we know about electricity is like what we knew about fire a million years ago- Don’t touch, fire hot! Millions like that even today. What’s behind the panel? Don’t touch! Still, we can do things even with this crude understanding. Coil a wire around and around, the fields block higher frequencies while the lower ones pass. This coil is an inductor. Inductors filter out high frequencies. There’s things we can do to improve inductors. An iron core improves efficiency. Eric uses one of these for the bass. Sometimes called a sledgehammer inductor, by Peter Gabriel fans, I guess. I wanna be.... A much better and (of course) more costly method is to shape the round wire into a flat ribbon and wrap the ribbon around with very thin insulation. This is better because we are trying to get the high frequency surface fields to interact and mute and this ribbon geometry maximizes these surface interactions. Also costs a lot more to roll into a pure copper wire into a uniformly thin ribbon and wind it all nice and tight and precise. So that is what we got, and I went for Goertz Alpha Core inductors. The gauge was a bit confusing. Normally with wire the gauge is thickness. In this case we want thin. So it was counter-intuitive at first to hear the thicker gauge is preferred. But gauge is really about cross-sectional thickness. The "thicker" 12AWG is actually ribbon rolled out very thin. But by making it wider we get the extra cross-sectional current carrying capacity. Now it makes sense! Alas, inductors get no love. If there is an inductor website where enthusiasts gush over their favorite inductors ineffable ability to convey the emotion in Tony Levin’s bass line, the perfect combination of slam and fundamental fullness, I have yet to find it. Still, that is what we are looking for here. Inductors also roll off the high frequencies from the midrange drivers. In doing so they affect not only the upper band of the midrange but the lower band of the tweeter. Nobody really seems to talk about this, yet it has to be. So in addition to what seems an obvious bass improvement it seems inevitable that quality inductors also contribute to improved midrange and treble. |
I've got the parts all laid out the right way now, each inductor axis at 90 to the others, and the fun part, Herbie's Grunge Buster mat under the inductors and around the ends of the Alumen Zcaps. Herbie's is kind of a stiffer thicker sorbothane I guess you could call it. Most of the rest of the caps are wrapped in fO.q tape. All the leads reach so they can all be wired direct to each other. Couple days now at my day job, then get back to it Saturday. |
Cryo One is local, I know the guy, he did all my wire. Everything from the panel to the speakers at one point was all cryo. But now almost everything is anyway, I am not going to bother with driving back and forth adding 2 weeks to something I know can be improved more and better for much less time and trouble thanks to Krissy and her TDF. As much time as it took to figure out what parts and get them here, getting it all laid properly and to fit is proving to be about as hard as anything. |
A lot of people wondering why the crossover will be INSIDE. 😉 Well mostly it will be inside because I am a low hanging fruit kind of guy. Try not to make things harder than they need to be. Yes, for sure there are advantages to an outboard crossover, and it could even sound better if properly implemented. Right now the signal from the amp goes through 9 feet of the finest speaker cable I ever heard, Townshend F1. From the terminals there's only one or two feet of Eric's "military spec" internal wire. If I go external then I need first to find a couple feet of F1 quality wire to go from the crossover to the terminals. Only now instead of just +/- terminals I need ones for all the driver connections. So external crossover means removing the existing terminal and replacing it with something else. Or running the wires through that opening. Something like that. Either way it means finding F1 quality wire, or otherwise losing in wire what was gained going outboard. I think a lot of the outboard motivation comes from vibration control, and the convenience of tinkering and tweaking. Well, I am handling vibration control by mounting the whole thing on a BDR Shelf on Townshend Pods. And I am tweaking and tinkering to the nine's already. Also I know speakers are all different but with these when the lower woofer is removed the crossover sits right behind it, just not all that hard to work on it if really necessary. Internal wiring is on the table for some future project. When I look at all those wires, and how they are routed, and what they are, it is clear that however good this thing sounds with the new crossover it can be a whole lot better still with some premium wire. But reality check: 17 drivers. 34 solder connections. God knows what sort of wiring configuration to figure out. Per speaker. Let's get this sorted out. Then we will see. |
They are related, which is why they are written up the way they are in the OP. Also Eric is a car guy, I’m sure he gets it. The current 992C4S is one of the all time great driver’s cars. Well, it is a 911 so that goes without saying to one who know cars. But few do, so I am here to remind. To the average person the car is so fantastic there is nothing more to do. Me, I drive it and after a while determine what tire pressure gives me the best tradeoff between responsiveness, grip, and ride. One psi makes a difference. Certainly not to everyone. Others can do what they want. There are those who are in denial about fuses and directionality, and there are those who are in denial about the importance of working vs cold tire pressure. Plenty around just like that. Oh well. They save a lot of time and money by not being too discerning, so it all balances out I guess. One of the things that makes the current generations so great is PASM- Porsche Active Suspension Management. PASM monitors driver inputs- steering, braking, throttle- and compares to sensors telling it what the car is actually doing. PASM then actively adjusts in real time shock damping, and roll stiffness and even engine motor mount stiffness, to deliver the best balance of ride and performance. As determined by the factory. That is key. Porsche tunes these things for the widest range of drivers and roads and road conditions. A huge amount of engineering goes into making the car safe for people who have a driver’s license but do not in fact actually know how to drive. That in case you are wondering would be you, gentle reader. (I make exception for Eric and the few others with track time. That’s about it.) So just as there are aftermarket chips to get more horsepower, there are also kits with firmware to improve handling by reprogramming PASM. The amazing thing is these not only improve track performance but also in many cases real world ride comfort. That is all I am doing. Everything I’ve said about the Moab is true. Fantastic speaker. Vast majority of speakers out there have cheaper parts in their crossovers. The parts quality Eric uses is roughly equivalent to the $16k Talon Khorus I had before. Still, they are cheap compared to what I am using. I know autocrossers who replace the entire suspension on their 911. The car looks exactly the same, but it drives so much more responsive you cannot believe. It ain’t cheap to do this. But it takes an already great car and elevates it to where the only thing better will be another car expertly breathed on. That is all I am doing. And yes it will be better. Probably so much it is hard to believe. If I don’t screw the pooch! And if I can fit it in there! It is a real tight fit. |
USPS and UPS delivered all the parts, everything is now here except for the Townshend Pods. But I can start the build without them, even install without them if need be. Might even be better that way, let me know how much that difference that one thing makes. It is all laid out and lo and behold it actually fits! Higher quality parts are always a lot bigger and more massive. It is just crazy how much bigger this is now! The original board was 3x7". This one is 8x10! Almost four times as big! Yet there is less wasted space! But it all fits. Whew! What a relief! |
Went looking for video of Singer founder Dickinson saying in his own words exactly what I said, that it is Singer after Norbert Singer. Because I know he said it. Came across this along the way. When you have something you love constantly being trashed in public it is exceedingly painful. This member deserves to be banned for life from all things audio. He has nothing to contribute but hate. He is the antithesis of what we are doing here. Listen to Dickinson. He is saying what I said in the beginning. We just need to satisfy performance, and we do that in a reverential and celebratory way. https://youtu.be/_3WswVaHLH4?t=198 |
You have no idea. Just got word both shipments- caps and resistors from Partsconnexion, inductors from Madisound - are out for delivery today! Got a PM from Ken nmmusicman with a good point, doubling up resistors in parallel the wattage adds together and this increases dynamics. One cap it was hard to find a single high quality cap in that value, so I combined two of the same model, which is the way to do it. He feels mixing types or models of caps in this situation can smear timing. Whatever the reason I am avoiding it by using a 6.8 and 8.2 uF Alumen Zcap to reach the 15uF needed for this cap. I know it is just a bunch of caps and resistors and coiled up wire. But this is like Christmas morning with a new Lionel train to set up. I had the one you put a few drops in and it even smokes. Maybe a bad metaphor. No smoke. Definitely prefer no smoke this time! |
nmmusicman, Good to hear. We are on the same page. Already planning everything you mentioned. In fact I just got notice most of my stuff is to be delivered tomorrow. With parts in hand will begin the process of building all the little doo-dads that will hold things in place. Here is the plan (so far, I keep improving it as new information arises!): The new crossover will be all Path Audio resistors. These will be isolation mounted above the board with air space all around. The cheap electrolytic is upgraded to Jantzen Premium ELKO with a Jantzen Alumen Zcap bypass cap. All the other caps are Jantzen Alumen Zcap with Duelund JDM Silver bypass caps. All inductors are 12ga Goertz Alpha Core. They will be mounted as you said, arranged to mitigate field interactions. All components will be mounted with as much attention to vibration control as I can muster. Every component will be treated appropriately with fO.q tape, as well as some other stuff I have that I’m not supposed to talk about. The original was all hand soldered direct component to component and I hope to be able to achieve that here as well. The "board" will actually be a PPS Omega Mat bonded to a BDR Shelf. This will be threaded to attach Townshend Pods. The whole thing will then be reinstalled inside the speaker on the same brace, which will be reinforced and enlarged to accommodate the now much larger crossover. What was already a high resolution speaker became a liquid see through panorama with greater dynamic reserves and tonal density. Exactly what I am going for. Exactly what others who have done things like this talk about. So glad you posted this. So when it actually happens it will not be out of the blue. What I like is you got this result from just the caps. I am doing at least as big a cap upgrade, plus a big inductor upgrade, plus a huge resistor upgrade, plus a huge vibration control upgrade- and with better magnetic field management. Whew! If after all that it ain’t a holographic fantasmagorical experience I will be sorely disappointed! |
MC i always liked the idea of upgrading some of the crossover parts in my Dunlavys. I know they can sound even better. It was after reading of all the difficulties a member here in Agon faced till making them sound right again with a good number of changes, especially with absolute coil values, the idea has stalled for now. Looks like the easiest part to do is to upgrade all the wirewound resistors first and pray for some rain. Some of the capacitors later. One step at a time. Resistors are probably the safest ones to start with. A resistor however you must remember to think of as a fixed volume control. Swap out a resistor of a little higher or lower value and it will have the effect of turning the volume up or down a little bit on whatever drivers it feeds. But that is not all a resistor does. Resistors also generate heat. Power resistors in crossover networks especially. Heat if you know your basic electronics increases resistance. Therefore a resistor is also going to compress dynamics. Think about it. Music is nothing but swinging dynamic voltages. Every one of these voltage peaks we want to come through loud and clear. But the increase in voltage produces heat increasing resistance. This all happens incredibly fast and local. Gradually over time the whole resistor will grow warm. But the immediate local effect is for that localized heat spike to increase resistance, turn the volume down, and there goes your dynamics. All my 15W resistors are being replaced with 2 Path Audio resistors for 20W. These resistors are physically a lot bigger. Instead of one resistor hot glued to a board there will be two vibration isolation mounted with air flow all around. This will greatly increase power handling and heat dissipation. Hard to see how this can be anything but good for dynamics. But again, remember it is a fixed volume control. It affects frequency response. So if you are sensitive and this is a priority you may notice whatever tiny amount it shifts dB and so to avoid this take care to measure and precisely match values. I never did this with the Linaeum. I simply soldered in the values the designer told me to use. Never actually measured them to see what the actual values really were. Went by whatever was on the label. Worked just fine. Based on that I am not too worried. Professional driver. Closed course. Do not try this at home. Your mileage may vary. The information here in this discussion represents hours of searching around talking to experienced modders, picking their brains, combining with my own experience and distilling it all down. I find over and over again that while it is a lot of work, when you take the time to do this you rarely put a foot wrong. We will see. |
Already said they sound better than some $100k speakers. Please do try and keep up. It is embarrassing when the snark lags behind. Seriously though, considering how everyone knows that just as there are components that underperform for what they cost there are also those that over perform. If wise value choices are made at every level, including wise value choices in mods and tweaks, then is it really so unexpected? I mean, if you even understand what is going on in the first place. As for reputations, people can decide for themselves. https://forum.audiogon.com/users/coys21 |
'79 SC. Being a PCA Driving Instructor allowed me to drive a lot of different Porsches. One time I drove a Targa so exactly like my SC the only differences being Targa, and my SC had the 75 Carrera wing and chin spoiler. That is how I learned two things: those two aero bits have a huge effect on handling even at 60-70mph, and it is not for nothing they call the Targa "flexible flyer"! Terrific car, but oh the body flex! Totally agree, the SC was a home run. Those cars back then, they could go very fast but only if you really knew how to drive them. It was a huge thrill largely because of that sense of being right on the edge, at the same time as the car was saying it was made to be right on the edge. Fantastic! I tried, but Eric I think is way too busy to be consulting with modders. Also an unusually large proportion of what makes Tekton so good is a technology hardly anyone but him seems to understand. Compared to him everyone else is simply using higher quality more expensive parts. His technology is so advanced he is able to beat them with off the shelf and MDF. So he is not about to go giving that away by telling anyone exactly how to do it. On the other hand like Rick said, this is like Porsche making a car so terrific guys want to use it as a base for making something already incredibly good even better. So it is in a way flattering to be in that category. But at the same time I can understand. Porsche is not about to go telling everyone all their aero secrets. They are happy to see people personalize and modify but the good stuff they keep to themselves. In any case I am not at all looking to design anything. This is nothing more than the speaker equivalent of better tires, shocks, and K&N. Okay maybe I chipped it. lol! |
With the Linaeum mod the difference was night and day. The kind of experience guaranteed to shatter anyone who thinks all you need are measurements. Granted, the difference was huge. I knew nothing back then and so bought a package of ten resistors for a dollar at Radio Shack. The caps were probably more like 5 for $2. Absolute crap. BUT think about it- this is exactly the same stuff you see inside the vast majority of components! The sound with Musicap and Vishay was so much more clean and clear and liquid it was mind-boggling. But then that was going from utter crap to very good. Not absolute best just very good. Knowing how much difference these things make, when Talon came out with the X crossover I went for that upgrade. This time the improvement was not as immense as before because we were starting from a higher level. Would be nice to know how high but the stock crossover was potted and glued in to where nothing was visible! Still, it was clear they used some pretty high quality parts, all point to point soldered direct to each other. So this will now be my third crossover upgrade, and by far the most ambitious. With the others the designers told me exactly what to do. With this one I already have the Upgrade Option crossover. There is no higher level to just order and connect like with Talon. So a fair amount of work has gone into figuring out what parts to use and how exactly to go about this. Eric has done a really good job of building a crossover that is very much like the rest of the Moab, very high performance for the money. Still, there is a reason people like Encore and Ulf. There are always higher quality parts and those speakers make good use of them. That is basically what I am doing here, only focused on the crossover. The experience of hearing past crossover upgrades combined with the things I have learned doing this one has me thinking that as good as these things sound now they are gonna be even better- or else I sure wouldn't be going to this much trouble and expense! |