Modifying Philharmonic 3 crossovers

Have you spoken to Dennis? If you are in DC area, you could even take it back to him. He is a great guy. 

Ask your electronic parts vendor to measure either the 18 or 22 uF caps closest to your 20 uF you are looking to replace. Capacitors can have a 10% value tolerance and I am pretty sure that you will be in position to find the requested value. I know that PartsConnexion is able to measure capacitors to your requirements. They are also a Clarity distributor.

Thanks for your advice dasign! I was also wondering about the various voltages of the claritycap capasitors. Does the voltage make a difference?

Functionally, no, different voltage capacitor will not matter in the circuit.  However,  In general, (not cast in stone) higher voltage caps sound better. I have used a few clarity, but have never compared different voltage parts side by side to give you a fair answer about this line directly 

Thank you very much for the insight timlub. Also, just curious about the uf so for example if two caps have the same uf rating then it should be ok to interchange between them without messing up the crossover, right?

So long as you replace caps with new of equal or higher V that's usually fine.

100V is pretty high for most speakers, but a lot of film caps only come in 400V or higher. That's fine.
As for the 20uF, try an 18uF and 2.2uF in parallel.

Just looked, there IS a 20uF model....

https://www.partsconnexion.com/CLARITY-82513.html
What is the cap used for in the circuit?

Wow, Thanks for finding the CMR 20uF model Erik, You're a life saver! I'll definitely make a note of the advice regarding the capacitor. I have a few more questions. I heard the CSA caps from claritycap sounds phenominal with bass. Would anyone say that there are better caps for bass than the Clarity CSA?

Well, I don't know about bass. In the pass through, they tend to be a little dark.

However ... as shunts in a woofer, film caps absolutely rule, and CSA caps have a very nice price point. Several modders have been impressed by how changing the woofer caps improves.
Mind you, this is a dangerous place. If you are replacing an electrolytic you really need to know the ESR and compensate for changes.

Please look at the sizes and weights though, CMR caps are effing huge and heavy! :)

Make sure to plan for that.

Based on my research, I don't believe I have any electrolytic caps in the crossover, just solen 400v PB series Polypropylene fast caps and for the mids & highs there are clarity PX series caps.
I'm not sure what you mean by "in pass through".
Hahaha, I'll definitely keep the size and weight of the CMR in mind.

Also, I see that for the mids & highs there are two caps. LOL, is it ok to mix and match brands?

Sorry Jonny,
In the first schematic of this page:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2016/02/crossover-basics.html

All components are in series with the drivers.


In the second, I added a coil (L2) which is in parallel with the driver.


For the tweeter and midrange, stick to the same serial caps.

Caps on a woofer tend to be very large, and in parallel, in those cases going with less expensive options makes a lot of sense.


Best,
E

That article was very informative Erik, thanks! Okay, so if the caps are in serial then stick with the same caps, got it. How about one type of caps for the tweeter and one type for midrange?

How about one type of caps for the tweeter and one type for midrange?

I'd recommend all series caps be the same.

Because parallel caps are not directly in line, and often much larger and more expensive, that is where you may want to do some cost savings.

What I'd recommend for instance is to use Clarity CMR for the series, and ESA or CSA caps for the parallel. 
Imagine the expense if you had gone with all Jupiter copper foil! :)

Hi Erik, I already purchased an 100uf clarity CSA capacitor to replace a Solen fast capacitor of the same farad rating for the bass. I just now ordered two 20uf clarity CMR capacitors to replace two clarity PX capacitors of the same rating for the mid. I also just now purchased a clarity CMR 3.3uf and 5.6uf capacitors to replace two clarity PX capacitors of the same rating for the highs. I was wondering about something though, there is a Solen 50uf capacitor that connects to both the two 20uf caps in serial and the 3.3/5.6 in serial. I want to replace the solen 50uf with another CMR capacitor although there aren't any 50uf CMRs. Would placing a 15/15/20uf capacitors in parallel be ok? Lol, I know, purchasing a 50uf clarity CSA would be a lot easier(and cheaper) although I'd like to keep it all CMRs, except for the bass(100uf CSA). What is your suggestion?

Yes, parallel caps add.

Thanks Erik for your help so far in choosing capacitor. Right now I'm getting all the new Clarity CMRs setup in the crossover and I was wondering about resistors. I looked at Duelund cast resistors because they're not as terribly expensive as their capacitors, although I noticed people saying that it sounds bright(and it uses silver) so I think I'll stay away from those. I heard really good reviews from audio path, vishay, audio note and mills, although I'm not entirely sure which to choose. What I want from the resistors I'm going to buy is for them to be as neutral/natural as possible with lots of resolution & dynamics and won't add brightness/hardness to the sound. Do you have any suggestions Erik? Also, when going through the forums I always see people talking about bypassing with certain caps(ie. jupiter). What do they mean?

Resistors: Mills
Inexpensive, very good, dead accurate and thermally stable. I'm not a fan of Duelund's as they are deliberately not thermally stable. No thank you. :)

As for bypassing,that's what I was discussing with CMR caps above 5 uF. Use a 0.1uF jupiter or Audyn TrueCopper ($20) to bypass them, in other words, put in parallel with the main cap.

What I do while testing is I use alligator clips to attach the Audyn where I think it may make a difference and listen.

Use Mills. Use same value CMR caps (although Reliable Capacitor Theta are my personal favorites). Don’t bypass.

Hi, thanks guys for your responses. I'm seeing varying opinions regarding bypassing. Are there down sides to bypassing?

So I just soldered all the Clarity CMRs and CSA capacitor and the Phil 3 speaker sounds fantastic! The speakers sound a lot more 3 dimensional and much more atmospheric and organic. Thank you everyone for the advice and especially to Eric! This would have been much more difficult without you guys' help. I did receive the mills non-inductive resistors and plan on replacing the ones in the speaker this weekend. I hope you guys have a bit more patience but I wanted to know more about inductors. Do they make a big difference like the capacitors? Do you guys have a certain brand that you guys would recommend? From the way that the inductors in my speaker look like, I believe I have ERSE inductors. Are the a good brand?

When I upgrade speaker crossover inductors, I like to change iron core inductor to air core. Air core inductor will be much bigger than iron core in order to keep the DCR as close as possible.

Thanks for the advice, I do actually have a few iron core inductors, so I may change them out and see what happens.

Do they make a big difference like the capacitors? Do you guys have a certain brand that you guys would recommend? From the way that the inductors in my speaker look like, I believe I have ERSE inductors. Are the a good brand?

I hear good things about them, but I do NOT recommend the same kind of upgrades. You need to measure the DCR of the original coils and match them.
If you reduce the DCR of the coil, you must add it back with a series resistor.

For a midrange, or mid-woofer I like to use flat coil copper inductors from Jantzen or Mundorf.

For 3-ways the ERSE coils are my favorite on the woofer.

I usually leave shunt coils in the tweet and mid alone.

Thanks your advice Erik, I will soon be purchasing a multi-meter to measure the DC resistance.

Hello，Sir

We are ERSE factory in China.

Any requirements pls let me know.

www.erseinc.com