Rat Shck Presidian 40-5053. Next Sonic Impact?

when i found my vintage hartley monitors, the crossover was the same, a single cap to an older cone tweeter with the mid-woofer running "wide open." the response of my friend who dabbles in speaker design was "ugh." the new tweeters and crossovers from hartley have three components (now four, i added a bypass cap), and the sound is now very acceptable to my tin ears. a similar upgrade for these little puppies naturally springs to mind.

funny about the deCapos and the use of language. sign o' the times......

Let's assume that each "element" (speaker, driver, whatever) actually behaves like an 8 Ohm resister.

Let's also assume that we're going to use 16 elements (instead of 14). It makes the math easier.

We need to recognize that resisters in series are simply additive:

R(1) + R(2) = R(3)

But resisters in parallel are not:

1/R(1) + 1/R(2) = 1/R(3)

So we'd arrange the elements into serial groups that are parallel to each other in attempt to keep the total resistance in an "ideal" range (around 8 Ohms).

If we used 16 speakers, we'd create 4 groups of 4 speakers and wire each of those 4 groups in series:

S(1) + S(2) + S(3) + S(4) = G(1) = 32 Ohms
S(5) + S(6) + S(7) + S(8) = G(2) = 32 Ohms
S(9) + S(10) + S(11) + S(12) = G(3) = 32 Ohms
S(13) + S(14) + S(15) + S(16) = G(4) = 32 Ohms

Now wire each of those groups in parallel:

1/G(1) + 1/G(2) + 1/G(3) + 1/G(4) = 1/Total = 8 Ohms

Though the total impedance might be 8 ohms, it would require too much voltage to put any decent amount of power to each one; they'd all be coasting along-

Nrenter's recommendation of side placement with inboard tweeters and toe-in was a good one IMHO. still wondering about upgrading the tweeters though, but need to start doing my homework first.

Hooked 'em up tonight. First impressions - they are undoubtedly excellent for the price, and may repond to some tweaking or EQ. They image very well, and do have an excellent coherence - which is of course to be expected since they're basically crossoverless. Without having done any measurements, I'd say they're a fair bit forward in the 3.5 k to 4.5k freq. range which is a little fatiguing. The highs are quite good though - these appear to be decent tweeters. The 65 hz low end stated in the specs is a bit of an exaggeration. I don't think they go much below 100 hz, and even there it's pretty rolled off. Plus, I'd say from 100 up to about 300hz is pretty sloppy - not audiophile quality.

My best guess is adding a small sub that could crossover at 120hz to 150hz might make these very affordable monitors for someone on a budget. A stack of 2 per side might help by inducing some coupling in the lower end and altering the effective EQ. I'd also experiment with leaving out one pair of tweeters from the mix. Placement in room corners would definitely help - which I'm not able to do in their current location.

I'll post again when I have time to experiment.

BTW - Mine state on the cabinets "ASSEMBLED IN CHINA" - so there are apparently different manufacturing lots out there (per Eldartford's version).