Top resistors


Many threads with opinions on boutique coupling capacitors, but very little consolidated information on the sonics of resistors. Anyone care to share their thoughts on the attributes of their favorite brands & types for specific tube and SS applications? How much of a difference does a good resistor make?

My interest in the topic increased after recently installing the latest Texas Components nude Vishay TX2575 in several SS and tube phono & LS components. This was a proverbial "Ah-ha" moment-- a stray resistor dropped into signal path here or there, surprising with an improvement that equalled or surpassed the impact of a switch to a top coupling cap like V-Cap or Mundorf.
dgarretson

Showing 4 responses by pbnaudio

I do not see a Caddock MDN series of resistors listed anywhere so it would be hard to identify its wattage.

As far as using a resistor as a fuse, I've never heard of such thing and would consider it sub par engineering at best, probably not what one should expect form the folks at Wilson.

I would not worry too much about the fusing issue and just use the best resistor I could find, the Caddock MP9100 certainly being one of them.

Good Listening

Peter
Look here Caddock

Depending on where in the crossover the resistor is inserted changing value is not recommended as the components values before the resistor are chosen seeing a certain load. Changing the resistor values will therefore change the filters transfer function i.e the crossover point of the tweeter.

However if the resistor is meant to be changed by the end user then on your question about power handling of the resistor in a tweeter crossover anything above 15-20W should work just fine, if you want to spend the $ go for the Caddock MP9100 they are available at Mouser MP9100 8 Ohm
@erik_squires

I think you must be referring to this type of fuse

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Littelfuse/0251002MXL/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsNIlwy3aAdUVxIQvxhy%252bighe...

which is a fuse not a resistor, although to a layman it might look like it. That being said I find your posts enlightened and offering good advise.

I believe that this thread was questioning why one speaker manufacturer use resistors as fuses, which I consider sub par engineering at best and further evident as some report that these change value over time - which of course they will as they heat up - cool down.

Depending on their insertion in a crossover I use different resistor types, if in a zobel network for impedance correction of a woofer or midrange generally I use 25W cement resistors and almost always several in parallel as to get the power handling up where it needs to be. For attenuation of a tweeter, which I generally try to avoid, I’d use either the Caddock MP9100 which I heatsink or several 5W MOX resistors in parallel again to get the power handling up.

I agree Mills non inductance resistors are nice too and use them on occasion too.

http://pbnaudio.com/speakers/speaker-kits/scanspeak-b741

Above is a link to a kit I designed for ScanSpeak a few years back - this will give a good indication on how I propose the use of resistors in a X/O network.


Good Listening


Peter