Vandersteen 4

I've acquired a pair of Vandersteen 4's with the WX-4 "Electronic Bass Crossover". Could someone with experience with these please advise me on the wiring ?

There are 3 connections on the back of the speaker, "Tweeter and Mid-Range", "Mid-bass" and "Woofer", plus a switch that selects either full 'Full-Range' and 'Bi-Amp'.

The crossover has "R&L INPUT", "R&L HF OUT", and "R-STEREO-L LF OUT". There are holes for "R-MONO-L LF OUT" but they are blanked off.

My understanding is that the crossover inputs are fed from the power amp outputs, but since the WX-4 crossover only has RCA ins and outs, it gave me pause. It's kind of hard to mate RCA connectors with the mongo cables in use these days :>) I just want to make sure before applying power!

Thanks

By the way, it is an active crossover and with an AC power cord.

Yikes, thanks!

That would explain the RCA ins and outs then.

On the Vandersteen FAQ page Richard Vandersteen writes that that the Model 4s have to be be bi-amped, implying Mofimadness is indeed correct on the WX-4 wiring before the power amp.

I'm still not sure what the Full Range/Bi-Amp switch is for in that case.

I spoke with Mr. Vandersteen about the 4's. The Full Range switch is there for testing purposes only, he says there is no internal crossover.

He also mentioned that some models of the WX-4 had dip switches to allow you to match the input impedance of the power amp. Otherwise the actual crossover point may not be the 80 Hz design value. My unit doesn't have these.

Unfortunately, the WX-4 doesn't seem to to be powering up. I need to check the fuses inside the WX-4, or maybe the power indicator LED is out.

I would like to try bi-amping these, I imagine they will sound fantastic.

He said that the woofers in these were made by Dynaco and replacements are not available, so be careful not to blow them!

Time to trouble-shoot the WX-4. To be continued ...

The 0.25A fuses across the AC input lines are indeed blown. Does anyone know if that's the correct factory value ? These appear to be regular low-amperage fuses, not slow-blow or anything exotic.

The circuit board has 1984 printed on it !