2. tech-talk
  3. 1006744335

What internal speaker wiring to use?

I've been listening to my P.E. Leon Integral speakers for about six years now. They are a 3 way 5th order design using Focal drivers. The internal and external woofers are 8". Usually I listen to jazz classical and pop with my Micromega Solo CD player, Audio Research LS1 pre, and Classic 60 power. Interconnects are Tara Labs Ref Gen 2, and speaker cables are FMS zero core. Inspite of some of the "old" technology, the openness and detail, coulpled with the very tight bottom end of these speakers is astounding. (In particular if driven with a good 150W solid state amp, the control and tightness of these 8" woofers is better than I expect.) One day I moved the speakers down into my home theatre (some might say a huge mistake; Marantz SR14EX) and got carried away with a buddy blasting Santana's Supernatural DVD. To make a long story short, after the smoke cleared, one of my resistors in a crossover had burned. Seemed like a good time to do some tweaking so I changed the wiring from its original individual runs of +ve and -ve mystery wire 14G teflon insulated to woof/mid and 16G teflon insulated to tweet, to Kimber 8TC and 4TC. Now the sound is far less detailed with less air, a bloom in the mid range and definetely looser bottom end.
Lesson learned. Sorry for the long post, but has anyone got a recemmendation for wiring inside my speakers? This was one helluva lot of work for a poor outcome. (Stripping all of those wires on the Kimber was a particular pain!). I've let the system play for four solid days while I was away from home so I hope the wiring should have burned in if such a thing exists. Help!

Many thanks in advance for your replies.

Perry Gall
perrygall

Showing 1 response by perrygall

perrygall OP
1 posts
 
Thanks for the responses. I have contacted the manufacturer in France and Pierre is willing to send new wire to me for no charge! Guess he doesn't want his work to sound as they do now. As well as that reason, he's just a good guy.
Ezmeralda11: You're right I should have mentioned the resistors. They were both replaced with new resistors of the same value and tolerance. I checked the value of the remaining good resistor, (it matched its markings) and matched the new resistors to 3 decimal places with a good Seimens multimeter. All joints were soldered very carefully with WBT silver solder from The Parts Connection, and polarity was checked against a schematic supplied by P.E. Leon. The speakers sound identical now, just like crap unfortunately. How do you feel about the burn in? Do they need weeks instead of days?
More to discover