Gmood1, I may be paying quite a bit less than the price you said each one was previously so if ever your interested I may have a decent connection for Mundorf parts. They still are pricy regardless. Thanks again for your help. |
I should note that the design of the Hales crossovers will remain the same and the values will be as Hales intended. The only difference is that the parts will be better and will be matched to each other between the two speakers. The Hales design will remain the same. |
Your responses appear to open a whole new can of worms but I am limited for now with the caps that the speaker componay I am using uses. However I can always play and experiment in the future should the mood move me. Are the caps I'm getting decent at least? There all I can get for now. Thanks |
My speakers are being done locally in Vancouver Canada and I suppose I could ask for the Mundorf caps as they probably haven't ordered the Solens yet but how much are they and which ones would be best?. Apparently my crossovers take about 14 caps each and I'd need to know which would require the better caps. I shall ask about the Mundorfs but if they are very pricy I may not be able to swing it. Thanks |
Thanks for all your advice. I am researching the availability of different caps through the shop where my speakers are at. I may go with the Solen parts as they are easily available but I will wait and see what the technician has to say about his availability for better parts. How are the Solen Hepta-Litz coils, Solen foil caps and their best resistors? Thanks again |
So now I am waiting for the return of my speakers with Mundorf Supreme Silver/Oil caps all around, Mundorf Zero Ohm coils and MR10 non inductive metal oxide resistors. It will be interesting to hear how my Hales will sound with these moves. As they were always different sounding from each other due to one of the crossovers not being correct, I'm sure I will enjoy the sound. As well I have my Pass X250 being looked at by Pass Labs as the right and left channels sounded different from each other as well. If the speakers weren't enough I had an amp problem as well just to confuse the issue.At least all is being taken care of at the same time and I won't have to have my system down much longer than necessary. Thanks for eveyones advice as I'm sure I'll get a better loudspeaker returned than I sent out |
Gmood1, What are the Mundorf PIO's. I am getting the Mundorf Supreme silver/oil caps. I thought these were the top ones. Are the PIO the same thing or are they one step up or down? |
After all said and done I'm getting Dynamicaps for the tweeter/midrange and solen and Axon for the bass. I'm getting Alpha Core coils all around with different gauges 12 ga for the bass 14ga for the midrange and 16ga for the tweeter. I'll be using Mills resistors all around and will be rewiring the speakers with Cardas chasis cable of three different gauges to each driver.I went this direction as the parts are known to be of good quality and I'll have them in two days and I should have my speakers back in my living room hopefully within the next week. The Mundorfs were only available in two weeks and there would have been a week of shipping. I couldn't wait any longer. The Sonicaps were considered but would have also been a several week wait. I'm sure I did OK. The one thing I am doing at the reccommendation of someone is putting single caps of a value where possible as opposed to cascaded caps of lower values. This is only done in a few places and was highly reccommened by Michael Percy who is where I am getting my parts from and I get the impression he really knows his stuff. Jeff at Sonicraft is brilliant and had terrific Ideas most of which I didn't fully understand but he knows his stuff. Unfortunately the wait. As for all you Americans, Andre at e-speakers is a really nice and helpful guy but is no longer distributing to Canada as Canada has it's own distributor now being Audyio Sound in Canada and they were extremely helpful as well but once again the dreaded wait.The website for Audyio is www.audyio.com They are online dealers of audio parts with Mundorf soon in Canada. |
I should note that the Canadian on line dealer is www.audiyo.com I miswrote. |
I got my speakers back today and at the advice not taken by an expert I decided to give listen immediatelty. I was told to wait a few days before even listening but I found that impossible to do. It worked!!! The sound is different and I'm sure will be way better than the origional crossovers in a few days to a few weeks. Already with only five hours play(and everything including the chasis wire was replaced)the speakers sound pretty good. They have a bigger sound with more bass(not boomy)nice mids and the tweeters are getting smoother by the minute but they were not harsh to begin with. Overall I'm excited and I know the speakers will sound awesome when the parts are broken in as the speakers sound good already. I was nervous by reading another post on Audiogon where people said crossover mods were huge mistakes in their opinions. In my case my only regret was being without my speakers for 3 months,3 weeks,1 day and 7 hours. Not that I was counting.
In my case I believe this move to be successful but time will tell how they finally will sound. I'm convinced I will be further impressed as time goes on. It was not an inexpensive procedure however costing about $1200 with the labor. The parts were about $800. I wanted a new speaker without taking a loss on selling my Hales and not having enough money to buy even as good a speaker. This way I think I kinda get the best of both worlds. |
Thanks for all your well wishes. The speakers really are sounding better by the minute and I've only had them plugged in for about 24 hours. I have a lot to look forward to. I'm replacing the tweeters to a pair that I know will work well as the person at Pass Labs who designed my X250 amp had a pair of Hales just like mine and he used the tweeters I am getting to replace the ones I've got now. The main reason for this move is that my tweeters are inbalanced. When I first got my Hales new they had a dent in one of the tweeters domes and Hales replaced the entire tweeter driver. The tweeters never since then sounded the same as each other. I tried changing both the voice coils and the problem remained, I then decided it must be a crossover issue which started this whole crossover upgrade idea and know although sounding better the tweeters are the same amount different than before the crossover mod. By process of elimination it must be the tweeter driver as every other variable has been explored and taken care of. At least I have a better speaker in return for my efforts and the Seas H881 are supposed to be really nice with the Hales.
Thanks again for all your inputs as it has helped me get a better speaker. I'll post again in a few weeks to let you all know how they sound with a bit of burn in time.
Mitch |
The tweeters I've ordered are the Seas H881 which I hear from a good source are supposed to match well with my speakers. Of course they are only a $28 tweeter but they are supposed to be OK for the Hales. I heard from a designer who had the same Hales T5's as me that he used the H881's with great success but went to the millenium series. He said the H881 tweeters were actually close to what he ended up using. I suppose I could spend hundreds on tweeters but I thought I'd try comparible (price wise) tweeters to the ones that came with the Hales. I'm going
to crimp the tweeter leads so that if I want to return the tweeters and go for something else I can. I'm leaving my options open. I hope the Seas H881's will do the trick as I don't want to start spending tons of money on tweeters.If anyone has advice regarding my current excersise please let me know.
Thanks again,
Mitch |
The H881 did not fit in my Hales so I decided to order the Seas Millenium as they are the correct size(110.4mm) to fit my Hales and they are supposed to be quite good. They are costly however. As I crimped the leads to my tweeters I can always try the Millenium and if they don't work for me I can always return them.I was told by someone who did what I'm about to do with my tweeters but he said he removed the .33 ohm resistance in the tweeter area. I hope it will not be neccessary for me to do the same as it would be a real job to open up my Hales to get back at the crossovers. |
1000 hours play on my Hales with the crossover mods with about 300 hours on the Millenium tweeters I installed and the speakers are sounding very very good. I'm blown away actually. I never thought the results would be as positive as they are. The speakers have an entirely new sound which I love. There is more bottom end without boominess, the midrange is sounding sweet and the new tweeter gives the speaker a whole different type of sound which is extremely pleasing. The tweeters are very detailed but lack the slight harshness of the Hales stock tweeters. The Millenium tweeters are much better sounding and they change the entire sound of the whole speaker. I never realised just how much the tweeters affect the bass response but it does. The bass is now different but in a pleasing way. All in all I must say I do not regret the crossover mods or tweeter upgrade in any way. I have a much much better speaker in return and it seems as if they are getting better daily!! I'm having fun. My wife misses me however but she knows where to find me. |
I should add that the Millenium dropped in nicely without having to change my modified crossovers. I didn't even need to remove the 0.33 ohm resistance in the tweeter section. It was as easy as installing a tweeter that fit in nicely. |
