Xover parts quality,/sound difference?

Some day Sean, some day I will learn to ask you, Bob and Greg for your advise. I have never been real good at that. I am more apt to jump in with both feet tied to rocks and see if I can swim. It has served me well often, but I also have a few flaming blunders in my past. Thank you for your kind offer to help. I will make more of an effort, I do enjoy your help.

Jade

I am just completing the process of upgrading my crossover in my Dunlavy IVa speakers. I intend to write a full review of the research I did, and how I chose which components to replace as well as the sonic results.

As a quick summary Dunlavy used an all first order crossover design; that certainly does not guarantee less parts. The bass crossover has four capacitors, one resistor and four inductors. The treble/mid-range crossover section has six resistors, four capacitors and one inductor. The critical path components were determined to be two capacitors (one tweeter and one mid-range), two resistors (again one and one) and two inductors (one mid-range and one bass). The tweeter has no inductor in it's circuit.

I chose to buy very high end components for these circuits believing the added cost was in terms of this hobby fairly cheep when I consider I could get the best available for say an extra $500.

The results are not jaw dropping stunning, but they are definitely worth the investment in time and money. SMOOOOTH is the best word to describe the silky clean sound. I am using the visual description of resolution to describe the improvement. As if I changed the resolution on my computer from a lower setting to the highest, and changed the color from 256 to 1 million. All the same information is present but the picture is so much more appealing and detailed.

I will be writing a full review of the process as an educational tool as well as some praise for the excellent product and service I received from Duelund Coherent Audio. World class!

Jade

Sean, this is an excellent thought. I too have a desire to have everyone's ideas and learn as a group. I think sometimes I avoid this step simply tiring of the off color contributors. I have not been a real patient member in this regard, and often leave the site because of it. This is my personal problem, not the sites problem.

This remains my favorite place to hang, I guess I have just become reluctant to become involved in open ended forums where learning is not always the goal of those posting. In specifics I was hoping to avoid the comments like "Parts do not matter, Why waste your time with THOSE speakers? THOSE capacitors are simply over priced hype..."

As I said this is my problem I have struggled with over the years here. This topic is worth a full research and I agree I would have learned more.

As always Sean my friend, I have never taken offence by any comment you have made towards me, you my friend are class A.

Jade

Dbld, This is a very good question. The short answer is yes. If you are to consider the improvements made on solid state electronics from isolation cones, bearings and shelf material then certainly the vibration filled environment of a speaker is worse. Many people have claimed very large improvements with an outboard crossover, but I have not yet tried this.

I have been considering building an outboard wood box for my crossover that would have binding posts for the speaker cable, and then using another set of binding posts for each of the three drives. (tweeter, mid-ranges and woofers) The speaker would then have yet another set of posts for each driver. The reason for this clumsy setup would be for experimenting with different wire types, gauges and configurations to optimize the sonics. I could for instance use solid gold for the tweeter (I have found gold is perfect) and some combination of wire types and gauges for the mid-range and then maybe silver for the woofer. I figure if speaker cables make such a difference, than I should discover the best wire for each driver.

The point would be to tune the speakers with short affordable wire. If I discovered an affordable combination I could the re-wire those drives based on the results of this experiment.

I expect to try this out over the winter, so if anyone has thoughts...

jd