Is it good to upgrade the crossovers in your speakers?

@sns et al

I have been considering the replacement of the capacitors in my speakers which are approaching 20 yrs old. I’ve always heard that 20 yrs is the life expectancy of caps, thus my concerns. Beside that is that I believe there is a slight loss of transparency over the years or expectation bias at work?, Even so, I like the overall sound signature I have and want to keep what I have, if for no other reason, the $12-15k replacement cost. I was told that if I replace with the same values, it should be fine

So, the question is it a good thing to do as a maintenance project? Then too, which capacitors? Nichicon made a big improvement to my 20+ yr old preamp. Are they appropriate for a speaker (original Silverline Sonata)?

Instead of buying overly-overpriced and overly-overrated audiophile caps, makes far more sense purchasing higher performance speaker.

Other than that, replacement premium quality caps can be found on generic electronic sites such as digikey.com or newark.com. They have Nichion made caps as well.

I replaced *everything* in my Thiel CS2.4s except the cabinets and drivers. Sounds much better than original. But it was a lot of work and expense. And fraught with the possibility that I would screw it up. Important to match values of original parts (well, ok to increase voltage of caps or wattage of resistors) and make sure that total series resistance is close as possible to original circuit.

As for capacitor life, electrolytics start to degrade after, maybe, 10 years and should probably be replaced by, say, the 20 year mark. But film caps are very stable, essentially lifetime caps.

@mapman 

It’s only a good idea if you really know what you are doing. Or just want to tinker and maybe learn and see what happens. Otherwise, if you have the right good quality speakers for you to start with, there is no need. The crossover was already designed and integrated by an expert. Also It is most likely that any changes one makes on any well respected speaker model will limit the # of potential buyers if you decide to sell, assuming one is ethical and properly transparent about such things

Good advice.

Even if they were vintage speakers I'd still keep the values exactly the same.

Things like crossover points and the related dispersion patterns are difficult enough for experts with good measuring equipment and software.

I have $2300 worth of parts on order now for crossover upgrades. Obviously I’m a believer. I also obviously disagree with @czarivey . But it depends on what speakers you have and what their capability is. You don’t want to spend a lot of money on an upgrade to a speaker with poor drivers, for example.

@sns said it well:  As long as you're not changing values of components you're not going to change voicing to a huge degree. And the best quality parts are only going to improve timbre, natural sound quality.

--Jerry