Khanspire Crossover upgrade

[jkrueger]

Hey all

I am wondering about what would be money well spent on a crossover upgrade. I am building the Khanspire plan, and I am a Canadian. I would like to order from Solen and thought that while I am at it I would upgrade some caps and resistors. Are the regular solen caps better than the dayton ones in the upgraded plans? If I was gonna spend a bit more money where should I start with the upgrades? The tweeter circuit? Any advice would be much appreciated.


Jon

[Dennis H]

Are the regular solen caps better than the dayton ones

No....

[augerpro]

Are you saying they are worse Dennis?

[cjd]

Nope, not worse.

Inductors, stick to all air core with the appropriate impedance.

Caps, you could consider splitting the tweeter cap values in half and going with one high-end super fancy cap, one normal cap in parallel, OR just go fancy for the whole value.

Mid would be the next place to consider but it's a battle of diminishing returns.

If you're going these steps, hopefully you're using a quality teflon insulated silver plated mil-spec wire (in the US I just source this from ApexJr - incredibly good prices) and real copper binding posts (Supras are - they're $50... Cardas also does some). 12 or 14ga on the woofers, 14 or 16 on the rest. And running monoblocks right next to the speaker...

In other words... there are so many other places to throw away more performance (without even thinking about it perhaps) than you might gain from spending a ton of cash on tweeter caps...

Though, wire length almost entirely affects system Q, except where they're particularly inductive.

C

[---k---]

Hey all
I am building the Khanspire plan, and I am a Canadian.

Jon

:T

I feel like a proud papa. I believe you'll be #4. Please, keep us updated with photos and such.

As far as the crossover parts, I'm going to let the other experts here speak. I've only used the Daytons, and have been happy enough. I don't see any reason not to use the Solen's if you can get the right values or build up to it.

As can be seen by the BOMs, most of the designers here don't shy away from spending good money where appropriate. If you dig a bit, there are enough photos of crossovers to see what everyone beleives is appropriate. This is less likely to start the cap flame war.

[cjd]

I've decided, when I design for others, I'm only going to spec silver foil/oil Audio Note caps from now on. I think you can get 1uF for a $600, and 3.3uF only running $1900.

Duelund silver foils would be acceptable. 20uF is a mere $7000. (easy to parallel up for the woofer shunt caps!)

You could dip down to the sad little Jensens which are only $550 for a 1uF.



The real question might be: will these make a difference?

I don't know. I DO think these speakers could highlight a difference, if one exists.

C

[ahaik]

I've decided, when I design for others, I'm only going to spec silver foil/oil Audio Note caps from now on. I think you can get 1uF for a $600, and 3.3uF only running $1900.

Duelund silver foils would be acceptable. 20uF is a mere $7000. (easy to parallel up for the woofer shunt caps!)

You could dip down to the sad little Jensens which are only $550 for a 1uF.



The real question might be: will these make a difference?

I don't know. I DO think these speakers could highlight a difference, if one exists.

C

cjd, you forgot to put the decimal point, let me correct your post :E


"I've decided, when I design for others, I'm only going to spec silver foil/oil Audio Note caps from now on. I think you can get 1uF for a $6.00, and 3.3uF only running $19.00.

Duelund silver foils would be acceptable. 20uF is a mere $70.00. (easy to parallel up for the woofer shunt caps!)

You could dip down to the sad little Jensens which are only $5.50 for a 1uF.



The real question might be: will these make a difference?

I don't know. I DO think these speakers could highlight a difference, if one exists."



But man $70 for a 20uf cap.....

Sorry, couldn't resist :rofl:

[servicetech]

Here is Zaph's point of view on the matter, and I agree with him.

The two negatives of electrolytics are lower power handling and degradation over time. Sound quality is not a negative, though many would have you believe that. Electrolytics sound every bit as good as poly, mylar or metal film capacitors. Considering the unfounded, non-scientific hype over more expensive capacitors, you either have to believe me or be willing to spend nearly $600 for a pair of crossovers rather than $160.

[cjd]

Two caps that measure exactly the same should sound the same.

I think electrolytic to poly is worth the cost in every case, just because they DO degrade over time and they also tend to vary a lot more from spec. When we start looking at the various film/foil caps vs poly, you can still measure differences in ESRR most notably, but other stuff - beyond my real understanding to be honest. And worth the cost difference? Maybe if it's $20 vs $60 for a tweeter network. But if I were serious about those silver foil caps? That's like a 1000x cost differential. I don't care if I can hear it, I just don't know that I can justify that cost. That's a LOT of seasons of seats at the symphony (and I DO subscribe... just renewed last night for next year! too bad I won't hear Perlman when he's in town - I'll actually be in Paris).

C

[Hdale85]

Oh how horrible....you'll miss Perlman cause you'll be in Paris...you poor soul :roll: :lol:

[cjd]

Oh how horrible....you'll miss Perlman cause you'll be in Paris...you poor soul :roll: :lol:

Paris is easier to get to than a Perlman concert... might be cheaper too. (at least, if I want decent seats...)