New stuff at Meniscus?

[augerpro]

So I wandered to meniscus the other day and they seem to have a lot more stuff than I remember.

I'm always looking for good quality resistors for good price, anyone familiar with the Lynk resistors? Is MOX the same kind of resistors that mills are?

Speaking of resistors, what do you experts think of these: http://www.madisound.com/catalog/ind...Path=404_86_89 for high power uses?

[Paul K.]

Lynk resistors

The Lynk are metal-oxide resistors and are not the same as Mills but the two should perform the same in a crossover. Whether one is better sounding than the other is up to your ears, however.
Paul

So I wandered to meniscus the other day and they seem to have a lot more stuff than I remember.

I'm always looking for good quality resistors for good price, anyone familiar with the Lynk resistors? Is MOX the same kind of resistors that mills are?

Speaking of resistors, what do you experts think of these: http://www.madisound.com/catalog/ind...Path=404_86_89 for high power uses?

[TacoD]

Looks like the Mundorf 10 W mox resistors.

[Hdale85]

Are they wirewound?

[Amphiprion]

Why is there a preference for MOX over wirewound?

[augerpro]

I'm just wondering if these are a decent alternative to Dayton sandcast resistors? Mills are the "standard" but I don't find their tolerance to be that great. The cheap Daytons are far better in that regard. I don't know what the diff really is for sandcast vs MOX vs wirewound.

[Jed]

Brandon, the Eagle's at madisound tested well when JonMarsh put them through some tolerance testing. That's what I've been using- along with the Daytons.

[Hdale85]

While we're on the subject, Do you think it would be worth the extra cost to get crossover parts with very high tolerances versus the normal 5% or what not that we normally get sometimes? I don't remember what a lot of the ones in the Maxx's that I built used as its been a while but this has been on my mind lately.

[augerpro]

Jed I bought a whole bunch of those Eagles back when Jon first mentioned he had tried them and tolerance seemed OK. I didn't have the same luck, although they were probably within 5%, they varied widely within that spec. At least compared to Daytons. For example out of a dozen 10 ohm Eagle's the values varied from 9.7-10.3, that's just too much for me. Mills is alrightish. I buy a bunch and measure them to get consistent values so that's not too big a deal, but they are just to expensive.

So I've been using Dayton exclusively, but I'm always looking for good replacement.

[JonW]

I'm just wondering if these are a decent alternative to Dayton sandcast resistors? Mills are the "standard" but I don't find their tolerance to be that great. The cheap Daytons are far better in that regard. I don't know what the diff really is for sandcast vs MOX vs wirewound.

Brandon,

My limited experience is similar to yours. The Dayton resistors seem to be much closer to the stated values than the Mills. At least according to my meter. Just today I ordered a bunch of Dayton, Mills, and Eagle resistors for my upcoming crossover build. I'll measure them all and decide what to use then. At least picking between resistor brands is a lot cheaper than deciding on caps.

[Amphiprion]

While we're on the subject, Do you think it would be worth the extra cost to get crossover parts with very high tolerances versus the normal 5% or what not that we normally get sometimes?

Debatable. If used in a high Q notch filter for a metal cone breakup, I would say definitely yes. For simply setting the knee in a lowpass filter or similar, 5% is probably OK. They will be tighter than that anyway. I just measured a bunch of EPCOS 3.3uF 50V mylar caps I had laying around and they measured 3.30, 3.32, and 3.28uF. These have +/-5% tolerance and cost me a 1.79 each and measured within 1% of spec'd value. A 400V 2.0uF 5% Solen measured 2.00uF, a 400V 10uF 5% Solen measured 9.94uF, and a 400V 25uF 5% Solen measured 25.7uF. All tests done with a Fluke 177.

So out of the six 5% film caps I had within reach and within speaker-appropriate values, all tested within 1% of nominal capacitance rating save for the 25uF Solen at +3%. I have a bunch of smaller ones but my Fluke only has a resolution of 1nF. I've been eyeing 6 1/2 digit benchtop multimeter, but I'm not able to cost justify it yet.

[Jed]

Jed I bought a whole bunch of those Eagles back when Jon first mentioned he had tried them and tolerance seemed OK. I didn't have the same luck, although they were probably within 5%, they varied widely within that spec. At least compared to Daytons. For example out of a dozen 10 ohm Eagle's the values varied from 9.7-10.3, that's just too much for me. Mills is alrightish. I buy a bunch and measure them to get consistent values so that's not too big a deal, but they are just to expensive.

So I've been using Dayton exclusively, but I'm always looking for good replacement.

Good info. Thanks Brandon. By the way, what type of equipment are you using to measure the resistors? I need to invest in a new meter.

Jed

[Amphiprion]

There is only one brand of multimeter: Fluke. Shun all else.

[augerpro]

If you can afford the Fluke Jed, then as Mark says, go for it. Personally I'm using this: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=390-513

Very happy with it. The L&C meter seems very accurate too. I measured against Dayton 1% caps and Erse 1% and Jantzen 2% coils and the meter is basically right on. On coils it gains a slight deviation as the coil size increases, starting at zero for <.50mh, and reaching about .08mh for a 3.00mh coil. So that's very good. And far all I know that could just be Jantzen's/Erse's own tolerance, the coils may tend toward the higher side as size increases.

The only things I don't like is the resistance is only measured to a tenth of an ohm. But that's pretty usable for what we do. Also I don't think it is a TrueRMS meter.

[Silversmoky]

Was just checking some stuff out at Meniscus and noticed these measurement setups. Was just curious if anybody knows anything about them or had more info on them. I personally had not heard of them before. I checked out the designers website and it looks like some pretty capable equipment. Definitely not on the cheap side but less than some. Here's the links:

http://meniscusaudio.com//-c-116.html

http://www.kirchner-elektronik.de/gb-atb-pc-qc.php

[Amphiprion]

One-tenth of an ohm is the standard precision unless you have a four-wire multimeter, and those are real expensive.

We checked a bunch of the multimeters we had at my old company against our precision bench multimeter (which like most bench top meters would measure down to .0001 ohm in four-wire mode) and the Fluke was the most accurate on all parameters tested (ohms, AC & DV volts & current). I didn't do the measurements myself, but the technicians said the Fluke and one other brand meter did well (can't recall the type) and that the others were very hit and miss. I wish I could remember the other brand that did well. It would be good to recommend to others. I recall it being maybe fifty or sixty bucks.

The one thing I remember being most frustrated about was my group (electronics and instrumentation) would always always recommend that other divisions in the company purchase Fluke for their meters, and they'd invariably end up getting lesser brands because they were all about features and interface ability or whatnot. They had practically no need for those features, but they'd buy the other meter at practically the same price instead of the Fluke. It was like buying a whiz-bang underpowered receiver vs. separates, if you will.

[Dennis H]

Mark's post got me looking at the different Fluke models. There's a 289 on Ebay with a current bid of $100 and 2 days to go. It has .001 ohm resolution on the 50 ohms scale and .01 ohm resolution on the 500 ohms scale.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fluke-289-True-RMS-Digital-Multimeter_W0QQitemZ350085378631QQcategoryZ58277QQcmdZViewItem

http://us.fluke.com/usen/products/Fl...(FlukeProducts)