Where to buy.....

Calling all DIY champions, guys I need to ask you something. I would like to know if any of you knows whether place here in Malaysia sells the following:

1. silver solder
2. Top quality capacitors, Rel-caps, etc.
3. Top quality air coil inductors.
4. Top quality resistors.

There are for use in a speaker cross-over.

I know Farnell probably have some of the choices. Wonder if any other place DIY'ers goes for their supplies. I do understand there's always the internet if all else fails...

Thanks in advance.

u can try octave in pj.

Thanks Lam.

diyhifisupply.com

partsconnexion.com

Both I believe is at the States.. But DIYhifisupply seems like HQ in HongKong. Both easily has better variety than Octave. And they have never fail to deliver to door. Though a week or 2 are needed.

Do let us know what you plan to achieve on ur speaker crossover makeover??

i usually get my diy from Yap or Helen at Octave first. If they don't have, sometimes i just ask them to order for me, sometimes i go on the net(but not often)
Yap carries Mundorf, V caps, Kiwame risistors (but not duedland... sorry about spelling), many other brands. I have bought copper foil inductors from him, but not sure if he has air coil inductors. I can give you their number if you send me an sms at 012-3058090 (i dont have their permission to put their number up on the net,so i won't, but i will give it to you if you need it. just sms). Yes he has silver solder.

Bal

i hv bought some cables from www.hificollective.co.uk but the problem is it is in uk and u hv to pay for items and mailing in pounds.

WongKN wrote:

1. silver solder
2. Top quality capacitors, Rel-caps, etc.
3. Top quality air coil inductors.
4. Top quality resistors.

Hi Wong,

1. I have some Cardas Quad Eutectic silver solder

2&3&4 . What are the values you looking for ?

To everyone, many many MANY thanks for your responses, help, suggestions, offers, PMs, etc. You guys really shows what our forum can and should be : friendly and sincere sharing of info and help.

Some background. In the past, I have dabbled in trivial DIY mini-projects here and there; re-wire my Spendor SP2/2 with mono-crystal silver wires from van-den-hul for e.g. But my most complex mini-project so far was to remove the internal transformer of an Audible Illusiions Moduus 2D pre-amp to an external casing of its own (that transformer vibrates and hums like crazy and the AI Modulus 2D is a valve preamp...). All these are of course what I like to call 'little boys' DIY project la.

This project is to replace the components of an Apogee speaker crossover and so looks like my most complex yet. I have decided to do the DIY instead of getting someone to do it for me. For the fun factor. Brings back nice memories of my elective courses in uni (I took a couple of electronics course back then).

The original crossover uses 'reasonable' components, chosen more as a good value for quality compromise rather than outright sound quality. So potentially there are good gains from replacing the stock capacitors with 'audiophile grade' ones. The downside is the values required are quite high. For e.g. there is one inductor which needs to be 6.4 milli henries. Apogee uses a large hand wound copper wire spool to get this value. The first capacitor after the speaker terminals for the high-pass filter for e.g. needs to be 70 milli farad. Apogee actually uses a set of 7 Sprague capacitors to get this value (each rated 10 milli farad 200V). So obviously I can go this project several ways. I can check for all the individual components that Apogee uses and replace them by the exact equivalent in rating but of higher 'audiophile' grade. Or I can use components of different ratings, e.g. less capacitors, each of higher rating of 15millifarad.

So at this moment, I am actually just starting my research. I will only make a final decision in the next few weeks after deciding exactly how I want to approach the project.

So many thanks for all the information provided and to Wikin, thanks for your offer. When I have made my decision, I will do a 'stock-check' and will then come back and bug you guys again. In the meantime, looks like I will be visiting Octave to do some window shopping, as well as check out some websites.

Hello wong, nice to see u do long story again
IMO Try not to change the real value of the component like farad, harad(wrong spelling?) as it may jeopardise the life of the ribbon/eletrostatic... ? In ur speaker.
But of course like higher wattage of resistor, voltage of capacitor is acceptable.
u may want to get few values of resistor to help reduce/increase the loudness during fine tuning stage, as the sum of these audiophiles grade components can in some way improve the dB. Good luck, must be a fun on to go around with.
Partconnexion even help u to match the pair of component you desire, if u state in the requirement.

Excellent stuff WongKN,
I did a similar crossover component upgrade job on my MMG from Magnepan.... and it changed a good speaker to one i could easily live with for the rest of my days, the difference is that big.

The MMG crossover is really simple, and thus i could afford copper foil for the inductor and V caps for the caps.

After burn in time of about 100hours, the sound is simply stunning for what i paid for the speakers. At first, before the upgrade, i was always mentally looking at the speakers in the 'for sale' section of our fine forum. Now, after upgrade, i only look at for sale speakers to keep a tab on the prices, not to think about buying new speakers to upgrade anymore.

Good luck with your project, i am sure it will pay big big dividends.

bal

Good morning everyone,

Hope you all have a nice holiday ! Many thanks for all the additional advices, info, comments, etc. Today is the first day I am starting work after a very good break. So before the workload comes and buries me, I thought I will give a quick update on what I have found and what I have decided.

Basically, I have been doing lots of reading and research for this so-called 'DIY project'. Having indulged in very simple ones before, I know how exciting a DIY project can be and this one, being a bit more complicated has certainly been a very interesting and exciting one.

Firstly, what I have done is that I have located schematics of the cross-over circuit, both for the high-pass and low-pass portion. In addition, I have also opened up the speaker to take a look at the actual crossover itself. My tech advisor had actually advised me against doing this project all the while. The thing is he had a look at the crossover of another, identical, speaker some time ago and told me the crossover construction and materials are actually of high grade. So he thinks it is unnecessary to do what I am thinking of. But being the forever bekside itchy fellow, and armed with forum talks from Apogee owners who have done the xover project before, I am expectededly not fully convinced.

Well, after research the net and receiving feedback and advice from DIY people, I now fully understand and appreciate what my tech advisor told me. Basically the xover is a discrete circuit, not based on a circuit board. The components are connected via copper wires of 16-12AWG and high grade solder was used. The connection to the binding posts and the driver units are via high quality spades, crimped on.

The components are also high grade for the period (circa 1990s) the speaker was made. The capacitors for e.g. are Sprague 730P types which after checking through lots of sites including some parts for sale sites, I found is already fairly high grade, certainly commensurate for the speaker during its era. Even today, equivalent capacitors are going for around 9-10USD a piece for a 10ufd 250DC unit. Given that the circuit uses around 20 such 10ufd capacitors, the total cost for capacitors alone is around 200USD or around RM600.

The bigger issue is what to replace it with. One older article in a DIY website I found compared many different capacitors during the early 2000 and rated the Sprague 730P as 8. The issue is the highest rating they gave for a capacitor was only 12 and that is for things like a VCap TFTF. Naturally I did research and one unit of 10ufd VCap TFTF is selling for USD800 (yup, the number of zeros is correct). So if I need 20, I will have to pay 16,000USD for capacitors alone. That is RM48,000. Ah.... NOW I understand why speakers like the Magico Q5 can cost so much. And of course people, including me, have always felt the prices of crazy high-end items are ridiculous. I suppose perhaps they are ridiculous because the parts cost nowadays are ridiculous as well.

The same story, or worse, applies to the inductors I need to replace. The high pass filter requires a 6.3mHenry air-core capacitor. As usual, your champion itchy bekside moderator went to look for the best on the market. OK, a Dueland 6.4mH air-core capacitor, widely held to be the best on the market. Unit price on the net ? USD1,600... I need TWO. And I also need another two air-core inductors of 2.3mH rating which is 'cheaper', at USD800 each.

Obviously the bekside itchiness needs some serious control ! A good round of scratching comes to mind !

Given this, the logical approach now is of course to first set a budget, then decide what components to get. BUT, I wouldn't know how much I need to spend if I don't have a firm idea of what grade of components I want to use. Hmm... chicken and egg here.

The more important consideration is that obviously if I am to do the project, I need to make it worthwhile and that means getting components significantly better than those in the original xover. But as the Sprague 730Ps are already quite OK, that implies I need to spend a hefty sum of money if I want a good upgrade in SQ.

This then is current status. I am doing research on component grades. In fact, I also need to think hard and decide if I really want to go ahead with the project in the first place because it is looking quite certain that the cost of parts for the project is going to be quite a bit more than the cost of the speaker itself. Would it make sense if that is the case ?

From my current state, I expect to be buried in a long period of research, consultations with tech experts, and deep thought. I have received advice from some DIY fans, that it might be possible to find cost-effective affordable caps that is significantly better than the Sprague 730P and thus make the project worthwhile. So the first objective is to complete the research to derive an estimated cost of how much the project will require. Once that is done, I will need to consider if it makes sense to go ahead with the project.

I have always had good respect for all you DIYers and of course this little 'project' have firmly solidified that respect. If there is interest, I will post my status from time to time. Thanks for reading !

While you have respect for us DIYers, I have respect for you; as you have such talent for being 'cheong hei' How can you type such lengthy reply - if I'd were you I'd to take a nap soon after those typings.

Anyways back to the topic - please do not swap component for component blindly and hoping that the best components in the crossover equates to best sound. It does not work that way at all. The tuning of the circuit (via iteration method) and listening to the result via music (voicing) is the proper way to do it.

One good example is the LS3/5A - yeah great vocals and have you seen the crossover component selection? Very plain jane polyester caps, autoformer chokes, white coffin resistors... etc.

cheers.

Wikin,

No use being jealous, it's a gift not many has the good fortune to enjoy...

I do know about the voicing part but I don't think I have the finances to test capacitor brands which I think is what you are recommending. The original Vishay Sprague capacitors and hand wound inductors are I think already nicely optimised for the speaker. But as it is, I can hear sonic limitations which correlates to the comments I read about in an capacitor shootout articles and from owners comments around the net. One option is to rely on the recommendation from an old article in the apogeespeakers.com website. The author did a similar project and recommended the replacements for the caps and the inductors (RelCaps and Solo inductors). My tech advisor on the other hand feels it is simply too much trouble -and risky- to do the project and thinks I should just leave the xover alone as the Spragues are fairly and probably voiced for the speaker. That seems to be more and more a good advice at the moment.

Well I shall see.

Wong KN,

Right choice. I have tried to mod mine too but to no avail. Have to stick to the orig cap type and value. Wasted some money but lot of fun and back breaking to move the speaker.

WongKN wrote: My tech advisor on the other hand feels it is simply too much trouble -and risky- to do the project and thinks I should just leave the xover alone as the Spragues are fairly and probably voiced for the speaker. That seems to be more and more a good advice at the moment.

Well I shall see.

What's the speaker you're using ?

To be honest your tech advisor is correct in that if one has no experience fiddling with crossovers let alone designing speakers and even understanding them, might as well leave the alone.

On the contrary if you're really serious in seeking help to retune your crossovers, kindly PM me.

cheers

Hi Wong,

If you do treasure your Apogee as a legendary classic, it is best you just keep it original. That kind of scary exotic components u dream of buying, is better save for upgrading the valve in ur Audio Research..(Still have that? remember seeing it in the forum; whre u posted it).

If the itchiness still prevail, buy a flawed Epos M12i like mine and play around with the Xover, it is only 2 components~~

I planning to chg my high eff speaker using single core silver wire . What gauge do you recommend.

10 to 18 AWG also can..Frankly I have no idea.

As a gauge, you look into the crossover's resistor/ cap that run in series to the tweeter....the lead of those component. From there you get an idea of the save margin of the min diameter. Generally 1mm diameter of more is safe enough.

do let us know if you have done it.. how it compare to the original wire. Thanks.

A quick update since I am the OP for this thread and a few might still be interested to know. Firstly, Maxis for some wierd reason decided I did not pay promptly enough and barred my broadband account on Tuesday morning. This coincided with my internet banking provider's downtime for 2 days which meant I did not have proper access to the internet most of this week ! I only really regained access yesterday. Thus the long silence.

The project has hit another glitch. There is not enough space for the components, especially the large 70ufd cap and the inductor coils inside the speaker crossover compartment This means should I do, I have to do an external crossover. Seeing the extra complexity and cost involved, I have decided to put the project on hold for the moment.

I want to thank everyone for your feedback, comments, opinions, and your PMs.

7810sam, from checking with some of the internet DIY parts site, it seems that most of the branded wires suitable for use in speaker internal wiring are available in size of at most up to 12AWG. Cardas offers a 11.5AWG wire though but many like Kimber offers much smaller guages. So if you want to go for 10AWG, you will have to really look around. I have not found any so if you find it, I will be interested to know.

WongKN,
If you still want to mod the xover, suggest you have the xover unit place outside the speaker. Easy to tweak it as when require. Thanks for the info.

adrian4454 wrote:Hi Wong,

If you do treasure your Apogee as a legendary classic, it is best you just keep it original. That kind of scary exotic components u dream of buying, is better save for upgrading the valve in ur Audio Research..(Still have that? remember seeing it in the forum; whre u posted it).

The Audio Research pre and power were sold to Malacca.

Dear KN,

Since your plan is to change most of the component in XO, my suggestion is that u keep the original XO, then rebuild the whole set of XO with new component in and external board.

with this u can always compare the original with the new and can use any set of xo depend on your mood. and u can put back the original set of XO when you wish to sell the speaker.



My experience in mod XO is that it may change the quality but whether it is an improvement or degraded u will need to justify. Good expensive component doesn't mean will give improvement on every aspect.

I am sorry for the late response. Very seldom have time to check in to this forum nowadays.

sss333, many thanks for your input. My project has been put on hold for the moment as I need to look at other more critical things (non hifi related, car related) for the moment. But I fully agree with you, the external crossover is the best, more prudent way to go. However, it also a lot more costly. I will re-consider it again when I am able to re-start the project.

adrian, I have since sold off my ARC SP9-2, CL60 pair. Very reluctantly. But the CL60 really couldn't drive my Apogee well enough. I had to bi-amp with my Luxman power amp. I have since joined SJ and am now driving the speaker with an Odyssey Khartiga Extreme SE. It's every bit as good as SJ says it is. Whatever valve warmth and midrange lushness I lost, I make up with improved control of the music dynamics and better bass. I would like to complement it with a valve preamp though but that will have to be something a bit further in the future as finances do not permit it at the moment.

Signing off again.

WongKN wrote:adrian, I have since sold off my ARC SP9-2, CL60 pair. Very reluctantly. But the CL60 really couldn't drive my Apogee well enough. I had to bi-amp with my Luxman power amp. I have since joined SJ and am now driving the speaker with an Odyssey Khartiga Extreme SE. It's every bit as good as SJ says it is. Whatever valve warmth and midrange lushness I lost, I make up with improved control of the music dynamics and better bass. I would like to complement it with a valve preamp though but that will have to be something a bit further in the future as finances do not permit it at the moment.

Signing off again.

Wah, Odyssey new model kah? Khartiga?!

Btw, the Khartago drives the Apogee real well but the Stratos (being more powerful) beats it by a mile.

Htkaki is putting in good poison for u wong.
Glad u like ur new setup!

This htkaki ah... bad habits so quickly pick up and become the master.

Wong Suk, since we are talking abt Khartago, Magico's Alan Wolf is also using it to test Magico loudspeakers.

“I’ve been using the Khartago in the factory
for years to test loudspeakers. It isn’t a Soulution 700,
but it’s…good enough.” said Alan Wolf