Madisound Surplus Polyproplyne Capacitors

[ka7niq]

Wow, you've got the low end covered I'd say. If you can score a pair of fully horn loaded speakers. I think those are the most musical. Some 2" drivers/horns like the 2441s or similar can really "blow your head off." and yet still be crystal clear. Surely those could keep up with your mind bending bass bins.

I'm really partial, nothing sounds as good as a horn loaded speaker.

I'm surprised you didn't like the 801s? Those are pricey and a well thought of speaker.

While doing all the cap swapping I just wonder if your comparing the Sentrys with the 801s instead of the way they "used to sound" vs the "new cap sound". Just a thought. Very hard to compare cap changes in a speaker set + speaker swaps along the way. In other words, maybe the Sentrys weren't that good from the start. Lets face it, usually the best a pair of speakers sound is when you first give them a listen.

The B&W Matrix 801's I just sold are an excellent speaker, just not able to show off my Monster Subs and Home Theatre setup the way I want. My main room is very large, need more efficiency. My second room is very small, the 801's simply overload that room. I though it a sin to have such a good speaker wasting away, so I found an audiophile home for them, and made a new audio buddy ! Both the Cornwall 2's, and the Sentry's are the right size to look decent in between the 73 inch DLP TV, and the subs in the corners. They fill up the space well. I put all new caps in the Cornwall 2's, but I don't care for them. They are not even close to the Sentry III's in sound quality, in my room. I really was looking for Altec 19's when the Sentry's fell in my lap. Out a foot and a 1/2 from back wall, they image very well, with good depth, and an uncanny ability to put sounds well outside the plane of the speakers. I love the ST 350 tweeters in them, they have a precision sound, not quite the extension of the 801's tweeters, but a nice sounding tweeter overall. Remember, they are 36 years old, LOL They show enough potential since they arrived to become my main project, and are a pleasure to work on. The whole upper back of cabinet unscrews and lays down to reveal the crossover, and it is all hard wired to terminals, piece of cake to do cap swaps. As far as comparing to the 801 goes, I have done comparasions, both with new, and old caps in them. Overall, they are not quite as good, but what is ? Nothing I have owned in the past 10 years has been as good, so this is no suprise. But the Sentry's deviate from the perfection of the 801 in ways I can live with, and the 801's can never equal their ability to play loud w/o strain. I am beginning to think the Sentry's will stay, but may require just a tad of Digital EQ to get them"perfect"

We shall see, I am hoping the new caps I ordered will be here by this weekend, so I can slap em in, and see how they sound. The 3 10uf poly caps I will be using to make one 30uf cap will have ultra low ESR, as do the Solens. It will be interesting to see what happens ? If it was not for this home theatre stuff, I would get me a Yamaha Digital Crossover, and Tri Amp the Sentry's !!!

[ka7niq]

Bump, I wanted to update my experiences with the Madisound Surplus Poly Caps. I pulled the tweeters out of My EV Sentry III's today, and cleaned the terminals. Remember, these speakers are 35 years old ! I also reached my hand into the tweeter hole, and wiggled wires as best I could on the Tweeter attenuator pot. This had a DRASTIC effect on the sound, even though the tweeters seemed to be "working"

I have been listening for almost 4 hours straight, tryiing hard to find some recording to make the speaker show it's flaws. The speakers simply sound incredible now. The woofer roll off calls for 2 30uf caps in parallel, the Madisound Surplus Polys are 10uf, so I took 3 of them to make each of the needed 30uf. The midrange high pass also calls for one 30uf Cap, so there are now 3 of the 10uf Madisound caps there as well. The other 2 caps are a 17.5 on the midrange roll off, and a 2uf on the tweeter. I have Solens in there now, and it sounds so good I am reluctant to mess with it any further. The Madisound 10uf Surplus Caps cost 60 cents each, and are American made by a Capacitor manufacturer in California who makes a lot for the US Military. 3 of them in parallel make for extremely LOW ESR, and the Caps can not be more then 8 years old, according to the company that made them. I was told they were US Military excess they made at one time. The date of manufacture was unknown, but the company is only 8 years old, so go figure ? I have no way to measure ESR, but capacitance was right on the money, within .1 uf of value on every one I measured. This was tighter then the Solens! The 18 uf Solens measured 18.1 and 17.8 on 18uf rated caps.

I played everything tonight I own practically, from the B 52's to Polka, Jazz, Metal, Techno, Tom Petty and Pat Benetar. I just Love the EV Sentry III's. They have taken on a big, smooth, musical and powerful sound. Far from the "in yer face" sound of most horns i have owned. Instead of sounding like a horn speaker, they simply sound like a great speaker, if you know what I mean ? Perhaps the wide 120 degree dispersion of the SM 120 horn reduces their throw, I don't know. All I know is coming from B&W Matrix 801's, they are not a disappointment like many horns have been for me. I have heard a CD Horn does not sound as good as a non CD horn, but you can not prove it by me. I hear ZERO offensive Horn Coloration in the mids of the Sentry III's. I do hear a horn sound in the ST 350 tweeters, but it is a low distortion, precision type of sound more then a coloration, kind of a "go ahead, mess with me, I can handle anything you have and sound good doing it too" type of sound. In some ways, the EV Sentry III's sound much like my departed EV Interface D's, since they share the same tweeters.

I like the Sentry III's better even then the Interface D's

Like the Interface D's, they have that wide uniform Polar dispersion EV was Anal about years ago. I lack the optional dedicated EV Equalizer that is said to turn the Sentry III's into room rattling bass machines, extending response down to 30 hz. But since I have very large subwoofers, it can wait.

I would suggest you try the Madisound Surplus Poly Caps, if you can make a 10uf cap work for you, either alone, or in a parallel combination. They are cheap enough I want to order more, and peel them apart, to see if I can trim them down to replace the Solens of 18uf uf. All it will take is one Madisound 10uf cap, and a trimmed one in parallel, if I can pull it off ? I MAY even order some 2uf ones from the same company that made them originally, since they are still in business, just for the hell of it ? I am very impressed with the sound of my speakers with these caps in them.

[JL Sargent]

Sounds like you really ended up with a big bang for your buck. Glad it all worked out for you.

I did not know they made an optional eq. for those speaker. That's interesting.