Cap/ Crossover Question

[wdrazek]

I am about to receive my first Heritage speakers, the Klipsch H II. I like the fact that they can someday be upgraded to III's and while HI's are a little more favored on these boards, I figured Klipsch probably didn't screw up the V II and the option to upgrade in the future sealed it for me.

So to the question.... these are about 20 years old and I am wondering if I ought to upgrade the caps in the near future since they won't be upgraded to HIII's for a while. Do caps lose their values over 20 years or so due to age or do these lose their values due to age and use? What do you think?

[PrestonTom]

It is a large and ambiguous question. Please search the threads.

[moray james]

wdrazek: A Heresy lll upgrade kits will cost you about $900.00 and you can buy a new pair of Heresy lll today for about $1600.00 in Black Ash , Walnut or Cherry with a five year warranty. To answer your question yes todays caps will sound better than the stock ones you have. Is the cost worth the improvement well it would seem that most here think yes but not everyone does so that's your call and only one way to find out.

I just got a set of Heresy built in 1985 for a very good price of $250.00/pr in very good condition though the HBR cabinets have at least two coats of paint to be removed. I decided to buy a set of Bob Crites's CT125 (bought them today) tweeters at a cost of about $200.00 shipping in to replace the stock K77M tweeters. I think that this is likely the best upgrade I can get for my money. I will rebuild the networks later and probably get a set of Bob's new phenolic mid diaphragms which are better than the stock phenolic diaphragms but I can do that later. I am not suggesting that the CT125 will sound as good or better than the new Heresy lll with the titanium diaphragms but it will sound much better than the stock K77M and is very reasonable in cost. Hope that this is of some assistance. Best regards Moray James.

[Guest " "]

different capacitors have different answers.....if you have the blue caps that looking like chicklets chewing gum, those are probably ok.....if you have the caps that are cylinder shaped with a white strip on one side, those are probably not OK......I don't think you have any of the black square plastic cube shaped ones, those would problally be OK.....I don't think you have the tin can oval ones, these would be a crap shoot with some that might be ok, and some that are not.

[wdrazek]

Thanks for the thoughts. For now, I think I will hold tight with the H2's and down the road either upgrade the caps for a few hundred or go all out and get the H3 kit for a little under $600 (selling the exisitng parts). Of those two options, the H3 upgrade is likely where I'll go since the net cost is not likely to be a lot more than just doing the caps.

[garyrc]

Just to clarify (in case you haven't had the backs off), the Heresy II does not use K-77 tweeters (the Heresy I did). I like the sound of my Heresy IIs very much (I use them as surrounds), but I am one of the weird minority that loves the K-77s. A version of them is still used in the Klipschorn and La Scala, perhaps because these two need a very efficient tweeter to balance the efficiency of the midrange and bass. The Klipsch engineers could (and did) replace the K-77s with technically better tweeters in the Heresy II, probably because the H II woofer is not efficient enough to require a very "hot" tweeter. I do wonder how the professional tweeter used in the Cinema version of the Jub would compare to the K-77F using my quirky ears, but it would take a different crosover to balance it with the rest of my Khorns.