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CW B2


Schu

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I mean really... Dean... WTF!

Aletheia Audio Cross Overs are friggen MAGICAL... The B2 Jupiter really does come stuffed with fairy dust that was sprinkled by a Pixie.

Before/After

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It's all in the details... Great tinning work!

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The sound... Superb!

what does that mean exactly?

well, to be truthful, I was pretty happy with my Cornwalls prior to taking this journey and I had spent countless hours tweaking and massaging my system to get it to the point where I was actually very content... That is until I heard the Cornwall with this new Aletheia Cross over.

Much of my listening is done in the 80db+ range and prior to the upgrade, I had what seemed like an overly narrow band of sweetness that the CW's performed very well in... outside of which things began to sonically deteriorate very quickly. Now, that range seems nearly unlimited as any of the preexisting very granulated overly forward squawker tendencies are non existent(shouty). In retrospect, before at higher volumes, the CW was barely listenable for extended periods and they caused suffering from excessive fatigue. Now the music is crystalline, extremely focused and any granulation is complete gone. All that remains are very dimensional and complex musical signals... Before, in quite passages, I could clearly hear the violin vibrato, now I can hear the resin hit the string before the bow excites the instrument. Really impressive stuff.

Warmth, yes... smooth, yes... detailed, yes... and more importantly, comfortable to listen to for extended periods. On top of it all, this is right out of the box... no room correction or other tweaks. I am still using my old setting from the original Klipsch B's and have only been listening for less than 1 hour.

I think it boils down to this for me... ignorance is bliss, at least until you begin experiencing other things that actually deliver on their promise.

Argument for diminishing returns? Not from me, this is worth EVERY CENT! And as I was telling dean, I can no longer consider ever owning Another speaker (klipschorn, la scala, belle etc) without considering that I also need to add an Aletheia Cross over to the equation.

Edited by Schu
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Looks like the usual pretty Dean artwork. I haven't heard flat stackers yet. Looks like you have some nice stuff there. Congrats.

Dean built my Cornwall networks 8 years ago. Sometime I'll have to post a picture. Same kinda artwork.......different parts back then. They are still in my '73 corns and I listen to them all the time.

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Again Schu nice photos.. :emotion-21:...Jupiter capacitors, what a great name.....Now I'm hungry for new X-overs. With that review and those good pics, my tiny crossovers look very dated and need to be refreshed at the very least.

:(

it's hard for me to tell... what speaker is that?

one other thing I wanted to add to my original posting concerning critical listening. I used to think I had a driver issues in my CW's as the speakers used to make some very weird raspy/screaming distortion based sounds at times and during certain musical passages. mostly higher volume (80db+) higher pitched horns or other high pitched musical/electronic instruments... now those same passages are COMPLETELY controlled and delivered in a focused and composed manner.

Another thing I have noticed after one night of listening is that the output/volume seems substantially higher for the same level in comparison to the old cross overs.

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It's not, I added it. It's a .39mH

Okay, thanks.

I just happen to have a pair of Jantzen 15 AWG .39mH inductors for some odd reason. DCR on the labels claims .17 ohms. I haven't actually measured them yet, however.

Could I use the Jantzen inductor with a stock Cornwall B2 network that utilizes the typical T2A autoformer, without affecting the crossover point? (which has to be compensated with a different capacitor value)

Or does the value of the input cap need to be changed? The input cap in one of Schu's photos appears to 6uF. But I can't really tell because a wire tie is in the way.

I'm always interested in making my rough ol' Cornwalls sound a little less rough... ;)

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Great pictures, they show all of my screw ups. :)

You have the same part I used, you're good to go. Just connect one end of the coil to tap 3 and the other end to squawker positive. There is no reversal in polarity. .17 is correct, so it adds a little less than 1/4 ohm of resistance in series with the horn. The inductance value is what you get when you calculate for a 6kHz crossover point using 15 ohms, the impedance of the driver at the crossover point. This number may actually be closer to 13 ohms, but with a first order filter, the difference is insignificant. The electrical first order combines with the acoustical 3rd order natural/mass rolloff to increase the steepness of the slope -- which is actually a form of attenuation, since the driver is receiving less energy. So, the coil dials things down a bit, and you don't have to worry about changing caps values. Speaking of cap values, the primary cap is a 3.3uF, which measured 3.22, both caps were matched to within 2%. The B2 uses a 3uF. If I can stay within less than 10% on a first order crossover, well, I'm not going to get to wound up over that. Early networks like the K1000/5000 and K500/5000 used a coil in series with the horn, which PK later removed -- apparently no longer feeling the need for them with the new horn and driver. However, I've been doing this mod for a long time, and everyone likes it quite a bit. It takes some of the bite out of the midrange without requiring the move to something like a Universal. This also leaves more money left over for some capacitors that really smooth and open things up.

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Edited by DeanG
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Great pictures, they show all of my screw ups. :)

You have the same part I used, you're good to go. Just connect one end of the coil to tap 3 and the other end to squawker positive. There is no reversal in polarity. .17 is correct, so it adds a little less than 1/4 ohm of resistance in series with the horn. The inductance value is what you get when you calculate for a 6kHz crossover point using 15 ohms, the impedance of the driver at the crossover point. This number may actually be closer to 13 ohms, but with a first order filter, the difference is insignificant. The electrical first order combines with the acoustical 3rd order natural/mass rolloff to increase the steepness of the slope -- which is actually a form of attenuation, since the driver is receiving less energy. So, the coil dials things down a bit, and you don't have to worry about changing caps values. Speaking of cap values, the primary cap is a 3.3uF, which measured 3.22, both caps were matched to within 2%. The B2 uses a 3uF. If I can stay within less than 10% on a first order crossover, well, I'm not going to get to wound up over that. Early networks like the K1000/5000 and K500/5000 used a coil in series with the horn, which PK later removed -- apparently no longer feeling the need for them with the new horn and driver. However, I've been doing this mod for a long time, and everyone likes it quite a bit. It takes some of the bite out of the midrange without requiring the move to something like a Universal. This also leaves more money left over for some capacitors that really smooth and open things up.

Thanks for detailed reply, Dean.

I got the inductors, I may as well try it and see how it sounds.

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Wow those look awesome Schu, I'm jealous! I've been using some ALK Cornscala Walls in mine but those have got me thinking, lol. I was thrilled with the ones Dean built for my La Scalas, what a huge improvement, so I'm wondering if I would see much of a difference with a set of those over my ALK's in my Cornwalls. This hobby is so fun but costly. :D

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