Crossover A Klipschorn cap replacement help

[Travis In Austin]

18 minutes ago, captainbeefheart said:

@Travis In Austin attenuation, or insertion loss is different than distortion.

 

With the 'lossy' capacitor that lowers the output, the output is still the same waveform only smaller.

 

Distortion means that the waveform has changed it's shape, the output waveform is not the same original waveform that was at the input.

Klipsch's Law: Efficiency is inversely proportional to distortion. 

 

If you put something in the signal path between the amplifier and the loudspeaker system (like a XO network) that reduces SPL for a given input (1W lets say) you have decreased the "efficiency" of the speaker, you will have higher distortion for the same SPL. [This assumes there is no phase distortion, which is a big assumption]

 

If XO 1 has caps/other pieces that results is SPL of X [90 db] at 1W

 

and 

 

XO 2 has caps/components that result if SPL of Y [87 dB] (-3db) at 1W, it will have higher distortion at 90 dB and it will [Klipsch's Corollary] suck.

 

But we know this because we know that different components impact the "transfer function." Roy has said the critical thing when testing a component in a XO (like a capacitor) you need to know exactly how it impacts the transfer function compared to the standard (control). If you don't know precisely how it changes the transfer function you are pissing in the wind. (he didn't say this last sentence).

 

I understand that it may be the other side of the same coin in terms of ESR, any Klipschanado will understand if you mess with efficiency/sensitivity there better be a better trade off somewhere else because you are increasing distortion. 

 

 

[Islander]

When a crossover causes a drop in signal strength, is it as a fixed amount, or a percentage of the signal strength?  In other words (deang doesn’t need other words, but I like to be sure I’m talking about the same thing that you are), if the XO causes a .1 ohm loss at 1 watt, at 100 watts is the loss still .1 ohm, or is it 10 ohms?

[KT88]

6 hours ago, Travis In Austin said:

 

And that's awesome, but you changed the sound from the original, which is absolutely your right to do. They don't sound the same as the lab standards/originals. It's of course a subjective thing, and people will have preferences.  It's different, and it's discernable. No one can say it is better, that's an individual thing and completely subjective. (You should have gone with Mundorf or Jupiter, everyone knows caps made in Germany are the best - j/k). 

 

The last thing someone who bought new (to them) vintage speakers is putting in something they know is going to change the sound from the original. First, you get them back to original, listen for 50 to 100 hours and then if you want to try something different, have at it. But do one crossover at a time, and A/B them.*

 

*If you have a preference, and it is Khorns that are being updated, you actually have to move the speakers to the opposite corners to determine if the preference is the XO network, or a corner preference. No two corners sound the same (it is counterintuitive, but it's true), and many people with have a corner preference, left or right, and so you have to switch the speakers to see if it is the XO, or the corner. 

 

English is not my mother tongue and I may not have formed the sentences correctly.
1. ) I remember very well! the sound of my 1977 LaScala as I bought it 23 years ago with original xover. That is my benchmark. If not, the conversation would be over here.

2.) The sound became duller over the years and I saw that these tin cans in the xover were wet and leaking fluid.

3) In 2009 I was in Hope, Arkansas, you remember Travis you were nice enough to pick me up at the airport in Fort Worth but then your work schedule interfered and Paul picked up his son and me at the airport.

 

4) Bob and his son were also in our Jubilee class. And then back home I had seen what he was doing in business, we talked about it briefly in Hope too in a break from Roy's seminar. So I thought I couldn't get much closer to the original. 
But after I got the xovers from Bob and installed them, somehow the Lascala wasn't as much fun as I remembered with the original caps.
Even if it's no longer about third party offers here in the forum, I'm not! about criticism of Bob's performance but only! about the comparison Sonicaps vs. Mylar caps.

5) It was only about 2 or 2.5 years ago that I found out here in the forum that Klipsch/Roy is now looking after old customers (or customers of old speakers) themselves. That's when I first read that today's Mylar (the same with a different name is called polyester) is recommended by Klipsch to aim for the original sound.

 

6) I tried exactly that and wrote my enthusiastic thread.

To sum it up again simply, Sonicaps are polypropylene caps. In my opinion they do not fit well with the LaScala.

Klipsch offers Mylar caps as a path to the original vintage sound and also in today's Heritage products.

Which brand of Mylar caps you choose is a very very fine tuning and only then you are below many people's hearing threshold in comparisons.
The best way is to simply buy the caps from JEM/Dean. It will be good and right and no one has to worry. I just wanted to share with my posts my preliminary listening results that I can share and confirm that it is effectively good and clearly audible what Roy recommends.

As for Germany as a production location, I live only 5 km away from the Mundorf company here in Cologne.
Mundorf is „too good“ to produce Mylar caps. 

 

I just want to take Mundorf as an example for the whole business: There are reasonable Mundorf products, but most of them are overpriced stuff that lives exactly from such deluding marketing slogans like the one you quoted in a post here from other capacitor manufacturers. It's always the same principle. The end customer must not be too stupid about what is being talked about, but he must also not be so smart that he would see through what he needs and what not.

I don't see many production facilities here in Cologne, Mundorf is in my subjective view more of a smart trading company that has various manufacturers produce according to its ideas. I would have to do more research in order not to claim anything wrong.

A completely different and very serious German example is the company Wima. They produce everything themselves in their factories. Wima is a big partner of the whole electrical industry. There you also get polyester capacitors of the best quality, which are called mkt at Wima. Polypropylene types (which you also need, just not in old Klipsch speakers) are called mkp at Wima. The MKP10 type is very cheap and good and widely used.
What do you think which coupling capacitors are in 15.000€ expensive Mcintosh tube amps? Wima mkp10, for about 70 cents a piece wholesale. They are good because they are good, they are cheap because they come in large numbers, they are not bad because they are cheap.
But such a product cannot be marketed like a Mundorf silver/oil cap.the Wima customer buys 5000 pieces, the naive but solvent Mundorf customer buys 2 pieces.

Therefore, imagine it similar with the Mylar caps that Klipsch builds into the crossover nowadays as Macintosh does with the Wima mkp10:
They are good because they are good, they are cheap because they come in large numbers, they are not bad because they are cheap. They are what you need at this point in the circuit. Not more or less, not different not more expensive or cheaper.

[Aoran994]

i still dont know what to buy ahahah, too much technical information here, but i am happy that the thread evolved in this,anyway i don't believe in expensive capacitators, i looked out the dayon's but if somebody could help me find something more appropriate here in the EU i appreciate the help

[henry4841]

1 hour ago, Aoran994 said:

i still dont know what to buy ahahah, too much technical information here, but i am happy that the thread evolved in this,anyway i don't believe in expensive capacitators, i looked out the dayon's but if somebody could help me find something more appropriate here in the EU i appreciate the help

If you cannot get the Klipsch authorized capacitors go ahead an buy the Dayton's. They have been used by many over the years on this forum and the buyers liked them. I have a box full of them. There are others I like better but there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. To most technicians working on electronic gear a cap is a cap as long as it comes from a reliable source with the same specifications in the data sheet. 

 

What is so special now is we can now buy the capacitors the sound engineers at Klipsch are using in their Heritage line. Just check out the reviews of their newest line of speakers that are using the same capacitors to judge results. Sure they are more expensive than a Mylar cap from another source but there is a lot of R&D time spend by Klipsch choosing the caps they now use. Any original part from a manufacturer is going to cost more than an aftermarket part. Cars parts are a good example. A dealer part is going to cost more but you have what the factory deemed best for their product. This has not always been the case. We on this forum had to look for other sources in the past for replacing old leaky caps which is not the case now. 

[michaelwjones]

32 minutes ago, henry4841 said:

What is so special now is we can now buy the capacitors the sound engineers at Klipsch are using in their Heritage line... Sure they are more expensive than a Mylar cap from another source but there is a lot of R&D time spend by Klipsch choosing the caps they now use. Any original part from a manufacturer is going to cost more than an aftermarket part. 

 

Agreed. As a friend once told me: Different is not the same.

[KT88]

3 hours ago, Aoran994 said:

i still dont know what to buy ahahah, too much technical information here, but i am happy that the thread evolved in this,anyway i don't believe in expensive capacitators, i looked out the dayon's but if somebody could help me find something more appropriate here in the EU i appreciate the help

 

i rarely do it and i don't like to, but in this case i would like to disagree. If you have a free choice, buy polyester types and not Dayton. You can order Kemet or Nichicon or other good brand types from an Italian wholesaler. Because the problem is the price of shipping duty and VAT when you order JEM. Or it is ok for you but then you are over 140€ for some polyester caps. I ordered from Mouser in Texas but you have to buy for 50 USD to get the shipping free otherwise it costs 20€ shipping.

 

I have ordered those below for my AA type xover but the 6.8 uF types from Kemet brand (also from mouser) I still had, you will find them easily I think it was also 250 V. I could mix the brands in a parallel configuration without any problem. 

 

https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cornell-Dubilier-CDE/150155J250ME?qs=aEuGZpxfbxWT1z2aKJ1kTw%3D%3D&countryCode=DE&currencyCode=EUR

 

https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Nichicon/QAK2E475KTP?qs=zcDUcsVsD8GyM44MsdcuDA%3D%3D&countryCode=DE&currencyCode=EUR

 

https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cornell-Dubilier-CDE/150105J250JE?qs=7%2FmqHVvJdq1CAssUvlHftQ%3D%3D&countryCode=DE&currencyCode=EUR

 

 

 

For your type A if I am not wrong you just need 1x 13 uF and 1x 2 uF per channel.

you could use per channel 2x 1uF in parallel before the tweeter and 6.8 + 4.7 + 1.5 uF in parallel for the midrange horn.

[KT88]

BTW if I were you I would think about to upgrade your type A xover to a type AA if you have an amp with more than fly wattage. All you need is one more little coil and one more capacitor. The effect is much more significant than you could perhaps imagine. As I said start first and get used to your speaker as is. I would also let check the capacitance and the ESR of your original capacitors. If they measure ok than there is no better way than keeping them.

[Edgar]

On 12/8/2022 at 10:50 PM, Travis In Austin said:

@Edgar please, please, please post in this thread.

 

Please explain what Roy does to make sure the transfer function is identical AND that the sound is identical with the replacement parts. 

 

Please explain how in the real world manufacturers select a particular part, like in a crossover network, that goes in the end product (and I know the answer to that isn't cost alone). 

Sorry, Travis, I've been offline for the past week or so, and I haven't followed this thread.

 

The explanation is multifaceted:

 

In the simplest, non-audiophile case, a designer just resorts to the math. The speaker is 8 Ohms, assumed resistive, and the crossover frequency is X Hz, so just plug the numbers into the formulas and find the values for the capacitors and inductors. Look in the catalogs for the parts that come close to the desired values at the desired prices, and specify those for production. And this, by the way, is what a lot of DIY builders do, too.

 

For serious audiophile situations, though, the math is just the starting point. Inductors have resistance and capacitance and hysteresis. Capacitors have resistance and inductance and dielectric nonlinearities. And, of course, loudspeaker drivers have resistance and inductance and capacitance and nonlinearities and mechanical resonances, some of which change with frequency. So the crossover (balancing network) design must take a "systems" approach -- everything affects everything else. And that interaction is the reason that simply replacing a single component with another that is nominally of the same value might affect the entire system in unexpected ways. Now, such a substitution is not likely to turn a diamond into a lump of coal, meaning that it probably won't affect the sound quality of the speaker in profound ways, but it will change it.

 

Most of those non-ideal characteristics can be modeled mathematically. And the resulting circuit analysis can be as complicated as the designer chooses. Ideally, the circuit is optimized such that all of the components complement each other, but even that's not the end of the story. For a stereo pair, the speakers need to complement each other, too.

 

And even that's not the end of the story. There is plenty of evidence that two components that measure the same can sound different. So, ultimately, the final arbiter of all of this is the listening test. Listening tests can guide us not only on the configuration of the balancing network (crossover frequencies, filter orders, individual gains), but on the types of components to use (electrolytic or film, iron-core or air-core, etc.).

 

And even that's not the end of the story. The real end of the story is decided by the bean-counters. Every product has a target bill-of-materials (BOM) cost. If the BOM cost is exceeded, back to the drawing board.

[Deang]

55 minutes ago, Edgar said:

a designer just resorts to the math.

 

Yeah, what I figured. Voodoo. 

[Aoran994]

1 hour ago, KT88 said:

BTW if I were you I would think about to upgrade your type A xover to a type AA if you have an amp with more than fly wattage. All you need is one more little coil and one more capacitor. The effect is much more significant than you could perhaps imagine. As I said start first and get used to your speaker as is. I would also let check the capacitance and the ESR of your original capacitors. If they measure ok than there is no better way than keeping them.

Thank you for all the response, ive read that the AA crossover it was built to protect the delicate tweeter , soo it can handle more watts if im not mistaken, i have 2 parasound jc1 monoblocks , they have unlimited power , it could be a good idea

[Deang]

@EdgarIt was a joke Edgar. 

 

There are three kinds of people in the world; those that do math and those that don't.

[OO1]

1 hour ago, Aoran994 said:

Thank you for all the response, ive read that the AA crossover it was built to protect the delicate tweeter , soo it can handle more watts if im not mistaken, i have 2 parasound jc1 monoblocks , they have unlimited power , it could be a good idea

get in touch with  JEM via email , they are Authorized to sell   klipsch Genuine capacitors , tell Jim that  you are in Italy ,   find out how much it would cost to ship 1 kit of A  or AA Network  capacitors  via USPS  or by  mail  , if that does not work , reach out to me by PM   .

 

 

https://jemperformanceaudio.com/    

412-401-6915.               theaudioroom@verizon.net 

 

[henry4841]

7 minutes ago, Deang said:

@EdgarIt was a joke Edgar. 

 

There are three kinds of people in the world; those that do math and those that don't.

I always heard there are 3 kinds of people as well but what I was told is this. Big shots, little shots and those that need to be shot. 

[KT88]

35 minutes ago, Aoran994 said:

Thank you for all the response, ive read that the AA crossover it was built to protect the delicate tweeter , soo it can handle more watts if im not mistaken, i have 2 parasound jc1 monoblocks , they have unlimited power , it could be a good idea

AA not only protects the tweeter it also makes a better overall sound in my view.

[henry4841]

Just now, KT88 said:

AA not only protects the tweeter it also makes a better overall sound in my view.

Interesting, I am in the camp of less is better but to protect the tweeter I am using AA's as well.

[Deang]

AA rolls off the tweeter at 21dB/octave. Along with the additional protection, you get better imaging and more power before the K-77 turns into a Kazoo. The AA also has significant EQ to address a peak in the K-77's response.

 

There is a recent thread, now buried, where testing showed low level distortion exhibited by the diodes. While discussing this with Roy, he told me to either not use them or use the 100 ohm resistor in parallel with the polyswitch.

[KT88]

7 minutes ago, henry4841 said:

Interesting, I am in the camp of less is better but to protect the tweeter I am using AA's as well.

Less is not always better in my view the AA type offers much more intelligibility and sounds not so thick and boomy in the upper bass and in the transition to the squaker when I compare both networks.

[Deang]

"Less is more until less is just less."

[OO1]

46 minutes ago, Deang said:

  not use them or use the 100 ohm resistor in parallel with the polyswitch.

can you Please  show that layout  on the AA schematic