Frzninvt Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Hello there, I recently received my DeanG AA type crossover for my center channel La Scala. The picture shows what went in and what came out. The swap was rather easy with the hardest part being me trying to contort my body to get behind that La Scala and hold that heavy crossover in place while I tried to get my screw gun in there to secure it. My impressions, well first let me say that I am far from an expert and my old tired ears have been abused for years with firearms, loud car systems, and heavy machinery. However, I have been into audio in many forms for around 20 years now and I know what sounds good. The first thing that was immediately apparent to me even with my center oriented in a vertical configuration rather than a horizontal one for TV height concerns was that the speaker sounded alot smoother, minute details were now very easily distinguishable from one another even when the material got complex and overlapping. It was there before but not at this level, I did not get a chance to do much listening the first night though. Last night I tried a myriad of music and DVD's and I must now say that it made a big difference! The opening minutes of Die Another Day in DTS-ES were really incredible every little soundtrack nuance was faithfully reproduced with amazing clarity, I could count the brass being expelled from the countless machine gun bursts. Just when you thought it could not get much better it does! I then skipped through some tracks on Sade's Diamond Life CD - Wow! After that some B-52's and some Missing Person's to see if the older recorded CD's produced the same level of detail and they did. Engaging the DBX DX5's DAIR circuits further improved the less than stellar recordings and really made the high's sparkle. Explaining this sort of thing is very difficult to do, but the bottom line is replacing the 26 year old AA crossover in my center LaS with DeanG's AA incarnation yielded a very appreciable difference in my listening experience. I am now a big believer that the crossover makes a big difference, I first realized this when I upgraded the components in my Khorn's AK-2's to convert them to an AK-3 even with just those few changes the difference in performance were immediately noticeable. So if there is anyone on the fence out there considering a crossover upgrade I can honestly say it is worth it! Last but not least, I was not prompted to post this by DeanG or anyone else I did it on my own accord. I also did not receive any kind of discount or percentage off for providing this review. Being as pleased as I am I will be sending DeanG the networks out of my '86 Cornwall II for rework they look absolutely cheapo and could really use a rework. Thanks DeanO! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjgeraci Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Nice review, Frzninvt. As I've posted, I had similar substantial improvement when Dean modified the crossovers in my Reference sevens. As for the disclaimer, I'm sure that Dean appreciates it. However, as Dean redoes more and more crossovers and people post their impressions, any such disclaimers should no longer be necessary. Even those people that may be somewhat skeptical will conclude that the increasing number of people giving positive reviews means that there has to be something to this crossover mod thing. Again, nice post. Carl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjgeraci Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Oops, double post. If I think of something additional to say, I'll just add it in here. Carl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.4knee Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Frzninvt, great review you have clearly illustrated the improvements you sensed. DeanG, nice work the aesthetics of those crossovers look fantastic and as Frzninvt describes they apparently sound as good as they look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted June 13, 2004 Share Posted June 13, 2004 Frzn, I'm beginning to think the caps and perhaps the insulation in the inductors degrades over the years even though we thought they didn't. That's a likely explanation of your improvement and perhaps others, too. Perhaps not leaking is not a sign that the caps are still good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 Thanks Charles, I'm glad it worked out nice for you. John, I use the screw through the inductor. I did this based on a post of yours I read using search. Is your opinion the same now as it was then? It's a pretty big difference as far as inductance goes -- .245 to .385 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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