belgianbrain
Super Member
Skylan.
Hand made in Alberta.
Hand made in Alberta.
ReCapping the NS-1000M.
- Thread starter belgianbrain
- Start date
Dual
Active Member
For what it's worth, I had an interesting phone conversation with a guy who sells a lot of NS1000 (and other) components on the 'bay. He is a hobbiest servicer and modifier of various audiophile gear and has, among other things, a 7:1 room set up with dual NS1000's in every position*. I will respect his privacy here as regards identifying him.
I had contacted him about buying a pair of used xovers so I could recap while leaving my originals (with serial #'s) intact. He asked me to call him, and said that in his experience these xover's don't drift/age enough over time to be worth the trouble of a recap. He suggested using a ($100) meter to check the caps if in doubt but was in no way a fan of recapping for reasons of psychological security.
He did suggest it might be worthwhile to experiment with strapping mylar 2-mic caps in parallel with the extant units, and if very particular, paralleling poly film .1-mic caps to them, on the grounds that these caps have better audio characteristics.
I don't have enough tech knowledge to comment on the wisdom of that path, but his point about recapping seemed a good one to me.
*save the LFE, I'd assume.
I had contacted him about buying a pair of used xovers so I could recap while leaving my originals (with serial #'s) intact. He asked me to call him, and said that in his experience these xover's don't drift/age enough over time to be worth the trouble of a recap. He suggested using a ($100) meter to check the caps if in doubt but was in no way a fan of recapping for reasons of psychological security.
He did suggest it might be worthwhile to experiment with strapping mylar 2-mic caps in parallel with the extant units, and if very particular, paralleling poly film .1-mic caps to them, on the grounds that these caps have better audio characteristics.
I don't have enough tech knowledge to comment on the wisdom of that path, but his point about recapping seemed a good one to me.
*save the LFE, I'd assume.
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I'm with your friend on that. I took the X'overs out and brought them into work and measured the L's and C's on a Digitech impedance bridge. I have the result logged somewhere. I measured them at 3 different frequencies and all caps were within 1% of stated value. The L's were very close too. With so many places to spend money I'd rather spend it elsewhere ...
belgianbrain
Super Member
My caps were fine for ESR, but the capacitance values were 10-20% high on all but the 2.7uF tweeter cap.
My reason for changing them had less to do with their current state and more to do with:
1. The reality that they're already 35 years old and it's only downhill from here; and
2. The reality that good audiophile caps made today sound better than anything made 35 years ago.
So, why not improve the sound even a little with plastic capacitors that will never age?
My reason for changing them had less to do with their current state and more to do with:
1. The reality that they're already 35 years old and it's only downhill from here; and
2. The reality that good audiophile caps made today sound better than anything made 35 years ago.
So, why not improve the sound even a little with plastic capacitors that will never age?
If I would have had those results I would've changed mine too. :yes:
Arkay
Lunatic Member
I have a different solution:
1. Buy 10 or 15 sets of NS-1000 series speakers.
2. Pull the beryllium drivers and mount them in series-parallel as line arrays in custom-cut compressed-wood "wings". Keep them in horizontally-matched pairs, and mount them with the most accurate drivers in the center. (Alternatively, buy 50 or more speaker sets and use only the most closely-matched pairs.)
3. Put the woofers in line arrays like the woofer towers for the old Infinity speakers (Optional: replace them with Watkins woofer towers.)
4. Rebuild a crossover using the finest caps you can afford, measured for <1% tolerance.
5. Put the leftover cabinets into storage, in case you ever want to reverse the process.
Note: Obviously you may not use the same number of drivers for the columns; if you have enough tweeters, you'll have extra mids and woofers left over.
6. Place the resulting speakers in an appropriately fine-tuned listening room.
7. Sit back and enjoy some of the finest sound on the planet.
This is what I plan to do. It will go in the listening room right next to the one with the Heil AMT line-array systems. That will be next to the "Grand" listening room featuring the IRS Vs.
Yep! I'm going to do this. Just as soon as I win the huge Powerball Lottery...
1. Buy 10 or 15 sets of NS-1000 series speakers.
2. Pull the beryllium drivers and mount them in series-parallel as line arrays in custom-cut compressed-wood "wings". Keep them in horizontally-matched pairs, and mount them with the most accurate drivers in the center. (Alternatively, buy 50 or more speaker sets and use only the most closely-matched pairs.)
3. Put the woofers in line arrays like the woofer towers for the old Infinity speakers (Optional: replace them with Watkins woofer towers.)
4. Rebuild a crossover using the finest caps you can afford, measured for <1% tolerance.
5. Put the leftover cabinets into storage, in case you ever want to reverse the process.
Note: Obviously you may not use the same number of drivers for the columns; if you have enough tweeters, you'll have extra mids and woofers left over.
6. Place the resulting speakers in an appropriately fine-tuned listening room.
7. Sit back and enjoy some of the finest sound on the planet.
This is what I plan to do. It will go in the listening room right next to the one with the Heil AMT line-array systems. That will be next to the "Grand" listening room featuring the IRS Vs.
Yep! I'm going to do this. Just as soon as I win the huge Powerball Lottery...
