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D220Ti: what mods can be done?

jhoyt

jhoyt

Incomprehensible space llama
I was recently awakened to the possibility of modding these already decent drivers. I run a pair in my E-Waves, but they were not the "last word" in smoothness, for sure. In the EconoWave MegaThread, I saw some recent posts about damping the rear chamber of these, both inside and out. So I mounted round pieces of thin open cell foam inside the chambers, and applied rope caulk to the back.

Wow, what a difference! Now the sound is more coherent, focused, and smoother. Still not the absolute last word, but a big step in the right direction. Is there anything further that can be done to these? I know certain drivers have a pretty big cult following, because of all that can be done to them. (e.g., Dayton Silkes) Are there other mods out there for the D220Ti?
 
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Hey J, the other mod I just read about was to "charge couple" the crossovers. It is suppose to make the 220 smoother sounding. All the details can be found it "the" thread. Other than that, you can always go with the TAD or JBL CDs.
 
Heard nothing but good things about the BMS 4524 too, although it's bolt on. Similar price to the D220Ti at £70($110) per pair.
 
Dennis, I have looked into that too. The main drawback is financial--with the stated cap values, Solen is the only mf'r at PE that sells caps in those values (e.g., 9.1uF, 24uF). I priced it out, and it came to about $80. I know that's quite a bit under the DE250 cost (each), but considerably more than I have to play with right now.

Although it IS something I have been very curious about. I wonder if it could make the D220Ti drivers play like the DE250's?
 
Though not a mod on the d220ti itself I tried damping the Pyle waveguide it is screwed into with bituminous flashing tape on the weekend, and I think it has added some clarity and neutrality to the sound.. but this is just my opinion, I didn't do any measurements that back it up.

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I've also done the "tweaks" lining the inside of the d220ti's plastic cap.
 
another good mod for the waveguides was to weight it down with this rope caulking.
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We ended up adding a bit more than this.
 
Dunno how much shipping will be but the BMS 4524 pretty affordable here in Germany.

If its for the econowave XO I wouldn't bother though, since it's not developed for that driver.
 
jhoyt said:
Dennis, I have looked into that too. The main drawback is financial--with the stated cap values, Solen is the only mf'r at PE that sells caps in those values (e.g., 9.1uF, 24uF). I priced it out, and it came to about $80. I know that's quite a bit under the DE250 cost (each), but considerably more than I have to play with right now.

Although it IS something I have been very curious about. I wonder if it could make the D220Ti drivers play like the DE250's?
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Good point J. You could bartertown the 220s and add to the kitty what you would spend on caps and ungrade.
 
I've done the rope-caulk thing on the wg too. And yes, I did hear a difference. It cut way down on resonances coming from the woofer. Because the woofer plays so high, it can definitely cause weird sympathetic vibrations in the wg plastic. My next "concept" is to separate the wg from the woofer's "airspace", to completely eliminate this possibility.
 
You know Altec removed the cover on their 1" driver in the later version 9842...I wonder:scratch2:
 

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Sir.Byrd said:
I'm not sure, but I think it is easier to work with because it was in strips. I doubt it has magical properties.
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Plasticine Modeling clay dries out and won't give as effective damping effect, I believe. You can use oil-based modeling clay which never drys out and can be reused. This is what is often used for driver and cabinet damping.

Best Regards,
TerryO
 
Why do both?

jhoyt said:
Dennis, I have looked into that too. The main drawback is financial--with the stated cap values, Solen is the only mf'r at PE that sells caps in those values (e.g., 9.1uF, 24uF). I priced it out, and it came to about $80. I know that's quite a bit under the DE250 cost (each), but considerably more than I have to play with right now.

Although it IS something I have been very curious about. I wonder if it could make the D220Ti drivers play like the DE250's?
Click to expand...

It's the HF we're talking about, right?

So just use 3 more of the same ones you have already. (0.47uF and 4.7uF for STD <95 8 ohm XO) Parallel them in pairs, then series two pairs. (Two 4.7uF in parallel is 9.4uF, two 9.4's in series is 4.7uF again.) Or buy the 10uF and 9.1uF plus two 1uF's that the charged-coupled schematic has. Either way, no need to change the woofer to charge-coupled until you have tried the more-bang-for-the-buck treble section first. Or you can do what I'm doing, use an electrolytic for the bulk of the capacitance, then parallel a film cap to make the correct value. I needed 4 72uF caps per crossover for a different project, I bought 68uF and 4uF. I have some 20uf electrolytics that I just swapped in some studio monitors, and some 4uf's left over from an E-Wave purchase that would work great on the woofer side.

That reminds me, I found a local store with some huge oil-filled caps, I think I bought a set of 12's to play with... Let's see, 4 12's per woofer, hmm.:scratch2: About the size of the woofer, havta be external...
 
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What a great idea! How come I didn't think of that? Cuz me is stoopid! :stupid:

Seriously, that would make it much more doable. But how would you mount four capacitors in the space for one? I'm using the Zilchlab 1.1 boards.
 
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