j_sunne
Active Member
I was looking for a short project to do this month when I had a couple of days home from work travel, so I decided to upgrade my NLAs crossovers. The drivers were refoamed at a Brown Soun about 10 years ago when I lived in San Francisco, so they should be good to go for a while. I recenty commited to keeping these for my second system, and didn't feel like doing anything as dramatic as E-Waving, so replacing the crossover components seemed like a chance to improve/extend them.
I decided to keep everything stock values, and didn't want to go overboard with expensive components, so I settled on a 13uF Metalized Poly Erse Cap, .33mH EQ series inductor, and Erse wirewound resistors. I also decided to upgrade the binding posts while I was at it. So for about $30 with shipping I got all the parts needed.
I likely could have left the inductor alone, but committed to replacing everything. The EQ inductor was the same 18ga as the stock one.
It was an easy couple of hours of work with interruptions. I kept it as simple as possible so I just glued parts back in place.
Results?
There is a dramatic improvement in smoothness across Normal and Decrease. It's also brighter in both settings. Highs would break apart in all settings before but the paper tweeter is better behaved. I used to go between Normal and Extended, but the extended would get tiresome after a while. Now I clearly prefer Normal.
The Extend setting bypasses the crossover, so the sound is unchanged.
Some pics below. An easy project for a beginner.
I decided to keep everything stock values, and didn't want to go overboard with expensive components, so I settled on a 13uF Metalized Poly Erse Cap, .33mH EQ series inductor, and Erse wirewound resistors. I also decided to upgrade the binding posts while I was at it. So for about $30 with shipping I got all the parts needed.
I likely could have left the inductor alone, but committed to replacing everything. The EQ inductor was the same 18ga as the stock one.
It was an easy couple of hours of work with interruptions. I kept it as simple as possible so I just glued parts back in place.
Results?
There is a dramatic improvement in smoothness across Normal and Decrease. It's also brighter in both settings. Highs would break apart in all settings before but the paper tweeter is better behaved. I used to go between Normal and Extended, but the extended would get tiresome after a while. Now I clearly prefer Normal.
The Extend setting bypasses the crossover, so the sound is unchanged.
Some pics below. An easy project for a beginner.
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