Infinity QLS 1 Recapping with pictures !

jt45

Super Member
I started this a year ago and it took the help of many here in the Infinity thread
to get to this point. I had a few projects pop up in the 6 months its taken me to finally tackle these crossovers, but here are some pics of my (FIRST) speaker re-capp. Thanks to Cdfac, jimreeves, Grainger49,Tubed and many others here for helping keep me straight along the way with good advice and a part here and there.
And also my Hot melt Glue gun was a (BIG) help anchoring these caps down
and also with combining the smaller caps in parallel. I highly suggest anyone
who does a job like this to get one, It made the job much easier.


Before !

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I used 2 500uf and a 100uf for the 1100 uf. Look at the size of that 40uf !

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I used 2 500uf and a 400uf for the 1400uf cap, Also replaced the wirewound resistors for the midrange and midbass coupler. This board was a breeze but the real fun was just getting started.
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I went ahead and gave all the pots a good cleaning with some D5 while I had the chance.

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This is where it started to get interesting, (not much real estate to work with) I used a 12uf, 1.5uf, and a .1uf for that 13.6uf fuse cap. I liked my glue gun alot about then.:D

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And the tweeter caps were a bit of a challenge I used a 1uf, and a .22uf for the 1.25 uf cap.

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I used a 1uf and a .68uf for the 1.75uf cap.

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I used a 2.7uf for the 2.5uf cap, then I tied everything together with some hot melt glue and soldered all the connections.

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Ready to go back in the box !!

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Only one more to go ! Tomorrow evening ! I will update how they sound
after I get them finished.
I am looking forward to hearing them.:yes:
Thanks fellers !
 
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Very nice work.

Nice looking solder connections.

Looking forward to your listening impressions.
 
From my experiece; don't expect a revelation right away, in fact you may think they sound worse at first, especcially the imaging. Give them some hours (20+ imo) to burn in before attempting to evaluate them. :yes:
 
Great work there! Reminds me of when I did my Quantum 3's and RS-IIIa's with those BIG can caps in them. Did you measure the stock capacitance of the original caps to see how far off they were? A couple of mine were WAY out there...maybe 40% higher than rated. I used those same Bennic electrolytic caps to replace them and when I used my Fluke on them, they read rather high, too. One speaker had 2 banks of (3) 200uf caps (those black caps with the red ends) in parallel and then paralleled back together for the 1200uf value. The other speaker had 2 separate silver 600uf caps in them. In place of them, I used a 1000uf and 200uf cap in parallel but, when metered, they were reading around 1500uf or so. Kinda high. I took the 200uf off of each and the 1000uf caps measured at 1150uf so they stayed in as a single cap in each one. I might add a 30 or 40uf cap onto those to get closer to the original 1200uf value. One day...

Yeah, these are fun to work with in that cramped space in the bottom. But I'm glad they're done.
 
Thanks guys.

My meter wont read caps I dont think, and my friends meter wont read anything that high unless there's another way to read those that I dont know about.

The daytons are 5% caps so I should be good there, the bennics are 5% as well I think.
 
If those are the electrolytics from Parts Express (which appear to be Bennics), they aren't 5% tolerance. Most likely between 10 and 20%. They have a 5% dissipation factor (defined here) which isn't the same. You're most likely ok and won't be able to tell that much difference. But it bugged me after I metered the values. :D Heck, maybe it's "supposed" to be a higher number and they used those caps for a reason. Who knows...
 
I went ahead and put the crossovers back in my right speaker and gave em a listen, right away I noticed a big difference. The bass has tightened up a bunch and the Midrange is clearer. I did a side by side comparison and the Older caps in the Left speaker have More bass but its sloppy compared to the recapped speaker wich sounded tight and much more balanced.
I hadn't noticed how boomy the bass was on these until now. I had always figured I just needed a bigger room or better placement. Tweeters sounded great and the combination of the rear tweeter and midbass coupler extended much better behind the speaker giving the impression of a very deep soundstage.
Low volume listening is much much better and I suspect the clearer midrange is helping there. Overall Im pleased, but I do hope the woofers open up a little and deliver just a tad more bass, However the only source I had while testing the Recapped speaker was FM so I wasn't able to listen to good clean material that I know well and once I get the left speaker finished and get them placed right I think
they will sound great.
It wasn't all good as I found 2 tweeters out on the recapped speaker wich put 4 out of commission, so I ended up unsoldering all the tweeters and putting a meter on them. I ended up moving them (resoldering) the 6 good tweeters from the top down and I have the 2 bad ones out until I can figure out how to repair them. Until then
I may just keep them mounted in the bottom 2 slots since these are wired in pairs like the mids. The foil on them looks perfect so Im not sure what the problem is yet
and have no intention of taking them apart without some help and advice.
I have 1 tweeter out on the other speaker so I may just end up with the bottom pairs on each set of tweeters down. At least both speakers will be matched that way until I get them fixed or replaced.

I may start a thread on those tweeters in the near future so if anyone has some experience with them, feel free to chime in.

As soon as I get the other set of crossovers finished and get both speakers placed right with some good material
I will give a final impression. But I can already tell there's a night and day difference !
 
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reheat the solder joints on the EMITs. that might just do the trick, especially if they're measuring between 10 and 30 Ohms DCR.
 
reheat the solder joints on the EMITs. that might just do the trick, especially if they're measuring between 10 and 30 Ohms DCR.

I checked each one after I unsoldered it and one is giving me something like
1.0192 and the other was around 52.9 ohms I think.
The first one keeps dropping out to infinity 0.L
Do you know what the normal value on these are ? Im getting around 5.8 on most of mine.

I could probably live without the bottom pairs since I rarely get that low anyway.:D But knowing me I wont rest till their fixed or broke for good
so Im gonna try and forget their not working till someone tells me how to fix
them.:D:tears:
 
yeah, between 5 and 6 Ohms, or even a bit higher, is normal. over 10 Ohms and you really start to lose output. your 1.0192-Ohm tweeter is interesting, not sure what could be causing that. obviously there is some kind of shorting. do you have any metal filings that have gotten pulled in by the magnets?
 
Seems like there was a thread around here somewhere, where someone built a jig to take these apart and put them together without damaging them. Im guessing their a
PITA to get back together without something like that.
 
yeah, between 5 and 6 Ohms, or even a bit higher, is normal. over 10 Ohms and you really start to lose output. your 1.0192-Ohm tweeter is interesting, not sure what could be causing that. obviously there is some kind of shorting. do you have any metal filings that have gotten pulled in by the magnets?

Have you had one apart ? I am wondering if you can use Long screws to pull them back together and keep them aligned without damaging the foil.
 
you can also Google "infinity emit jig" and you should be able to find multiple threads that discusses it in detail.
 
Ok tonight I finished recapping the other QLS1 and got everything back together. I positioned them about 3 ft out from the wall with about 3 ft from each side wall and 6ft apart. Scratch everything I said about hoping the bass would open up, There is more bass than I will ever need and then some. I actually flipped the switch on the filter on my spec 1 to tone things down a bit on a couple of tracks i ran off a cd I know well. Finally Im at a point with these where I feel Iv'e given them a new start and they sound extremely good.:thmbsp:

Here is the restoration list on this pair of QLS 1s

1. Woofers refoamed
2. Middomes replaced/repaired
3. 4 Emit tweeters repaired
4. Full Re-Capp
5. 1 midbass coupler replaced
6. 1 set of binding post replaced (thanks jim)
7. Cabinets given the full Feed~N~Wax treatment

Did I mention they have alot of bass.:D

Thanks to everyone who helped me get
them back like new.:banana::banana::banana:
 
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