AudioCircle
Industry Circles => GR Research => Topic started by: uolnad on 15 Jul 2019, 08:23 pm
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Thinking about upgrading x-over's in my x-sls's. Any one have experience or suggestions for caps other than Sonicaps and Mills resistors.
Same price range or hopefully even for less. Thanks
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Miflex copper foil for anything in the tweeter or midrange circuit.
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I would stick with Mills resistors. There are very few non-inductive resistors out there, and they do make a difference.
For caps, I'm partial to Mundorf caps. They sound great, and are very robust.
(https://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=196677)
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Miflex is a great cap but not in the same price range as the Sonicaps. One way to get a bang for the buck upgrade is to start with Sonicaps then use the more expensive caps as by-pass caps. In the smaller values used for by-pass caps, the Miflex, Jupiter, etc. are not very expensive.
Mike
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I'm not sure you're going to do any better than the sonicaps at that price point. the sonicap/Miflex Cu bypass cap is a great combo. going that route with Mils resistors and a set of tube connectors will get that stock binding pos setup out of the signal path.
that being said, I'm not sure how much resolution the standard XLS tweeter has in it, difference in networks may be more noticable with the Encores ? Danny ?
Also, I'm not even sure the standard XLS networks came with bypass caps ? If not, that would be a very inexpensive upgrade to what's there now... a SC g2 or say a Veshey Roderstein .1uF on both legs of the network would help and only cost a few bucks each.
jay
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I would stick with Mills resistors. There are very few non-inductive resistors out there, and they do make a difference.
For caps, I'm partial to Mundorf caps. They sound great, and are very robust.
I've tried the Mundorf caps of various types but they didn't quite make it to the level of the Sonicaps. In some cases (with some models) things went South.
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I am about to be stocking some new Copper Caps that I think you guys will really like.
(http://gr-research.com/pics/copper%20caps.jpg)
These are very similar to the Jupiter caps but with high purity Tinned Copper leads. And they won't be as expensive.
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I've tried the Mundorf caps of various types but they didn't quite make it to the level of the Sonicaps. In some cases (with some models) things went South.
Well, we can agree to disagree. :D I found Mundorf caps to be among the best sounding available, with great midrange and treble. Our mutual friend also thinks highly of Mundorf.
BTW, if the caps you showed are made like Jupiter caps, I would think twice about them. I had Jupiter caps in my 8552 power amp, and they were awful. They were literally melting during normal use. Replaced them with Mundorf silver/gold, and the sound improved markedly, and more importantly, they don't melt! :thumb:
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Well, we can agree to disagree. :D I found Mundorf caps to be among the best sounding available, with great midrange and treble. Our mutual friend also thinks highly of Mundorf.
BTW, if the caps you showed are made like Jupiter caps, I would think twice about them. I had Jupiter caps in my 8552 power amp, and they were awful. They were literally melting during normal use. Replaced them with Mundorf silver/gold, and the sound improved markedly, and more importantly, they don't melt! :thumb:
The Jupiter caps were not meant for high voltages. They would melt if run hard or up to their rated voltage limits. For speaker applications they work great and sound really good.
And I have liked some of the Mundorf caps in electronics. The Silver/Gold work great in those applications. But I heard them in an A/B comparison with Sonicaps and Platinum by-pass caps. The Mundorf Silver/Gold caps lost the openness in the top end and lost all the spatial cues. The sound stage practically collapsed and became two dimensional. With the Sonicaps the sound stage opened up, layered deep, and had great detail levels. So I'd never use the Mundorf's in a loudspeaker application again.
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As stated, Mundorfs are excellent with various levels to choose from. I am partial to Clarity Cap ESA range as a very good sounding and relatively inexpensive option. And the Clarity Cap CMR range are excellent too if you want to spend that kind of money.
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I've tried several caps in multiple X-series speakers but ultimately had to give it to Danny for picking the best caps for the job and for the money.
Sonicaps Gen 1 with Gen 2 or Platinum bypass caps are the best choice. I like Clarity caps but the ESA/CSA should never be used in a tweeter circuit as they tend to mute the higher frequencies and air. I haven't tried the CMRs in a crossover yet but they really opened up my tube preamp and just barely bested V-Cap performance for a lot less money. I also tried the MRs as bypass caps which seemed to work well but not as good as teflons or copper caps.
Still, if you're curious and have money to burn then pick some caps and try them out. Let us know how it goes.
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For the smaller tweeter caps, it's hard to beat the V-cap Teflon and it's affordable. .22-1 uFd are recommended. You can get similar results for higher values using the V-cap oil in parallel with a V-cap .22uFd Teflon. See vhaudio.com The Duelunds after break-in are a tiny bit better, but need HF bypass with another cap IME. For the very large values, I try to get non polar Black Gates. Still available on some sites, maybe partsconnexion.com.
Iv'e tried Sonicaps and Jupiters. Jupiters can be very good, but don't survive high temperatures.
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while on the subject of cap's; https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=tweaks&m=208976