New to Forum and a fan of GR Research

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mr1incubus

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New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« on: 7 Dec 2022, 01:48 pm »
Hello,

I have been a follower of GR Research for some time now. I am always impressed with actual performance data and I am also a fan of DIY. While I am not a lifelong audiophile I am interested in learning more and have decided that my first step will be a Sony SS-CS5 upgrade. I currently own a few sets of these speakers and bough my first set years ago before people were raving about them. I was always impressed with the performance vs price, if you ask me these are nice little gems and I am exited to compare the before and after with these units.

Any help in my journey of the crossover builds and modification would definitely be appreciated. I am skilled in avionics/electronics works, soldering, crimping ect. I am confident this should be fairly straight forward but any previous pictures of how others accomplished modifications always helps. I am located in Miami Gardens Florida and would love to meet more enthusiast around the area feel free to send me a message!

Cheers,
Andy

aterphasma

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #1 on: 8 Dec 2022, 05:56 am »
Hello!

That upgrade is quite a bit of fun. It's a fantastic improvement. I liked the speakers before, but the sound is SO much fuller and cleaner, now.

I enjoyed it a lot, but I don't know that my specific final configuration was actually the correct way to go about it. I had some minor differences in wiring it together between them (learned ideas from one applied to the other, which was a silly choice, in retrospect; should've made the same mistakes and kept them symmetrical... more learning...).

My actual networks ended up split across three boards, one for each driver, which makes for more wires crossing around inside the box than I really like. I'd try to streamline things and have as few meandering wires as possible if I did it again.

I have some horrible pictures of the inside I'll go find.... but I'm not that happy with the wiring. And there's cheesecloth everywhere.

I think Danny said it in his video, but these things are pretty tight, especially once you line 'em with NoRez.

I'll go find those pictures tomorrow.

Cheers!

aterphasma

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #2 on: 10 Dec 2022, 06:52 am »
Well, I've only got one picture, it turns out, and it's really only good to recommend what not to do... :duh:



Yikes. So... I don't recommend three boards unless you can figure out a much more streamlined configuration. This thing is a spider web of wires. :roll: Almost ran out of wire because I was so ridiculous. And because I wanted to keep the original binding posts as well as add tube connectors. I ended up using a dremel to route out slots underneath that larger board that's mounted on the back so I could feed the routing post wires along until they could come out. (We can ignore the fact that I wired the original posts in reverse.)

There are about ten solder joints with exposed copper in this one, and just as many on the other. I had to wrap a bunch of cheesecloth around it all to make sure nothing touched things that shouldn't touch. It's insulated, but... not very well shielded or protected from oxygen, and that's mostly because I have a lot of like... four-to-six-legged joints between wires, chunky twists, etc. And I just forgot to put heat shrink on a bunch of them because I was thinking only about the tube connectors, for some reason. Don't neglect the heat shrink.

Much better examples of what can be done over here: https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=182362.0

mkrawcz

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #3 on: 10 Dec 2022, 02:55 pm »
Here is a pic of one I just did. Don’t take the wiring as gospel because there are variations to the kit, probably to compensate for slight value changes in parts stock. I’ve built 3 of these and each schematic is different.



Hobbsmeerkat

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #4 on: 10 Dec 2022, 03:12 pm »
Correct, the values that change most often are the resistors as their availability is always in flux.

We do try to keep them as close as we can though.

RPCon

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #5 on: 13 Dec 2022, 02:26 pm »
what's the cheese cloth protecting? would electrical tape or shring tubing been better? I don't have a clue, just asking.

Hobbsmeerkat

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #6 on: 13 Dec 2022, 10:48 pm »
It's likely to prevent the wires from bumping into anything & rattling around inside the speaker.

aterphasma

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Re: New to Forum and a fan of GR Research
« Reply #7 on: 14 Dec 2022, 05:31 am »
The cheesecloth is insulation, yeah. I forgot to put the heat shrink along the way (and my layout is... not conducive to heat shrink...). And then, I've got a personal vendetta against electrical tape. The stuff gets nasty real quick. Removal and cleanup take solvents and patience, neither of which I have in great supply.

This was my first ever attempt at going from schematic to real world network, so there were a lot of mistakes along the way.