BackgroundI am an inveterate upgrader of gear. I tend to buy the very best basic design I can find and then upgrade it with premium parts throughout in order to really let that particular design shine. I do it with DAC’s, Preamps, Amps, Music Servers and Speakers. Nothing escapes my soldering iron!
In that light, I thought I would take apart my X3’s and get some upgrades done. Obviously at this point in my life, I’ve taken apart (and built from scratch) a lot of speakers. So taking them apart should be no problem, right? WRONG! Man, these speakers are tricky as hell. I tried and tried but never could get them apart. So I called Clayton to see what could be done.
During the call, it became clear that the best way to go about upgrading the crossover parts and the wiring was to simply create an external crossover with the new parts and unhook the existing wiring from the exposed backs of the midrange and tweeter. Ah, that I can do! Now I just need a schematic so I know the value of the parts to order. Which Clayton was kind enough to provide.
Warnings and CaveatsI’ve done upgrades like this a LOT, so I am very comfortable doing this type of work. If you are not, then I recommend NOT doing any of this as there is definitely risk that you can screw something up and cause damage. And if you cause damage, well you already voided your warranty, so caveat emptor!
The midrange driver is very easy to disconnect and re-wire because it’s just a clip on connection. But the tweeter is a different story. The wires are direct soldered. And not only that they are encased in plastic, so if you use too much heat for too long,
they will turn loose and float because the plastic will melt. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.I should also note that the parts Clayton uses in the original crossover in the speaker are already excellent. No need for anyone to upgrade them, unless they are crazy. I, of course, am crazy.
Reasons for Doing the UpgradeIf you read my review of the X3’s, you know they are world class speakers, one of the top 10 speakers I’ve ever heard. The problem is that the speakers that I have in the #2 spot actually sit in my basement in my downstairs system, the GR Research Super 7’s. The X3’s get compared to them in my mind, pretty much every time I listen to them. Which is not fair because the Super 7’s are in a better room and they already have super-premium crossover parts and wiring.
Thus, the crossover upgrades and re-wiring of the X3’s are my way of leveling the playing field so I can actually get a fair comparison between the 2 speakers.
Upgrade StrategyI will be doing the upgrade in 3 stages.
First, I will make both caps for the midrange and the tweeter Vcap ODAMs. In the original crossover, only the tweeter has an ODAM. And I’ll be changing out the existing Dueland hookup wire for the VH Audio OCC pure copper hookup wire. I’ll be upgrading the existing air core inductor to a UPOCC foil/wax inductor by Jantzen. And last but not least I’ll be updating the Mills resistor with a pure copper Path Audio resistor.
I’ll listen to it like that for a while and get a feel for the speaker before making any other changes.
Second, I will bypass the midrange cap with a Duelund copper film capacitor and bypass the tweeter cap with a Duelund copper film capacitor.
I’ll listen to this for a while to get an idea of the overall sound quality.
Third, I’ll remove the Duelund copper bypass caps and replace them with Duelund silver film bypass caps. And I’ll also remove the VH Audio UPOCC copper hookup wire and replace it with Nimak pure silver dead annealed wire hand-polished with beeswax.
I’ll let this run for a while and then decide if I like the all copper or the all-silver with the X3’s. Should be fun!!
