[jon91661]

Hi all, I have been enjoying my new 40's for about two weeks now, and am just blown away on a daily basis.  I threw Paul Rogers tribute album to Muddy Waters on sun morning and cranked it while having some coffee,,Holy S&%t!!!! It was like the band was in front of me.  My wife came in and said what are you doing, and I just sat there and smiled, I could not get myself to turn it down.  The scale was just unbelieveable,, clarity, massive staging, just sounded so much like real music. Everytime I walk by them in my room, I just shake my head and can't believe what I paid for these gems, what a F*&#%in speaker!!!!  Anyway, my question is to all that have recapped, I cant believe the speakers can get much better, but if they can I sure want to try!  In your honest opinion is it worth the money to recap?  I have used Axon caps in other projects and have alway been very impressed with them, and am very impressed with them in the 40's.  Do you think I would be better served to do the beringer upgrade?  Thanks in advance to all.  Jon

[woodsyi]

It's not the kind of caps that will make the big difference.  IMHO, really the big difference comes from having a dedicated amp per driver(s).  Having appropriate amps driving each driver(s) is the real reason why you get the best sound out of each driver, and that in turn, makes the whole speaker sound so much better when the active filters have been set correctly. 

[Tyson]

Agreed - the next big upgrade is to go active and at least biamp.  Getting those big caps and coils out of the way really unbound the bass and dynamics even more.

[Russtafarian]

Yes, I mean no... uh maybe. 

YES!
I've started using the DCX on my RM30s to cross over the woofers and separate subs.  And yes, removing the bass coil on the woofers yields a tremendous improvement in bass control and dynamics.  Once you hear it, there's no going back.

NO!
The downside to the DCX is that in stock form it sounds pretty veiled and ratty.  This is not a big deal when driving the woofers below 280hz.  But DCX-ing the mids and highs with a stock unit sounds pretty awful to my ears.  Driving the mids and highs using the passive internal crossover sounds much better to me, especially since it keeps the signal path completely analog. 

MAYBE?
Will a hot-rodded DCX actively driving the mids/highs sound better than the passive crossover.  I don't know.  It would depend on how good the DCX mod is versus how good the passive crossover is.  I have TRTs in my RM30s so the DCX would have to perform at a pretty high level to beat that.

Russ

[woodsyi]

I don't know the difference between Axon and TRT caps as I never compared them.  I presume that there is a discernable improvement with the Dynamicaps from all the reports I have read.  Having said that, I found that the sound improved for me when I bypassed the TRT Dynamicaps from my RM 40's with an active x-crossover -- at least between the woofers and the ribbons.  

Inspired by Tyson and YD, I am now going to physically remove the passive filters and add a third set of binding posts (for the tweeters) to go all active.  I will leave the Bybees on the ribbons even though I don't know if they are doing anything.    I will eventually put the passive parts in a box and keep the passive OXO option open in case I run out of amps or I sell the speakers.

[jon91661]

Thanks guys!  Yea, I am looking for another amp as we speak.  I think the stock crossovers sound dam good, but I can imagine that the modded active units are awesome.  I am going to start with biamping, I'm sure dynamics will improve greatly, and then I will work in the active crossover.  I know there are other modded units out there, is it best to get the unit from Brian?  These speakers freakin rock though, even in there stock form.  I will probably ad some dampening to the cab also.  Thanks again everyone....

[Tyson]

The beauty of going active is that you do not need a MONSTER amp on the mids/highs, and you can get a less expensive amp that excels at the mids/highs only, such as the Bob Latino built Dynaco ST70 amp with the VTA board.  Sounds better than the VTL's I just took out.  The VTL's were more powerful, no doubt, but the VTA ST70 is even more open and magical in the mids/highs.  In fact I'm going to sell the VTL Monoblocks and VTL ST-85 and get a second ST70 to stay "fully active" with the 40's. 

[jon91661]

Thanks Tyson!  I am on board with that way of thinking.  These speakers are very forgiving, it seems like the better you feed them, the better they sound. That being said, I have them hooked up to am older Carver amp full range, and they sound surprisingly awesome!  So yea, biamping is the next obvious step. 

[Brax]

Jon,

I am not at the point of active crossovers or biamping just yet, maybe sometime in the future.

I am slowly building my system around the 40's. The last two upgrades I made had a huge difference on the sound quality. I too started with powering my 40's with a Carver amp, a TFM-35. When I moved to an Earthquake Cinenova Grande5 it was a big step up for me, not that the Carver sounded bad, just that the Cinenova sounded better. I read here once someone was using a Carver for a bass amp while biamping and he was pretty happy with it. The next big sound improvment came when I replaced the Pioneer Elite I was using as a pre-pro with an Meridian 565 (old unit but still sounding pretty good). These upgrade still have me years behind most guys on this board, but I'm closing the gap ever so slowly. I'd love to be where they are, but it's going to take me some time. Unless you have a large budget for the upgrades, I suggest you start by improving on any of the gear you have now that is lacking first before leap frogging, a bad sounding preamp won't sound any better no matter how many amps you throw in the mix.

A pair of these would be cool
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1240087204&/Wyred-4-Sound-SX-1000-Mono-Pai

[jonbee]

I compared a pair of RM30s w/ Axons and my RM30 pair with Auricaps and there was a very significant difference. The auris sounded smoother, more natural, less hi-fi and truly allowed the natural musicality come to the fore. It was well worth the $ for me.

[Tyson]

The best modder for the DCX (IMO it's mgalusha), is no longer doing mods, there are still others that will mod it for you.  If you only have digital sources, you can get a digital switcher and place it in front of a DCX and not have to worry about a preamp or a source at all, just use the digital input to the DCX, then output to your 2 (or 3) amps, going straight to your speakers.

[jon91661]

Thanks Brax.  Yea I am with you on the preamp thing. I also saw those amps and am very interested in them. I am going to start with the basics,, amps, then the active crossover. The great thing about these speakers is that they sound freakin awesome they way they are, and everything else at this point will be gravy!  Just can't say enouph about them.  The best bargin in all of high end IMHO. 

[meilankev]

Jon,

IMO, it is more about "quality" than "quantity".  If you have "X" number of dollars to spend on amplification for a pair of speakers, I would prefer spending that cash on one high-quality stereoblock (or pair of monoblocks) instead of three lesser stereoblocks (or six monoblocks).

You can go active all you want, but it won't compensate for mediocre amplifiers.

Granted, if you have an unlimited budget, then kindly ignore my opinion.  I certainly agree that going fully active with three high-quality amps will most-likely bring about a noticeable improvement over having only one of those amps (driving these speakers full-range).  But few of us have unlimited budgets.

Kevin

[jon91661]

Kevin, Thanks for the input!  I certainly agree about the quality of amplification, and do have quality amps hooked up to the speakers. It is surprising to me although that on side by side comparison, less expensive amps, or I should say "vintage" amps sound amazing also.  They are just very forgiving speakers!  I bought an old carver amp, 200pc, and the results were quite surprising. I think I have learned that, with these speakers, the better you feed them, the better they sound!   Cant wait to go active now!  Regards,,Jon