Hopping on the train (CSR+ to 4.1TL conversion)

[quadzilla]

Got the caps and resistors in yesterday, RDO-198s showed up today. Went back and read through some threads, paid lots of attention to F1's thread where he did the same. Won't be a full upgrade since I haven't found any pure copper or silver quick disconnects yet. Everything seems to be tin plated. Will probably also upgrade the internal wiring at some point, and may even look at inductors later. But for now, just a basic xover upgrade with sonicaps and mills and probably a new set of binding posts, since I have some pure copper posts that I never got around to installing. I'm also milling over an improvement to the

Have the first xover out and am working on parts placement before I do a complete tear down.

[F1nut]

You might want to think twice about using pure (unplated) copper for any type of termination. Copper oxidizes and when it does, it inhibits the signal flow.

[Face]

http://soniccraft.com/products/connections/bindingpost/vampire_bphexcb.htm

http://soniccraft.com/products/connections/bindingpost/cardas_ccgg.htm

http://soniccraft.com/products/connections/bindingpost/eichmann.htm

[quadzilla]

I'm running bare copper ends on my speaker cables. I've had good luck so far by regularly treating with deoxit. And I do get the arguments against bare copper, but I just really, really hate gold in my system. I like silver, and silver oxide has just barely less conductivity than pure silver. Just have to watch it, so the system doesn't become overly bright.

But if someone does know where to get silver lugs for the internal rewire, I'd love to know about those. Otherwise, think I'll be trying to fabricate my own. And hopefully fry's has some kind of lug I can use for the 198.

[quadzilla]

Got the rest of the miscellaneous bits and pieces I needed. Still no spades or lugs I like, so just going to skip the binding posts for now. And the .250 lug on the tweeter + will grab the .125 spade, so I'll just leave as is until I get ready to rewire them. Should be done this evening.

I am, however, replacing the steel bolt for the xover with a stainless steel one, and using stainless bolts with nylon standoffs between the board and the 16 mh inductor so I can fit things better. Probably post a pic when done. Never realized until just recently that stainless is non-magnetic. Hoping that will be OK, but couldn't find aluminum in the sizes I need. Probably order some later, just to make myself feel better, since non-ferrous would obviously be prefered.

[Toolfan66]

My last project to do is finish my CRS+'s...

Cardas binding post's are hard to beat IMO!!!!

[quadzilla]

Round 1 of the upgrades are done. The RDO-198s are in and the xovers have been upgraded with Sonicaps/Mills.

I'm looking at different cabling for the re-wire, have pretty much settled on WBT Nexgen for binding posts, and am thinking about a way to make my own silver disconnects, since no one sells any that I would class as good. I'm also debating on building new cabinets, slightly larger, and out of a heavier MDF, instead of the chip board these are built out of. One other thing I did was that, when putting the xovers back in, was to replace the steel bolt with a stainless one, and also to reverse the left xover so that the inductors are oriented as closely to the way they are in the right speaker. I think another option I'll be looking at will be to build a new set of boards that are mirrored like the speakers. I don't know if it really makes much difference in the response or not, but it will make me happier. That's all down the road in round 2, and maybe even 3 and 4.

I will say that my initial impression is that much of the bass hump I was hearing is gone now, and the bass response is much deeper. Guess it was worth the 100 bucks to put sonicaps in the bass bypass, even if it is a bit overkill. In general, with the new caps and new tweeters, there's substantial harshness, though I'm already hearing a lot more detail.

I left the polyswitch out, and just jumpered that spot. Once the tweeters and caps have a chance to break in, I'll look at the option of putting a small resistor in there. But for now, I just want to hear what they do with out it.

So that's it for now, except for a couple of obligatory before and after pics.

[On3s&Z3r0s]

Looks sweet! Nice work. Do you mind if I ask, for the 5.8uF caps did you have Sonic Craft make up custom ones or did you go with 5.6 or 6.0?

[quadzilla]

Had custom ones done. Also had them match all the caps into left/right sets, so not only are all the caps in each xover matched within 3%, all the caps in the left and right are matched within 3% of each other.

[On3s&Z3r0s]

Nice... I didn't realize they did the hand matching. I know some places like Madisound charge extra for that, I guess I should have asked. I just recently bought caps for a TL since SC had them on sale. I was told the wait for 5.8's (or even 5.6's which they were out of) would be 5 weeks! So I let the guy talk me into 6.0's (he said he'd try to find low ones). Now I'm wondering if I should have just been patient. Live and learn.

Anyway, great job on those XOs!

[quadzilla]

Wow, really? I ordered my 5.8's last week on Tues. and got them Friday. Guess I got lucky.

[quadzilla]

Got about 10 hours on the caps and tweets now. The bass hump is minimal or gone now. The sound stage has started to expand in width, but is contracted in depth compared to the stock xover w/ 194s. However, the vocals have moved forward about 4-5 ft. In short, everything seems to be imaging in a line across the plane of the baffles. Imaging is mostly stable, and the harshness is starting to fade. However, overall presentation at this point is a bit bright, but not horribly so. And as things continue to smooth out, I hope at least some of that will go away. But a resistor where the polyswitch was is always an option.

The big upside at this point is that the level of detail delivered has increased enormously. An almost ridiculous amount, really.

On3s, waiting for the 5.8s would take patience, or maybe they can find some 6 mf that measure low. The normal 5% tolerance means that there's probably a few 6s measuring as low as 5.82. And given how balanced each channel sounds, I'd also opt to have them match l/r sets of caps. Seems to have been well worth it.

[On3s&Z3r0s]

They shipped 'em quick so I can't change my mind on the purchase of the 6's, but I'll measure them when they get here and see where I'm at. If the 6's are uncomfortably high or the 12's are significantly unbalanced I might have to call an audible. Especially if your assessment is that they are bright after the mod. Ben was kind enough to answer a question about the cap value in another thread and it sounds like the higher value might make them skew bright.

If you get a chance, let us know if you find them softening with a little more time on them. I was planning on waiting until gimpod's PCB's were available before doing the upgrade, so I've probably got some time before I need to make a call on whether to wait for closer caps.

Thanks for posting about your journey... it's definitely nice to have an idea what lies ahead!

[ben62670]

You used SonicCaps on the highs. They are going to sound like crap for quite some time. Then they will sound good. Then they will sound bad. Then they will sound good. Put a CD on when you leave the house and let them burn whenever the house id empty. I am burning in my SonicCaps on the highs now. I have about 15hrs on them. They sound a little better than when first installed, but I know they will revert again. It is a roller coaster ride burning in caps like the SonicCaps.

[TennMan]

You used SonicCaps on the highs. They are going to sound like crap for quite some time. Then they will sound good. Then they will sound bad. Then they will sound good. Put a CD on when you leave the house and let them burn whenever the house id empty. I am burning in my SonicCaps on the highs now. I have about 15hrs on them. They sound a little better than when first installed, but I know they will revert again. It is a roller coaster ride burning in caps like the SonicCaps.This is a serious question from someone who is new here. You say they will sound crap for a while and then good and then bad again. Then they will sound good. It sounds to me like the values of the caps changes back and forth during that burn in period. After the caps have burned in do they ever settle down sounding bad? Thanks!

[Joe08867]

Ben is so right on this. Sonicaps have several burn in points where they sound bad, good, bad then finally good. I started out with Dayton caps and they were similar in burn in but they mellowed pretty quickly to there best sound. The Sonicaps took longer but mellowed to a much smoother sound than the Daytons.

It takes some time to get them ironed out but once they get fully burned in they sound awesome.

FYI, Solens do not take as long to get there. And sound the best IMHO, but the Sonicaps are right there soundwise.

As for your last question, For lack of a better description. I believe it is more of getting energy into every nook and cranny of the cap. Like a new sponge. It takes a bit for the water to soak the whole thing.

[On3s&Z3r0s]

Any idea how the Clarity Caps burn in?

I was considering going with some ESA's possibly for the 12's and 5.8's (I'd use their 5.6's) if the capacitance tests on the SonicCaps I bought look dicey. I'd still be able to use the SC 12's in some Monitor 5Jr XO's I haven't bought parts for yet.

[quadzilla]

You used SonicCaps on the highs. They are going to sound like crap for quite some time. Then they will sound good. Then they will sound bad. Then they will sound good. Put a CD on when you leave the house and let them burn whenever the house id empty. I am burning in my SonicCaps on the highs now. I have about 15hrs on them. They sound a little better than when first installed, but I know they will revert again. It is a roller coaster ride burning in caps like the SonicCaps.

That's been pretty much my experience with the other Sonicaps I've had, as well as with Mundorf S/Os. However, with Mundorfs, the burn-in time seems much longer. It's taken nearly a year for my Mundorf/Sonicap phono stage to finally settle down. The last set of speakers I did with Sonicaps took about two weeks of running the speakers nearly around the clock. But in both cases, the end result was very, very worth it.

[quadzilla]

Thanks for posting about your journey... it's definitely nice to have an idea what lies ahead!

That's basically why I'm doing it; to document what I'm hearing since it seems like more and more people are heading down this path. Maybe it will inform other's decisions, and maybe they'll do what I did and just charge ahead because they want to experience things for themselves. Either way, it's fun.

And speaking of which... sound at ~20 hours is continuing to smooth out. The main things I noticed in a fairly short listening session this morning was that the sound stage contracted back in about a foot on each side, but I'm getting about 4-5 ft more front-back depth now. Sound are ranging from about 2 ft in front of the speakers to about 2-3 ft behind them. Seperation of individual instruments and voices continues to improve, while the brightness at least has not. And the original harsh grain or edge in the highs is mostly gone, along with some of the sibilance. Still won't know if I need to put a small resistor where the polyswitch was or not for at least another 70-80 hours of break in time though.

[quadzilla]

Getting to about 80 hours now. Bass has become much more tactile, bass microdynamics are continuing to improve after finally deciding to put in an appearance at around the 50 hour mark. I guess the most amazing thing for me is that, even without an inductor upgrade, I can feel bass, especially across my back, even at relatively low volumes.

Highs are continuing to smooth out nicely now, and almost all sibilance is gone, along with a slight disconnect in the highs that creeped in around the 60 hour mark. This may have been the crossovers, or it may have been in the new 198s. Either way, it's gone now, and the sound is very coherent across the entire range.

Sound stage is still not as deep as I'd like, and seems to have compressed front/back again. Now back down to around 3 feet deep: 2 ft in front of speakers to 2 ft behind. Hoping that'll expand back out again as I get closer to 100 hours, though overall tonality in the speakers seems to be starting to stabilize now.