SDA SRS upgrade done

[jcmccorm]

Well I finally did it!

Thanks very much to DarqueKnight for both pioneering this upgrade and providing the parts list, as well as writing the SDA Compendium. I like to have schematics when doing something like this. They aren't necessary, but it's nice to know what your doing (the engineer in me I guess).

Thanks to Bluedmpicker for documenting his experience with this upgrade which was very helpful.

Here's some pics first.

My babies in their natural habitat.

[jcmccorm]

The beasty with the cover off. Notice the new tweets which I installed a few weeks ago.

I liked these right off the bat, but I *did* missed the brightness of the original 2000's. After listening to the new tweeters though, I'm hooked on them. They sound more "correct".

[jcmccorm]

Here's the SRS crossover in it's original state.

[jcmccorm]

I labeled all of the wires to aid in reassembly. As others have mentioned, most of these wires have to be unsoldered and resoldered to the board.

[jcmccorm]

A dinner tray makes a great "holder" for the crossover when you perform the unsolder/resolder operation.

[jcmccorm]

Here's the finished crossover. Raife's positioning of the components that he described in the original upgrade thread is about the only way to pull this off.

I had to use jumpers for one of the 130uF's and one of the 22uF's since they didn't reach the PCB. I also installed only two of the resistors on the bottom of the board since the left-most two fit well enough.

I used hot melt glue on all of the capacitors to keep them from rattling.

[jcmccorm]

The solder and the damage done.

[jcmccorm]

Finished crossovers, resoldered to the drivers and tweeters, ready for final installation.

[jcmccorm]

Break In

I've never really believed in "break in" as a real measurable, or observable phenomenon. However, when I first fired up the SRS's and played some music through them, they were noticably "edgy" and seemed to add what I could only describe as distortion. I remembered Raife mentioning that he spent some hours breaking in his speakers after the upgrade. This is no joke and I'm a believer now. Capacitors need to be broken in. The "edgyness" smoothed out after only a couple of hours. I've got about 8 hours on them now and that unpleasant side effect is gone. I reserve the right to disbelieve that cables and interconnects need a break in period though. :)

Bluedmpicker mentioned to me the loss of the SDA effect at first. I would call it diminished. I was using Beck's "Sea Changes" as my first test disk and it has some passages, particularly on the second track, that have some mixing that exercise the SDA effect to the extreme. It was still there, but not nearly as "wide".

One aspect of the upgrade that was noticable from the start was exactly as Bluemdpicker described. Mids and bass frequencies, for lack of a better explanation, seemed punchier and more lively. As time goes on and the edgyness I previously experienced subsides, I believe the higher frequencies are becoming more defined and noticable (I don't miss the SL2000's much anymore) :)

As to changes to imaging and depth, I don't really notice much difference there. The "width" of the soundstage is a little bit reduced if anything (further break in will cure this I think) and I really need to try a live recording I think to evaluate depth. Positioning of sound sources seems more precise however.

Construction Tips

I don't have much more to add here than what has already been said. I will say that I consider myself to be a very competent solderer and good with my hands in general. Even with that, this upgrade is definitely an "all day" ticket. Schedule yourself some serious time to accomplish this. It is worth it though.

Cary

[ardvark1]

Excellent job Cary,
I see you have the same workbench as mine.

I also experienced a reduced SDA effect at first. The speakers should improve overall as the new caps burn in.

I wanted to see if you could gain the same benefits the SRS enjoys from this upgrade applied to the smaller SDA line.

Since I did, I hope more members consider jumping on this bandwagon, its one hell of a ride!

Bill

[Dennis Gardner]

Nice job and nice write up!

It looks like fitting one of those caps "under" the pcb next to the
"L" bracket of the coil would eliminate the wire extensions. Just a thought.

Those are some huge caps!!

I gotta look into doing my SDA1s.

[BlueMDPicker]

Cary,

Congrats on a job well done! Enjoy your "new" SRSs, they'll continue to surprise you as you get more hours on them.

Super HT setup as well!

Dennis: The caps you sited cannot readily be added below the PCB. The trace area there is wide and the longer caps (to get back through the existing moutning holes) require knee bends -- which could potentially short an adjacent trace on the board. I'm not suggesting it's impossible, as I suppose insulating tubing could be placed on the new cap leads, it's just easier to add the jumper and stack them.

Mike

[Dennis Gardner]

Thanks BMDP, I only have the 2D view of my monitor to go by , and saw nearly the same space under the board as the cap takes.

Cheers,

DG

[DarqueKnight]

Originally posted by jcmccorm
I reserve the right to disbelieve that cables and interconnects need a break in period though. :)

Are you trying to start a war?:D


Congrats on the mod. That is a great HT setup.

[Tour2ma]

Nice "natural habitat"...

Excellent post documenting your labor of love. Will make a nice addition to the other mod reference threads. Well done...

You do realize, of course, that your warranty is now in the toilet... :D