Speaker Mods

Pretend for one moment that I know nothing about the composition of speakers, and school me on speaker mods.

What's achievable, what can be changed, how drastic a change are we talking here?

In case you couldn't guess, I'm debating future mods for a speaker I like, but don't love (still breaking in, so that verdict is pending). How far can we go with this, and what can we achieve.

Break down the simplest of jargon.~

"Speaker Mods for Dummies"

 

Before deciding to "mod" a speaker, make sure you have the placement of the speakers optimally.
Some folks think speakers are not good, but do not have them placed well in the room. Correct speaker
placement makes all the difference.

 

Agreed completely.

For this example, let's just assume that I've tried and exhausted all variations, and that it's a characteristic of the speakers themselves.

Modding loudspeakers.

What are the options, and what are the likely results?

 

I’ve had my speakers over 40 years now the only modding that I’ve done so far is replacing the internal wiring and rerouting and hard wiring the woofers and connecting directly to the crossovers.
The crossover are the only thing I would consider changing and depending upon which I would pick could be considered modding.

 

What did you achieve, conically, the above?
I would consider the rewiring modding too. Basically, anything you have to do that alters the speaker from being 'stock'.

 

I could detect a little more “solidity” specially in the bottom end. I did it mainly for the integrity of the connection which is of prime importance.

 

The speakers are still breaking in? If they are new and you don’t like them, can you return them?

 

Right, this sounds very odd to me. It’s dangerous to presume that one knows more than the designer.

 

I can only attest to modding guitar amp speaker cabinets, but this is common practice to achieve the EQ curve and dynamic make up of the sound that you want (within the framework of having chosen a good speaker cabinet with the right characteristics to begin with). In its simplest terms it involves swapping out speakers (of a 2x12, 4x12, etc) to achieve the desired response and sonic flavor. A lot of people do this themselves, however, I've always gone to a tech for my mods.

 

Modding speakers can be a time consuming and costly exercise in futility. Vintage speakers can have the x-overs rebuilt, and some like JBL L100’s have different x-over designs posted.

If you are not happy, best to demo something different.

 

Tweaks, Mods, call 'em whatcha will, w/o a specific speaker it's an open ended question depending on....
I recommend a thread identifying the speaker & what you'd like to improve.

 

I’ve done that quite a bit. Things like .5 aligning side x side bass drivers, building notch filters in the crossovers, fiddling with damping materials. Much easier as there is so much more wiggle room with gear for live music. Not the case with Hi-Fi.

 

I’ve had great success upgrading the caps in my speaker crossovers. Actually only the high pass tweeter filter in my present Triangle Tituses. The mid woofer runs with no filtering. I replaced the (guessing $1) cap with a $25 one. I also replaced the inductor and level matching resistor but those didn’t seem to make much difference.

Keeping the same values is likely best.

I’m actually considering a second super premium upgrade using a high end Mundorf silver gold oil cap bypassed with a Dueland cap. Would be >$300 but …

Also looking at the crossovers in my MA Silver 8s … but since there’s several caps in there would stick to $30-$40 ones. Unless there’s good ones in there now, then I’ll likely just leave them be.

 

Great to hear that people are modding their speakers with confidence (I was about to give up on this one).
How has each mod altered the sound and presentation for you?

 

Just the tweeter cap, gave a much better sound. More clarity, musicality? Can’t say 100% for sure, it was many years ago. The inductor and resistor didn’t make a discernible difference. I did those after the cap change so their contribution could be evaluated.

The Tituses just have a 6kHz second order high pass filter on the tweeter. I did also try 1st order, just the cap with tweeter leads reversed. I didn’t like the sound, figure the designers knew what they were doing. I didn’t use the resistor though, possibly the level was a bit higher … actually I did, so it was just the implementation.

See:
Triangle 202 tweeter hi-pass upgrade

 

Triangle 202 tweeter hi-pass upgrade just to make sure you saw this, I added the link later to my reply. Good luck!

 

Danny Ritchie of GR Research has several you tube videos about modding crossovers. He also has some you tube videos with New Record Day on the same subject. Very interesting.

 

Fantastic - and thanks for the link and the repost!

 

As others have said, if these are new speakers and you aren't happy with them and they can be returned, that's probably your best option.

Depending on how "high-end" these speakers are, there are likely a number of things that could be done to improve them. Most (or all) of these are discussed by Danny Ritchie in his videos. From easiest to hardest:

1) Add No-Rez to the inner cabinet walls. This is a material that GR-Research sells that that is roughly 1" thick and has an adhesive back. It is a sandwich of heavy vinyl and a couple different foam densities. This reduces panel resonance and dampens internal reflections.

2) Add mass loading to the speaker driver frame, particularly if it is stamped metal. There are a variety of products designed to reduce noise in automobiles that work well for this (basically heavy vinyl with adhesive backing that can be cut to size). This will reduce the ringing from the frame.

3) Add additional braces inside the cabinet - this may be easy or difficult depending on the speaker, but the idea is to stiffen the panels and reduce the resonance frequency.

4) Replace the internal wiring with higher quality wires.

5) Replace the binding posts with higher quality parts. A lot of less expensive speakers really skimp on these parts and use ferrous metals.

6) Replace the parts in the crossover. Many less-expensive speakers use iron core inductors, sand-cast resistors, and electrolytic caps (or very cheap film caps). The sky is the limit here, and your available space may dictate what can be done. The crossovers that I am building for a new pair of DIY speakers use copper foil in oil capacitors and copper foil inductors, and are about 15" x 12" x 5" and weight 35lbs, for each speaker, and have several $thousand in parts. And these are just two-way speakers. But there are a lot of steps between what's typically inside speakers under $10K and a no-holds-barred implementation. Take a look at this link Humble Homemade Hifi - Cap Test for a discussion on many different capacitor options.

7) Redesign the crossover. This takes a lot of skill and measurement instruments to get right, but there is often a lot that can be improved here, depending on the skill and budget of the original designer. If you are willing to send one of your speakers to Danny Ritchie, he can assess the speaker and what's possible with a redesigned crossover. He doesn't charge for his analysis, but will want to sell you the parts if you decide to do the suggested upgrades.

8) Replace drivers. This also more-than-likely requires you to redesign the crossover as well, and would be pretty silly to consider for a new speaker. You are better off returning them or selling them and buying something different.

Hope this helps.
- Jay

 

There are plenty of kit speakers out there. I'm currently trialling a pair of Frugelhorn Lites, which are a revelation.

As for speaker mods? Diffraction rings round the tweeters - one of those shock moments when I realised that a simple tweak really can make a big difference. Brightness and metallic tone were tamed just with a bit of felt that anyone could do in 5 minutes.

 

Great clip on quick and easy speaker mods:

 

"modding" is not necessarily changing the "design". Most if not all loudspeakers can be made with better, but equal parts. As in better caps of the same value or better internal wiring. Other mods as in cabinet or driver changing can be done of course, but I tend to do this on older and more common stuff. As in the CV line, Pioneer, or something like Optimus Mach.

 

I think that the first requirement is having the right attitude and the expectations. When buying any component, but particularly speakers, you should have a lot of patience. As Chris Schoen mentioned above, you must correctly place the speaker (and other furnishings). This can only be done after you have become thoroughly acclimated to the new speaker and you have a clear idea of what you want from the correct placement of the speaker. That correct placement can only be discovered by extensive experimentation--there are no formula or programs that can establish the best placement--your ear is the only good measure, particularly because compromises will have to be made and only you can determine what constitutes the best set of compromises. This could take many months to complete. It is only when you have this sort of experience and the measure of what you want can you consider modifications.

Modification should only be considered if you are willing to accept that any change has a fair chance of resulting in degradation instead of an improvement. Even when the modification is simply replacing parts with equal value parts, there is a possibility that the voicing of the speaker will be worse when putting in a "better" part. What is better is a matter of taste and particular voicing in the given application. My local dealer who builds high end custom speakers personally hates many of the supposedly superior parts, such as Mundorf and Duelund capacitors. The same goes with certain other high end components in the electronics he builds (does not like Vishay resistors). Even in the wiring he employs in speakers, supposedly better wire from a given manufacturer might not voice better than cheaper wire. Trial and error must be an expectation, and having reversible modifications should be a requirement.

The biggest changes I hear in speaker modifications come from changing the amount and type of sound absorbing stuffing that is in the speaker. You can try adding more or taking out stuffing as well as altering the location of stuffing. If your speaker does not have tweeter or midrange controls, adding L-pads to allow for changing the output of these drivers can be a big help in tuning a system. Be sure to find out what value of L-pad to insert into the system. Changing out drivers can be practically a whole magnitude of complexity because the crossover may be designed specifically for the particular set of drivers (some crossovers do much more than simply divide the frequency spectrum, they may include phase compensation, notch filters and other frequency response changes that work with the particular drivers in that particular cabinet). This requires some expertise, or again, a willingness to accept bad results that have to be reversed.

Good luck.

 

Good point. I personally make a distinction between "upgrading" (replacing stock parts with higher quality alternatives) and "modding" (modifying the design).

 

The first step would be to assess what you think the speakers shortcomings are that need correcting.