Speaker Crossover upgrades (2024)

many moons ago, I upgraded the 'crossover' (actually just a high pass tweeter filter) in my beloved Triangle Titus monitors Triangle 202 tweeter hi-pass upgrade

Thinking ... yeah, I'd like some Ref 3A MM DeCapos, but knowing how much better my Tituses sounded after that modest upgrade, whose capacitor isn't super highly regarded in Humble's HomeMade HiFi analyses anyway, that a new better cap might make another big jump in quality.

Duelands are $$$ (over $300 each for what I'd want, ouch!) but some in the $40-$150 range are intriguing. I'm going to get a 3.3uF cap, comes in close enough to the 6kHz crossover with my current upgraded .220mH inductor ...

Kind of narrowed it down to (say) 3 or 4 (in increasing price) ...
Auricap Capacitor 3.3uF 400Vdc XO Series ($39/speaker)
Jantzen Alumen, Z-Cap 3.30µF 100VDC ($53/speaker)
Fostex CS3.3 Copper/Tin Foil Cap ($93/speaker)
and finally ... drum roll please ... Mundorf EVO-SGO-3.3 Silver-Gold-Oil bypassed with a
Duelund 0.01uF 600Vdc JDM-Sn/Cu Tinned Copper Foil BYPASS Capacitor ($161/speaker)

I think any/all would make an improvement, the last is 'recommended' for non-metal dome tweeters by 'Humble' ... but having the bypass would seemingly tame things a bit (if I'm interpreting his assessment correctly). I don't think my tweeters are bright/overbearing at present, so this approach seems interesting.

Yeah, spending another $320 or so on an originally $600/pair of speakers might be silly but I love the darn things. They're doing really well IMHO in a $10k retail system.

I'm considering also 'doing' my MA Silver 8 crossovers, which are more complex ... maybe later! The speakers sound great, but depending on the components, might benefit from an upgrade. Thinking the caps make the biggest difference? In my Titus experiment, I changed caps first, made a nice large difference. Then inductor and leveling resistor ... didn't hear much if any change with those.

'Humble' has some recs for (in particular) mid/woofer cap upgrades too, altho I think they are the more $$$ ones. Oh well, we'll see.

JUst replaced in my speaker crossover ordinary Mundorf m-cap capacitor (33uf) with Mundorf SUPREME EVO Aluminum Oil 33uF. Now capacitor is huge and now xover (it is simpliest 1st order xover by Mundorf, just capacitor, 2 resistors and an inductor) looks ugly.
I paid $150 for a pair and did not expect much improvements, just a necessary sacrifice to audiophile gods, which we all do now and then.
Darn, I was wrong, differences are audible and very positive, sound kind of "cleared" and bass became punchier. I replaced first on one speaker and listened to some mono recording to make sure that there will be a difference - and sure it was.
New caps much bigger

Old xover

"New" xover

|To my ears it was worth it, YMMV.

Just recently, I've re-capped the coupling capacitors on both my tube amps with Mundorf Silver Oil in one and Obbligato Gold Premium in the other. Both resulted in significant improvement in clarity. I'd say the honeymoon phase lasted longer than any change/upgrade I'd ever made. Just remarkable.

BTW, the Obbligato's sound great and are relatively cheap at the partsconnexion site Obbligato Premium Film Capacitors

Next, I'm going see what is in my speakers.

Since you're looking at 'Humble' maybe try his recommended Cornell Dubilier 940C / 600VDC - 10% tolerance with Cornell Dubilier 940C / 0,01uF / 3000VDC bypass - 10% tolerance as a starter at prob $10 or less per speaker just for fun.

Why? Compared to buying components its a cheap and fun way to improve/modify your system.

I think the meaning is not every cap upgrade is an upgrade and you can get OCD about it as you can about anything. And if not sorry to put words in your mouth @Razakoz !

That would be interesting, but be careful! as it seems your speakers are finely tuned for time-coherent sound etc.. Changing caps could (likely?) affect the phase/time coherence or whatever ...

Altho ... the picture on their web page is a little puzzling. It looks like the tweeter is in inverted phase? Why the 'negative' spike? Maybe worth a call to the manufacturer?

Here's a Ref. 3 MM DeCapo:

Here's my MA Silver 8s (not time coherent but as JA says the responses 'blend' so ... seemingly that's good). The tweeter and midrange are in 'inverted' polarity (with a positive-going spike in between, maybe mic overshoot?) then the woofer(s) are in positive polarity.

Thinking possibly/likely the caps made (all?) the difference in sonics. Hopefully you kept the old parts. But seriously, maybe leave things as is for a couple more months? 100-200 hours' playing time, but maybe you have that already.

Thanks for the heads up. Giving them a call is a good idea and knowing John Sollecito at least a little, he has probably changed a bunch of stuff since I bought them.

I have a similar aversion to Solen caps … I know this was the original design, good to get those outta there. I hope there aren’t any in my Silver 8s, need to crack them open and see.

Wow, cool that you’ve corresponded before. Hopefully in an expensive boutique speaker they’d use better than cheap caps etc.. It would be really cool to update to the latest design at least or maybe even surpass it (maybe he’ll even provide an upgrade option in his products).

20 years ago Auricaps were the thing but when I switched to Obbligato on the recommendation of Brian Cherry the former were shown to be just pretty sounding and not as clear (not uber detailed, just clear). Obbligato became staples in all my speaker and electronics builds. 3 years ago UPS destroyed a pre-amp on the way back from a friend to try and the re-build required replacing the output caps. I bought a pair from PCX which showed up kind of a dull gold color, not the bright gold I was used to and they sounded dull as well. I replaced those with the Mundorf silver/gold, about $30 each .47uF and I like them very much.

Hey those may be good more inexpensive candidates for my next experiment, thanks!