DanTana
08-19-2005, 09:36 AM
Hi,
I had a friend over last week and had him listen to my system, he commented that it sounded good, but it might need new crossover caps. This is something I thought about for awhile and since he's had more experience listening to other Altec's I figured I better check them out. I took apart the N800-F can inside the enclosure. After finally getting all the gunk out and the paper box that had :
EL CAP
4/10.5
On the box, I figure those were the values? There was one capacitor of medium size inside the box, one large capacitor with a smaller one parallel. I figured the medium must be the 4uf one, the large one must be 10uf, and the small one parallel was .5uf. I measured the 4uf cap and it measured 23uf!!! The 10uf one went off my scale, which maxes out at 40uf. Now I replaced these with good, not great caps but the difference was immediately apparent. It was louder, less veiled and better controlled. Now my question is this, did I get the valued correct? I'm assuming I did since the improvement afterwards, but now I want to get some nice foil and film caps. Should I just stick to these values and just swap them out? I know some guys recommend 1st order crossovers and I've read some about the Pi and Hiraga. What have you guys found to be best?
I had a friend over last week and had him listen to my system, he commented that it sounded good, but it might need new crossover caps. This is something I thought about for awhile and since he's had more experience listening to other Altec's I figured I better check them out. I took apart the N800-F can inside the enclosure. After finally getting all the gunk out and the paper box that had :
EL CAP
4/10.5
On the box, I figure those were the values? There was one capacitor of medium size inside the box, one large capacitor with a smaller one parallel. I figured the medium must be the 4uf one, the large one must be 10uf, and the small one parallel was .5uf. I measured the 4uf cap and it measured 23uf!!! The 10uf one went off my scale, which maxes out at 40uf. Now I replaced these with good, not great caps but the difference was immediately apparent. It was louder, less veiled and better controlled. Now my question is this, did I get the valued correct? I'm assuming I did since the improvement afterwards, but now I want to get some nice foil and film caps. Should I just stick to these values and just swap them out? I know some guys recommend 1st order crossovers and I've read some about the Pi and Hiraga. What have you guys found to be best?