4430/4435 Charged Coupled

Ok now I know this topic has probably been discussed to death hear but I thought I would still ask the question and I am directing this at owners who have done the direct comparison on 4430/4435’s…. but is the sound difference really that significant to justify the effort to go charged coupled :dont-know. I run my 4435’s bi amped as I much prefer this over passive mode due to the increased in dynamics and clarity and having played around in this area for some time with 4430 & 4435”s I am adamant that they must be run using the intended 4430/4435 filter cards for the 5235 and not just standard 12dB butterworth filter slopes. A while ago I thought I would replace C7 (20uF) and C9 (2.5uF) with ICW “Clarity Caps” as C7 & C9 are directly in the signal path to the HF driver, leaving the bypass caps in circuit and I also removed the switch and hard wired the network into bi amp mode ….. Now to be honest I didn’t notice any difference at all :blink:, which has probably left me a little sceptical about any further cap changes :hmm:. I invite comments from 4430/4435 owners … thankyou :cheers:.

I think you will find its a case by case thing.

There was a thread about this exact issue ages ago. Some claimed no difference even biamping or perhaps not the effect realised on systems like the 4343.

I have heard the 4435 biamped with the D260 JBL crossover using stock crossovers and I could not fault it.

I have also built numerous 3135 crossovers for my own system at one time and another and found the Hovland capacitors really impressive.
The Clarity caps are good but may not suit all types of system.

That said the 5235 is not a HiFi active crossover by todays standards and I would be chasing the likes of the Bryton 10B if you want to get into capacitor taste testing and make any sense of it.

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Originally Posted by Ian Mackenzie

That said the 5235 is not a HiFi active crossover by todays standards and I would be chasing the likes of the Bryton 10B if you want to get into capacitor taste testing and make any sense of it.

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Cheers Ian ….Yes .. point taken, :hmm: however the sole purpose of using the 5235 with the 4430/4435 cards was to get the exact eq, phase response and LF shelving as JBL engineers intended for this system, hence the comment about standard generic 12/24dB slopes which most standard crossovers produce including the Bryston, Over the years have also tried the DBX223 but found it quite “harsh” and also have several BSS FDS360’s which I do like very much but persisted with the 5235 for the above reasons. (I must get those DBX 223’s out of the shed, dust them off and ebay them) :blah:

I admit despite the filter section of the 5235 there is nothing intelligent about the design at all, I have upgraded mine using Burr Brown OPA627BP and improved the sonic performance considerably, (BTW I also tried the new National Semiconductors super dooper low THD LME49740 as well but settled on the Burr Brown sound) ….. So I am now quite happy with this old beast. :bouncy:

Just wondering if it is really worth all the fuss going Charged Coupled in bi amped mode and then which caps to use Hovland or Solen’s. :dont-know hoping to draw on other members experiences with 4430/4435 and maybe save my time and money but with an emphasis on time.:) :cheers:

Considerig the parts count CC is worth a try

Point taken on the mods. Did you charge couple the small crossover capsin the n5235?

Have a look at this site. You could also bias the output to negative rail with a resister with those chips or better still go fully biased class A

I expect the raved Bryston is similar the Greg;s schematic

I find heavily buas class A circuits outperform anything else 10/1 with speakers like JBL's hence the Pass labs stuff really takes of with the better JBL systems.

http://www.ska-audio.com/Forum/YaBB....mpage=products

http://www.ska-audio.com/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1209108521

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian Mackenzie

Considerig the parts count CC is worth a try

Point taken on the mods. Did you charge couple the small crossover capsin the n5235?

Have a look at this site. You could also bias the output to negative rail with a resister with those chips or better still go fully biased class A

I expect the raved Bryston is similar the Greg;s schematic

I find heavily buas class A circuits outperform anything else 10/1 with speakers like JBL's hence the Pass labs stuff really takes of with the better JBL systems.

http://www.ska-audio.com/Forum/YaBB....mpage=products

http://www.ska-audio.com/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1209108521

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Cheers for the links Ian :cheers:, no I haven't cc the caps in the 5235 although I remember seeing an article about forcing the BB chips into class A, just gotta remember where I saw them :banghead:, if I need to go to the extent of cc in the 5235 I might as well re-design the whole thing though and take this into acount, did the Bryston cc their caps :hmm:? I can see myself heading down the class A path in the not to distant future :bouncy:..... just need some more time ... and NO I did'nt get a chance to play with my DEQ2496 yet either :(

um , isn t it originally have 741 opamps?
Im staying with the lossy 12dB passive, only opamp in the signal path will be the preamp, Signetics ne5534 's pulled from Neve console, input BJT bypassed in favor of sk170 jFET, eveyrting biased into class-a. Then mas6116 in the feedback loop to change volume, i sourced remote control kit to control that chip. TO package national opamps were tempting as well.

Download the schematic and find out.

Just wondering if it is really worth all the fuss going Charged Coupled in bi amped mode and then which caps to use Hovland or Solen’s. :dont-know hoping to draw on other members experiences with 4430/4435 and maybe save my time and money but with an emphasis on time.

Using Solens bi-passed with Hovlands might be the ticket.

I just rebuilt the Xovers on my ESS AMT-1As. The cap values being fairly high motivated me to use Solens: 2 - 75uF, a 44uF and a 25uF.

The 44 and 25 had to be brought up to 45 and 26 so I added an Astron PIO 1uF 300V cap to each 44 and 25. Then I bi-passed with a .1uF K40Y. The AMT-1As have never sounded so good! Of course the caps that they originally used were very so-so. The black jacketed, red ended, made in Mexico variety.

Lar

Well when I CC my 2344 compensation circuit I used Mylar with Polpropylene bypass. Sounded good to me.

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...Charge+Coupled

Rob:)