"A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable. " (Robert Fripp)
View all posts by Ale Moglia
10 thoughts on “Crossover (part I)”
Nice and neat, as always.
Ale, like you’re peeking into my room:-)))
I have my speakers away from the fingers of my two years old granddaughter. Last month I redesign crossovers for the first time after 20 years. Step by step process, FRD / ZMA files in the software, soldeiring-listening- soldeiringr-listening ….
I’ve tried a lot of capacitors and resistors. From terrible Solens to good Ampohm FPCA. I tried also Mcap, Ansar, ICW …. MKP capacitors are not for me definitely. I do not like their aggressive and sharp sound. I ended up with Siemens MKV to all places, they are really good.
Which drivers in speakers you use? I use old ScanSpeak and Dynaudio combo.
Something to consider – in my experience foil chokes do not perform as well as those “liz” chokes.
This was hard for me to accept since I had been a devoted follower of Allen Wright and had used his foil for interconnects since he began to sell it. Sincerely wish his wisdom was still with us.
I started with the foil coils and was never happy. An audio friend who has much experience in crossover design brought to my attention that he had never got good performance from these in his designs. I ordered the litz coils and the difference was immediately apparent.
The irony is that Wright began to have his doubts about foil, certainly silver foil for interconnects. The best wire I have ever heard is the tubular copper Chris Sommovigo uses in this products. Of course, a coil made with that would be impractical My point being that foil is on the right track it just needs to be a tube.
I have Mundorf CuFoil 0,28mH inductor (measured on my LCR meter), tried it for tweeter (12dB). Later tried 0,24mH my own inductor wound with 1.2 mm Cu wire on same place.
Cu foil inductor is not better, in my case.
Some DIYer reported that foil inductor is good for mid-frequency. I dont know.
Hi Wade
This is my first test on the crossovers so can’t add anymore here. I don’t think you can swap foil inductors for Litz ones just like that. Foil inductors have a very low resistance compared to other inductors of the same inductance. This will have an impact on the Q response of your crossover and that may be perceived easily as an improvement (or not) of your crossover if you don’t modify the entire crossover when doing this swap.
Still need to experiment with this, but is good to read your thoughts. Will come back on this once I finish the second board, test them and hopefully measure again the speaker response.
Nice and neat, as always.
Ale, like you’re peeking into my room:-)))
I have my speakers away from the fingers of my two years old granddaughter. Last month I redesign crossovers for the first time after 20 years. Step by step process, FRD / ZMA files in the software, soldeiring-listening- soldeiringr-listening ….
I’ve tried a lot of capacitors and resistors. From terrible Solens to good Ampohm FPCA. I tried also Mcap, Ansar, ICW …. MKP capacitors are not for me definitely. I do not like their aggressive and sharp sound. I ended up with Siemens MKV to all places, they are really good.
Which drivers in speakers you use? I use old ScanSpeak and Dynaudio combo.
Hi Rajko,
I will drop you an email, as this will be an interesting exchange!
Ale
Something to consider – in my experience foil chokes do not perform as well as those “liz” chokes.
This was hard for me to accept since I had been a devoted follower of Allen Wright and had used his foil for interconnects since he began to sell it. Sincerely wish his wisdom was still with us.
I started with the foil coils and was never happy. An audio friend who has much experience in crossover design brought to my attention that he had never got good performance from these in his designs. I ordered the litz coils and the difference was immediately apparent.
The irony is that Wright began to have his doubts about foil, certainly silver foil for interconnects. The best wire I have ever heard is the tubular copper Chris Sommovigo uses in this products. Of course, a coil made with that would be impractical My point being that foil is on the right track it just needs to be a tube.
I have Mundorf CuFoil 0,28mH inductor (measured on my LCR meter), tried it for tweeter (12dB). Later tried 0,24mH my own inductor wound with 1.2 mm Cu wire on same place.
Cu foil inductor is not better, in my case.
Some DIYer reported that foil inductor is good for mid-frequency. I dont know.
Hi Wade
This is my first test on the crossovers so can’t add anymore here. I don’t think you can swap foil inductors for Litz ones just like that. Foil inductors have a very low resistance compared to other inductors of the same inductance. This will have an impact on the Q response of your crossover and that may be perceived easily as an improvement (or not) of your crossover if you don’t modify the entire crossover when doing this swap.
Still need to experiment with this, but is good to read your thoughts. Will come back on this once I finish the second board, test them and hopefully measure again the speaker response.
Cheers, Ale
You don’t have inductive coupling?
Cheers
Felipe
Do not place any inductor against copper foil of a PC board, it lowers inductance vs frequency and increases resistance via eddy losses.
Cheers
Felipe
Hey Felipe, coils are far off from each other. PCB doesn’t have any ground plane or loops. No problem
I use the same resistors and inductors like you in my xovers. Have you listened the litz wax coils?
I see your coils very near, do you know Troels Gravessen best placement inductors?
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=701343&d=1535979813