Arkay
Lunatic Member
I ran across this post on another board, when "researching" Kappa speakers:
As a long time Kappa 8 owner I can strongly recommend a simple bypass modification to the crossover that makes the speaker easy to drive and actually better with a more natural and full bass response. Simply unsolder or cut one side of the 12.5 mh coil from the crossover and solder in a shorting bridge across any one of the three 500uf (1500uf total) capacitors that are the first thing after the woofer binding posts. This takes the 'reactor' out of the woofer circuit. Now your amp will just see a common 4 ohm load and the bass will be very natural without the 'thump' where that cap and coil reactor stores a charge and throws it at the woofer while melting your amp in the process. I listened carefully using the famous Hok-Man Yim Poem of Chinese drum CD and it actually hits harder with better decay after the mod and the amp doesn't overheat in the slightest. The Kappa 8's punch that track harder than anything I have owned with just one 12 per side. If you want to keep protection against a DC short from your amp, ignore shorting out the (series) capacitor, but by all means get that evil 12.5 mh (shunt) coil out of the woofer circuit.
As much as I'd like to believe that a simple modification could thus "improve" the Kappa 8s, wouldn't this potentially defeat the purpose of the Watkins dual-VC concept, or at least have other serious implications for the crossover behavior? (I don't have the crossover circuit design in front of me, and am not entirely familiar with it, but I'm guessing from what I remember that this would ruin the Watkins behavior.)
Has anyone tried this mod before? Is this mod the road to or just utterly :screwy:?
(Sorry if this has been discussed before; I didn't find it. If it has, please just provide a link to the thread, rather than repeat stuff here.)
As a long time Kappa 8 owner I can strongly recommend a simple bypass modification to the crossover that makes the speaker easy to drive and actually better with a more natural and full bass response. Simply unsolder or cut one side of the 12.5 mh coil from the crossover and solder in a shorting bridge across any one of the three 500uf (1500uf total) capacitors that are the first thing after the woofer binding posts. This takes the 'reactor' out of the woofer circuit. Now your amp will just see a common 4 ohm load and the bass will be very natural without the 'thump' where that cap and coil reactor stores a charge and throws it at the woofer while melting your amp in the process. I listened carefully using the famous Hok-Man Yim Poem of Chinese drum CD and it actually hits harder with better decay after the mod and the amp doesn't overheat in the slightest. The Kappa 8's punch that track harder than anything I have owned with just one 12 per side. If you want to keep protection against a DC short from your amp, ignore shorting out the (series) capacitor, but by all means get that evil 12.5 mh (shunt) coil out of the woofer circuit.
As much as I'd like to believe that a simple modification could thus "improve" the Kappa 8s, wouldn't this potentially defeat the purpose of the Watkins dual-VC concept, or at least have other serious implications for the crossover behavior? (I don't have the crossover circuit design in front of me, and am not entirely familiar with it, but I'm guessing from what I remember that this would ruin the Watkins behavior.)
Has anyone tried this mod before? Is this mod the road to or just utterly :screwy:?
(Sorry if this has been discussed before; I didn't find it. If it has, please just provide a link to the thread, rather than repeat stuff here.)