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Why Recap Speakers and When?

The Reverend said:
Hello,

I just bought a pair of Pioneer CS-R700 speakers and I a want to recap them. The crossover network is attached below. What I am wonderig is, if useing all Solen caps, if these are good choices:

35uF = 33uF||2uF (SOLEN-54968, SOLEN-55875)
14uF = 12uF||2uF (SOLEN-51556, SOLEN-55875)
18uF (SOLEN-62370)
1.3uF (SOLEN-62361)

All parts are from partsconnexion. Are there better ways to do this than paralleling for the 35 and 14?
Click to expand...

The most important caps you have are the mid (18 uF) and the tweeter (1.3 uF). My suggestion is to save on the parallel caps (35 and 14) by getting NPE's from Parts Express and buy some better caps for the tweeter like Jantzen Superior Series - also from Parts Express. You can get a 1.0 and 0.33 Jantzen for about $18 each set. Stick with the Solens for the mids.
 
So from PE, should I parallel the 12uF, 15uF, and 8uF to make the 35uF? No issues with three caps in parallel with tolerances and such? The 14uF would be the 10uF and 4uF. From what I understand the woofer caps are quite as important in terms of fidelity, I mean, look what is coming out the woofer.
 
I bow to superior expertise in this area, but in partial answer to your question: I have not hesitated to use parallel caps in X-over networks. For example, it worked brilliantly in my Tannoys, and perhaps saved me money because I was able to use more affordable, industrial film caps that incidentally were not sized for the application — and they were expense enough.
 
The Reverend said:
So from PE, should I parallel the 12uF, 15uF, and 8uF to make the 35uF? No issues with three caps in parallel with tolerances and such? The 14uF would be the 10uF and 4uF. From what I understand the woofer caps are quite as important in terms of fidelity, I mean, look what is coming out the woofer.
Click to expand...

I would think for your Pioneer speaker, paralleling with NPE's in the woofer section is the right way to go. Multiple parallels are okay also. A very well regarded speaker designer, Peter Snell, of Snell Acoustics used to parallel numerous 4 uF caps to get large values in some of his early classics.
 
I recapped my Tannoys with Sonic Caps the other night. Upon initial startup they sounded terrible. About 15 hours of play time later they're starting to come around.
 
Great thread here. I had a question about paralell values.

I want to recap my sansui sp-1500's, but I noticed there are some paralell caps in there.

For instance, 2uf BP with a .5ufBP across it. Why did they do this? Was it to lower ESR and allow hf to pass better across the cap, or was it simply to create a 2.5uf cap because none were available to them? Obviously, you can order just about any value of cap nowadays so wouln't it just be better to replace both with a 2.5uf cap? etc etc for the other caps as well.
 
I don't have the for sure answer for you, but unless someone is intimately familiar with that circuit it more likely has to do with a supply(inventory) issue.

In the Braun 810's that I recapped today they used 2-4.7's in place of a 10uf. And I am sure it had to do with the increase in buying power since they also used another 4.7uf in the crossover. It lowered their cost on all the 4.7's and reduced the number of items on the BOM.
I used to sell caps to Magnepan and they chuckled at the thought that some of their customers thought 2 caps in parallel sounded better than one larger one.
BTW, in my 810's I just used Solens. While having just listened for a couple hours I would say the effort was worth it, for two reasons. First, now I don't have to wonder anymore whether they need it.(peace of mind) Secondly, I believe there is in fact an improvement, primarily in the high frequency response which I think has helped to bring greater clarity. It was pretty painless, about 15 minutes per speaker and $30. I got my money's worth which was just a little bit more preformance from an already decent speaker.
 
Sansui SP-3000 Recap

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It has been very helpful to me.

I just recapped my Sansui SP-3000 speakers and I am very pleased with the results.

I am hearing more high frequency response and the bass is more clearly defined. I am hearing more percussive sounds like the “slap” of bass strings in jazz music and more of the harmonics of classical guitar strings than I had noticed previously. With organ and choral music I am noticing more of the reverb and overtones in the performance space. With chamber music and classical guitar, it sounds more like the instruments are in the same room with me.

I used Dayton Precision 1% Metalized Polypropylene caps, which were $54 for the ten caps at Parts Express. I considered using the regular Dayton polypro’s ($30), Solens ($46), and ClarityCap PX Range ($52). The Precision caps have a 1% tolerance versus 10% for the regular Daytons and 5% for the Solens and ClarityCaps. I figured that the quality control that goes into making something with a 1% tolerance just might be worth the extra money.

SP-3000s haven't received very good reviews from some Akers because of weak bass response. I wondered whether investing $54 in caps was “trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” I’m sure there are better speakers out there, but for the moment with only $82 for the speakers and $54 for the caps invested I think I’m getting my money’s worth. I like the walnut veneer, the wood lattice grills, and the solid construction of the cabinets along with what seems to me to be good musical sound.

Before the recap, I had hooked a subwoofer and a pair of supertweeters to the "B" output of my SX-1050. I would click these on whenever I wanted to hear more top and bottom end. With the new caps, I find that the Sansuis are so much brighter that I don't need the supertweeters and so I've disconnected them from the system. I think I’ll keep the sub for those times when no one else is at home and I want to shake the house. :yes:

For anyone wanting to recap their SP-3000s, these have a five-way crossover. There are five caps per speaker: two 15μF and one each 3.3μF, 2.2μF, and 0.47μF. The Dayton caps are larger than the old electrolytics, but there is plenty of room for them on the board. The crossover is easy to follow and easy to work on. It's just a matter of desoldering the old caps, prying them up off the board, soldering in the new caps and hot-gluing them down so that they don't rattle around. I broke a couple of the mounting tabs while trying to desolder the old caps. Wrapping and soldering wires directly to the cap leads solved the problem. Following advice on this forum, I didn’t replace the two 3Ω resistors. I did give the L-pads a good cleaning with Deoxit.

I’ve attached a couple of pictures: first of the crossover with the original caps and second with the new caps.
 

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Glad to hear the recap was a success. Now you can enjoy those speakers the way they were meant to sound. :banana:
 
The point of diminishing returns start kicking in quick for capacitors and your pay big money on that very small improvement that the best capacitor will give you. Here's some tests on capacitors www.humblehomemadehifi.com/ <(Click on Cap Test) and the best deal going right now for the money is the Jantzen Audio Superior Z-Cap from Parts Express
 
Just FYI,

I thought I'd replace the caps in my ADS L910's. I used Solens Fast caps. The result was horrible. The highs were gone and the midrange was nasely. I couldn't believe it so I put in some jumpers so I could switch back easily. The new caps were horrible compared to the 30 yr. old EVOX box cap.. Granted I do not know if it's just Solens or not but I'm not doing any more experimenting to find out. The lesson here for me is, a cap is not a cap is not a cap. I do suspect Solens is the issue but I'm going to be content with what I have for now. So don't just assume a new cap is going to be better or as good as the old one. BTW yes I used the same value caps for replacements.
 
Lux Man said:
Just FYI,

I thought I'd replace the caps in my ADS L910's. I used Solens Fast caps. The result was horrible. The highs were gone and the midrange was nasely. I couldn't believe it so I put in some jumpers so I could switch back easily. The new caps were horrible compared to the 30 yr. old EVOX box cap.. Granted I do not know if it's just Solens or not but I'm not doing any more experimenting to find out. The lesson here for me is, a cap is not a cap is not a cap. I do suspect Solens is the issue but I'm going to be content with what I have for now. So don't just assume a new cap is going to be better or as good as the old one. BTW yes I used the same value caps for replacements.
Click to expand...

Something really strange going on there.
 
Solen caps are bright if anything, something is not right there at all.

Did you allow them any time to break in? I found most replacement caps need at least 10 hours of burn in to get a idea of what you're in for. Some call for up to 300 hours.
 
I am with both of you on this-I woke up in the night thinking no way. So this morning I put one set back in- same thing. These are 4.7uf's the one to the tweeter is in series the one to the mid is in parallel. They are c2 and c4 if you look at the schematic on the ads sticky. I recently re-capped the L810's with Solens and they did brighten just a touch which was fine but this is much different. I'll tell you what my two tests are-on the Diana Krall, "the Look of Love" track 3 in the very beginning there is a triange/chime, well with the Solens in there it is barely audible, with the original caps in it rings clear and has a sustain to it. The other test is a female vocal, Eva Cassidy I use alot for tests and her voice sounds nasaly with the Solens. If the Solens needs to be broken in and the best scenario is they might bring back the sound I have now, well I am not sure of the point of that excersize.
 
I will admit I gave them no time to break-in, the sound was so strikingly bad. But as I mentioned above, in the case of the Solens what compelling reason do I have that they will eventually surpass what I have now? Unless you tell me that even the best capacitors often sound very very inferior in the initial stages of burn-in. In my case the reason to replace wasn't that I detected any unsatisfactory sound issue, it was just this disease I have that doesn't allow me to leave stuff alone when there is any chance of an upside. And then with having re-capped the L810's with immediate positive results- this was just so in contrast, I just had to pull them.

I will look forward to your further comments-
 
Lux Man said:
I am with both of you on this-I woke up in the night thinking no way. So this morning I put one set back in- same thing. These are 4.7uf's the one to the tweeter is in series the one to the mid is in parallel. They are c2 and c4 if you look at the schematic on the ads sticky. I recently re-capped the L810's with Solens and they did brighten just a touch which was fine but this is much different. I'll tell you what my two tests are-on the Diana Krall, "the Look of Love" track 3 in the very beginning there is a triange/chime, well with the Solens in there it is barely audible, with the original caps in it rings clear and has a sustain to it. The other test is a female vocal, Eva Cassidy I use alot for tests and her voice sounds nasaly with the Solens. If the Solens needs to be broken in and the best scenario is they might bring back the sound I have now, well I am not sure of the point of that excersize.
Click to expand...

Your 3rd sentence above suggests you used 4.7's for both the C2 and C4. Is that what you did? please confirm.
The schematics for the 810 and 910 I read show 6.8 uF caps for C4 on the tweeter cap and 4.7 for the parallel mid cap.
Also curious as to why didn't you change out C3, the series mid cap?
 
Excellent questions. Guess what? Not all the documents are correct when it comes to the schematics. This pair of L910's were bought in 1980, according to the documents provided with them they were very early because the letter from ADS states the manual is not ready yet but here's how to hook them up. So with that said, the schematic says C4 is a 6.8uf but in mine it is a 4.7uf and yes it is the original Evox cap. I know other L910's have the 6.8uf because my other pair does. I have come to the conclusion based on other L910's and my own that there may not be clear cut versions but in fact a number-ADS was making changes on the fly so to speak. These are Series 1 (the original)but I have seen other Series 1's with the 6.8uf used for C4. The other pair I have are Series II.

Why didn't I change out C3? These are being bi-amped and when they are bi-amped C3 is bypassed, as well as R2. C1 and L1 are also bypassed when bi-amped but that has nothing to do with this.
 
Actually I should retract a part of a statement above the other Series I, I have seen also used a 4.7uf for C4 but in that one C3 was not a single cap(13.6uf) but 3 box caps. in parrallel. Mine by the way is a single 15uf film /foil axial lead cap not a 13.6 as the schematic said. I have not seen a 6.8uf used in a series 1 so far. The reason I am speculating is, that the series 1's have 1" soft domes and the series 2, have 3/4" tweeters. That's my speculation until I see different.
 
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