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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RADIO ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING Speaker upgrade. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering
Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering / Speakers You are a happy owner of a High End class system that gives you joyful moments of communication with music, each time surprising you with the fact that together with this pile of iron great performers and composers settled in your house with their masterpieces in all the variety of harmonies and nuances. Too high-flown? Perhaps, but rather too optimistic: in real life, the acquisition of expensive audio equipment often turns into a disappointment, because it does not allow its owner to finally get distracted from the sound and listen to music directly (for which, in fact, the system was bought). The search for a weak link in the chain begins, replacing various components of the path, throwing between horns and panels, transistors and lamps, copper and silver, CDs and vinyl. It becomes obvious that the quality of music reproduction and the quality of sound reproduction are not at all the same thing, and sometimes one is sacrificed for the other. From here, hasty conclusions such as "the worse the sound, the more music" are made, whole teachings and theories appear, leading to paradoxical conclusions like the fact that the greatest technical achievement in the field of sound reproduction is the gramophone (if you argue in this way, then the Edison roller should be even better, since it appeared earlier). Music is generally separated from its physical substance, i.e. sound. Musicality is allegedly transmitted independently of the sounds themselves, as if through a special "astral" channel that has nothing to do with the right and left channels of a stereo system. The soul lives separately from the body, there is a certain antagonism between the soul and the body of music (ie its emotional content and sound). A healthy mind in a sick body! We, as people familiar with the natural sciences, will look for another explanation. For many years you listened to music on cheap equipment, while enjoying it, once or twice, perhaps even cried. Yes, you can shed a tear under the gramophone, damn it! It is paradoxical, but in order to feel the genius of the work and soar in spirit above the vanity, not so much is needed. Many true music lovers are content with the simplest technology all their lives, and not always because they are not able to buy something better. Those who dare to make such an acquisition, naturally, expect that now they will soar even higher, and when this does not happen, they are disappointed, sometimes even completely lose interest in music. Why? Because a better path reveals more recording flaws, suboptimal premises, shortcomings of the path components themselves, giving out more sound details that are not related to art as such. The integrity and harmony of the musical picture is violated due to details pouring into the ears. The fairy tale becomes reality. The complex of inadequacies in the physical processes of recording and playback manifests itself more strongly in the high-resolution path and often begins to prevail over the music itself, attracting excessive listener attention. So are those who stand for the extermination of the flesh in the name of uplifting the spirit really right after all, and the real High End is not Quad and Manley, but a gramophone?! No. A thousand times no! Expensive and high-quality equipment can really amplify the listener's emotions many times over, elevating him to the top of the most direct of all arts - music. The thing is that it is not enough just to buy equipment. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the system needs tweaking. Moreover, the more expensive and better the complex, the more. Just like a Steinway piano. Out of tune, it's unlikely to sound any better than a typical country club piano (although it's not hard to guess the nature of the sound in this case, too). And what is the preparation for the operation of the audio system? Here, not everything is as simple and unambiguous as in the case of the piano: the working tool here is not the master's key, and the tuning criterion is not a tuning fork, but the ears of the owner of the audio system. It should sound in such a way as to satisfy the tastes of the owner, taking into account the individual characteristics of his hearing. Therefore, the adjuster in this case is the owner himself. And this process begins, in fact, even before the acquisition of the equipment, when its future owner walks around the salons and listens to various paths, choosing the most suitable one. Then comes the next step: integrating the system into the living room with its acoustic properties, which can make it sound completely different from what it was in the listening room. Experiments begin with the arrangement of speakers, the selection of cables, individual components of the path are often replaced, etc. Finally, there comes a moment when further attempts no longer bring any noticeable change in sound. Well, if at the same time there is no desire to experiment further and the operation of the equipment for its intended purpose begins. Unfortunately, most often you still have to spend a lot of time, effort and, sadly, money (yes, in that order, on the basis of importance, regardless of the amount: good sound cannot just be bought with money!). This is where the moment comes when an upgrade can become the most effective means of further tuning the system. And an untuned or undertuned audio complex can indeed, with all the analytical accuracy of the transmitted sounds, be completely soulless. Like a "jock" with well-developed muscles and a blank look. A tuned system is one that exhibits the right balance between reproducing the physical substance of the music, i.e. sounds, and the subtle nuances encoded in them. Here we have come to the classical axiom: in a healthy body there must be a healthy mind. Cold, warm, hot! In the computer world, upgrading is a common thing. I inserted a small scarf into the slot - and the next time I turned on the computer, not 16, but, say, 64 MB of RAM was displayed on the monitor, applications started working much faster, it became possible to solve much more complex tasks. With audio equipment, everything is not so simple.
However, upgrading is just as popular as it is in computers. Recall at least the romantic story of Ken Ishiwata and the Marantz 63 CD player (for self-finishing the usual 63 to the K! Signature level, see No. 4, 1997). Firms themselves - manufacturers of high-end equipment often offer upgrades, releasing new modifications of well-known models or providing the opportunity for owners of the basic version to send the device to the factory in order to improve it. But this is a special case, practically unacceptable for most consumers, and hardly expedient. The best upgrade is done by the owner himself, if he has sufficient skills in the field of electronics, or by his friends who have these skills. By the way, for certain types of refinement of experience, almost no experience is required, for example, when replacing modern Chinese lamps with the old Milliard. This type of upgrade can be called "cold", since nothing needs to be soldered here, it is enough to know the pinout of the lamps and the degree of their interchangeability. The result can be assessed immediately, just like when replacing the cable. The next variety, as you might guess, is "warm", for example, replacing individual components (resistors, potentiometers, switches, wires, capacitors, transformers, etc.) with better ones without any changes in the device's circuit diagram. In this case, it is necessary to have a good understanding of the circuits and properties of radio components, be able to solder and know the elementary safety rules when working with electrical installations. And finally, the “hot” upgrade is a brazen intrusion into the scheme thought out by the designers, when the operating modes of the nodes change (sometimes after that the device heats up more due to an increase in the quiescent current of the final amplification stage, therefore we will call this type of improvement “hot”), or in changes are made to the circuit diagram of the product, which, in the opinion of the owner, will have a positive effect on the sound. I want to answer one question right away even before readers had time to ask it: if we are talking about High End equipment, the very name of which means that there is nowhere higher, what upgrade can there be ?! Can a homegrown engineer with an old soldering iron and cheap solder really improve the sound of a shimmering gold piece of high-end art? After all, the brightest heads beat over it for many years, and the august ears growing on these brightest heads evaluated every resistor, every soldering by ear? In fact, this is not always the case. As in any other field, the contribution to the creation of a high-end class product is carried out not only by talented designers, but also by gifted economists with advertisers. After all, sometimes in a market economy it is preferable not to do better, but to sell more profitably. Therefore, the level of models of some companies claiming to be High End is not so high, but only sufficient to differ from Hi-Fi equipment. The rest is achieved by advertising and cosmetic methods, most often simultaneously with a truly engineering approach, but the latter is an insignificant fraction. You don't have to look far for examples. Almost every self-respecting company releases CD transports under $3000, built around a Philips, Pioneer, or Sony transport mechanism. Moreover, its usual modification is taken, which is used in models of CD-players of the same-name firms worth $200 - 500 (although these same manufacturers have transports for elite series). Then a "thoroughly damped" minimalist case is made with few buttons and a finger-thick front panel. All damping sometimes comes down to a piece of guerlain glued to the chassis or cover of the apparatus. It turns out that a piece of aluminum weighing half a kilo (front panel) and sticky cardboard pull no less than 3000 - 200 = 1800 bucks! I don’t want to say that there is no benefit from them, it is, and considerable, but is it really worth that kind of money? So there is almost always an opportunity to improve a branded device, regardless of its cost, even if it is initially really very good and does not contain any hack. At least in order to "fit" it to your ears, because no one in the factory will do this for you. It is clear that the more competently designed the product, the less room for a "hot" upgrade, but the "warm" and "cold" options still remain relevant. Let's talk about "warm", with "cold" and so everything is clear, but "hot" is a special case, for the most literate and for those who remake equipment for the sake of the process itself, while experiencing sports interest. In the end, this is also not a crime, there is a whole category of people who care about sound, not music, and if this is their hobby, then what's wrong with that? There are music lovers with brains, and there are engineers with ears. To each his own. In search of the "fifth element" So, you pulled crossover filters from your speakers and found coils on cores of magnetic material and mediocre capacitors, namely polycarbonate, lavsan, sprayed, or, even worse, non-polar electrolytic ones. Even if you are unable to identify them, you can believe that they are one of the above types. Why were they used in expensive speakers? Yes, because they are small-sized and, in addition, their price is a couple of tens of dollars for everything. Why it was impossible to put polypropylene foil ones, even if the speakers cost 100 bucks more? A reasonable question, but an even more reasonable answer. The point is the pricing mechanism in small-scale production, which is the High End industry. Every dollar invested in production is doubled at least twice: by the manufacturer when the goods are shipped to the wholesaler, and then by them when the goods are delivered to the retail trade. So, you get your columns for 4 times the cost, not counting any VAT, customs duties, trade margins, etc. With them - even more expensive. This is at least!
Therefore, although the manufacturer understands that it would be better to put good capacitors and air-core coils in the filters, he cannot do this, since the product will have to be sold at a significantly higher price, it will jump out of its price category. And then the finish of the cases should correspond to a higher level, and more expensive heads should be installed, otherwise they will not understand. Actually, the division into price categories is mainly due to the quality of the components: the more expensive the model, the better its filling. For example, Westlake Audio (an American company that manufactures primarily studio monitors) uses Solen Fast coated polypropylene capacitors in its crossovers. These are good capacitors, and, by the way, not very expensive. They can also be found in the filters of Magnepan speaker systems, but in the high-frequency link, while there is still a place for much better foil capacitors, and Solen Fast, in my opinion, are more suitable for shunting a low-frequency head and for smoothing power supply filters for equipment, where they are, undoubtedly, they will show their advantages over electrolytic capacitors. But for that, thanks to Westlake Audio and Magnepan, others will not wait for this either. Especially in acoustics of modest price categories. No, it all sounds good, as they say, "for your money - very much even." But why not take the opportunity to circumvent the economic laws of pricing with some effort? A set of really high-quality coils and capacitors for acoustic filters can cost from several tens to several hundred dollars, depending on their types. But instead of paying four times more for finished products with these components (even if we assume that the element base goes to the manufacturer half as much as it costs at retail, all the same, the price of the product will contain, if not quadruple, but twice the cost components), especially since such finished products simply do not exist! At least I have never seen speakers with capacitors, such as MultiCap™ PPFX-S in crossovers (foil with a polypropylene dielectric, with minimal absorption loss, with very good impulse properties). And in tube amplifiers, preamps or D / A converters, at best, you can see paper-to-oil capacitors (Audio Note) of not the highest category, metallized MultiCap ™ PPMFX or InfiniCap (Sonic Frontiers, Manley Labs, Audio Research). Many models of the above-mentioned companies were upgraded by replacing capacitors with the best ones, and the result was always better than expected, there was no trace of the distrust of the owner of the device about the home-grown upgrade. In fairness, it should be noted that opinions differ about paper-oil and polypropylene (or polystyrene, Teflon) foil capacitors, but this is a matter of taste. Some people like polystyrene, others love paper in oil, others, maybe cardboard in sour cream ... In any case, you will not find the best samples in any of these categories of capacitors in the finished device, no matter how hard you try. Regarding the lack of confidence in the benefits of replacing parts with better ones. Sorry, but if an ordinary cable can change the sound of the system so much that many even try to reduce the entire process of setting it up to the correct selection of cables, then does such an important element of the circuit as a capacitor or inductor not contribute anything of its own? After all, those who reduce everything to wires know that a cable made of ultra-pure copper or silver with Teflon insulation sounds better. But after all, there is insulation both in the capacitor and in the coil, like metal, sometimes the same copper, and quite a lot. Is it possible that in a "folded" open cable (capacitor) or an open cable (coil) all this manifests itself to a lesser extent ?!
My friends have rebuilt several different types of Klipsch speakers (replacement of capacitors and internal wiring) and each time noted a significant increase in sound quality, even when inexpensive Solen Fast capacitors were used. I myself was recently present at the upgrade of the Klipsch Heresy II, one of the company's most successful speaker models. And although the coils did not change at the same time, and instead of standard capacitors (non-polar electrolytes and polycarbonate metallized ones), better ones were used, the result was impressive. The sound has become so much more refined, accurate, if you like, more "expensive", that neither I, nor those who participated in the process, nor the upgrade customer himself, as they say, had any questions ... Naturally, their own speakers , Magnepan MG 2.7, I also improved, but to the maximum: MultiCap ™ PPFX-S, Alpha-Core foil coils (just not silver). And what? The first thing I noted with delight was how much information gets stuck in bad coils and capacitors! And not secondary, namely those "small" details, without which large ones do not add up to music, but exist on their own in the form of sounds. The depth and breath of the scene appeared, not only the music began to be played, but also the acoustic and emotional environment in which, probably, this music was recorded. It began to seem that the mood of the performers, together with the sounds of music, penetrates into the soul. And only later, when I had enjoyed my favorite works in the "new" performance to my heart's content, I began to listen to the sound, noting that both micro- and macro-dynamics had increased, and the tonal balance became more even, and individual notes did not shoot as well as they used to. So the upgrade was a success, and the fact that the emotional side attracted more attention than the technical ones is the best evidence of this.
Now about amplifiers. Replacing standard transition capacitors of any type with MultiCap ™ RTX (polystyrene frame) gives almost no less effect than just described (in fact, the range of replacement capacitors is much wider. Good results can also be obtained with Axon, MusiCap, InfiniCap, Siemens capacitors MKP - ed.) The resolution immediately increases by an order of magnitude, as if the veil in front of the ears is dissipating, so to speak. It is very useful to replace mediocre electrolytes in cathode circuits with Black Gate, even the cheapest Standard series, and even more so the K (Audio), F, FK, N, NX, NH, C series. 0,01uF). Black Gate capacitors have almost the same frequency and impulse properties as film capacitors, and the level of intrinsic noise is much lower. Among them there is also a special series for power filters (WKZ) of large ratings for a voltage of 500 V, and if it were not for their very immodest price, probably, electrolytes of any other type would have "rested" long ago far from High End class products. Maybe that's why the price is so high, so as not to irritate mighty competitors? By the way, most of the ratings (except the largest) of Black Gate capacitors of other series, both polar and non-polar, are not so expensive and are quite affordable.
According to Peter Quartrup (Audio Note), Black Gate is followed by Elna's Ceraphine series electrolytes. And only then all the rest, of which LCR, Mallory, Sprague, Cornell Dubillier, etc. are quite good. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the best series of paper-oil capacitors with copper and silver foil, but I know that they cost fabulous money (more than one hundred dollars). You can often hear the opinion that our domestic capacitors are no worse, and their price is lower. Perhaps with regard to Teflon (for example, the FT series) this is true, but all the others that we had a chance to try (K71-7, K78-2, K40U-9, and even more so lavsan K73-9, K73-17), are unlikely can compete with "branded", except perhaps with cheap metallized ones like Wima. (Whether to use domestic capacitors, the reader must decide for himself. In our opinion, the types K78, K72 and KSO-3 "play" very well for their price. Although their use is more justified when upgrading Hi-Fi class components, rather than High End. - Note ed.).
And about resistors. Oddly enough, those antediluvian carbon (carbon) "sound" best of all, despite the temperature instability and noise. Even the familiar Korean ones, yellow with stripes, which can be bought very cheaply in Chip and Dip stores. So far I have not had to try boron-carbon and tantalum, but the reviews about them are the most positive. By the way, making a stand for "listening" resistors is as easy as shelling pears: it is enough to include resistors of different types of the same rating in the gap of the interconnect cable. As experience has shown, the nature of the sound changes in almost the same way as if this resistor is placed in the anode load or cathode bias circuit. The volume and balance controls are a different story, a particular pain. Sometimes you really want to get rid of them at all, you don’t know where it’s better to put them - at the output of the preduplicate or at the input of the terminal. But you can’t do without them, therefore, if you find a cheap Noble or whatever in your device, it’s better to change it to ALPS, TKD or set a step, or even better, a step volume control on discrete resistors, the type of which you can choose yourself. Step Attenuator differs from Series Attenuator in that each volume position corresponds to only one pair of resistors. Such a regulator is more complicated and expensive, it has more switching nodes, but the signal does not have to pass through the entire chain of resistors (23 or 31, depending on the number of volume positions, usually 24 or 32). WITH there is another, intermediate type of discrete volume control, where the signal passes through a pair of resistors, one of which is constant, and the other (to ground) is switched. This is a Shunt Attenuator. Its advantage is in relative simplicity and a single switching of each volume position, the disadvantages are the relative low resistance, about 10 kOhm (otherwise, the useful signal must overcome the significant resistance of the ballast resistor) and the load on the previous stage that changes depending on the volume. Any of the listed discrete volume controls in both unbalanced and balanced configurations can be assembled on a multi-position switch with gold or silver contacts. They are small and reliable, however, and not cheap. But their money win back a hundredfold. Similar products can also be used as an input selector.
The output transformers of tube amplifiers - even more components, even quite expensive, and even more cheap ones, contain outputs of very average quality, which largely limit the capabilities of the device. The shortcomings of transformers are obscured by negative feedback with a depth of 10 dB or more, the negative impact of which has already been repeatedly written. A good transformer from various companies (Tango, MagneQuest, Bartolucci, Sowter, Audio Note, Border Patrol, etc.) is not a problem to pick up and install, but it only costs oh, how expensive ... Sometimes as much as your entire amplifier. However, if you still decide, consider that you are simply changing the entire device: in this case, you can put the amplifier into triode mode with maximum efficiency or reduce the depth of negative feedback, or even turn it off completely. A transformer has a huge effect on the sound, and nothing ruins the sound like a bad transformer. Signs of such - buzzing bass, anemic highs, inexpressive mids, flat, devoid of dynamic shades sound, boring and inexpressive. The signs of a good thing are when everything is the other way around (short and clear, isn't it?). If a home-made output, carefully calculated and made, sounds bad, it is often useful to boil it in paraffin, ceresin or wax, or soak it in shellac. If the transformer, connected to a load equivalent resistor, “sings” like a speaker at low volume, impregnation is simply necessary. After all, what energy is spent on magnetostriction to swing its windings and core plates to such an extent that the transformer turns into a "central channel"! And this energy is not drawn from anywhere, but from the useful output power, each watt of which is worth its weight in gold in a tube amplifier. Moreover, the losses due to magnetostriction are frequency dependent and are associated with the mechanical resonances of the transformer. Fight and seek... That, perhaps, is all that needed to be covered in relation to the "warm" upgrade. Almost any element, including the mentioned "audiophile" components, can now be bought in some salons and distributors specializing in High End. They will also give you advice on how and what is better to redo, what and where to apply, what is worth trying, and what is better not to try. Sufficient experience has been accumulated in upgrades, so there is no need to reinvent the wheel. If you feel that your device needs an upgrade, but do not really rely on your skills, entrust this matter to an experienced person. There will always be one, I'm sure that in the circle of your audiophile friends there will be at least one.
The upgrade has two downsides, but one of them is not fatal (I hope) - this is if you get a little electric shock, so do not forget the safety rules; but the other often becomes lifelong - you get so into the taste that you are constantly redoing something, striving for perfection and never reaching it. If you do not forget the music, then I think there is nothing wrong with that. It's just that a new world will open before you, the world of electronics, you will start reading smart books, articles in magazines, and when the result of the next upgrade exceeds all expectations, you will experience incomparable joy. Yes, your soldering iron will be constantly hot, moreover, you will grab it every free minute instead of slaughtering a goat with homies or knocking over a pile (remember pirates and other movie villains with a hook instead of a right hand, so you have instead of a brush and a hook there will be a soldering iron! And if something didn’t work out, well, you can always go back to the original version and look for new ways to improve the equipment. So, you see, you can gradually grow up to "hot", and this is no longer a joke. Remember that there is no alternative to the upgrade, except for one - to come to terms with what does not suit you. So are you ready to give up without a fight? Literature
Author: Artur Frunjyan; Publication: salonav.com
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