Millercarbon's Mega Moab Mod Meander


One of the all time great automotive engineers, Norbert Singer, was a key player in every one of the 16 Porsche LeMans victories from 1970 to 1998. His dominance was such that at one point Porsche had won LeMans more than all other marques combined. This was all accomplished by building on the already solid foundation of Porsche production models. The air cooled flat 12 in the 917 was really two flat sixes combined to make 12. This car so dominated motorsport the rules had to be changed to stop it!  

So Norbert Singer modified Porsche production technology to extract the absolute most for racing. His legacy is today’s Singer Vehicle Design https://singervehicledesign.com Norbert doesn’t make for a very good car name so they called it Singer. What is a Singer? It is a modified Porsche. It is in essence a hot rod. What Norbert Singer did was make the most hot rod racing Porsche. What Singer does is take that to the next level, capturing every aspect of Porsche right down to excellence of design and aesthetics.  

I am not anywhere near the level of Singer. But that is the spirit of what we are doing: taking an already world-class design and hot-rodding it to be even better. Well, better for me anyway- or so we hope!

The early modders started with substituting off the shelf parts to get more power or less weight. That is pretty much all we are doing here. Would be cool if some day people are doing this with a lot more sophisticated approach. Maybe they will. Maybe even I will. For now though we have the current crossover project.

My approach is pretty simple: better parts sound better.  

This lesson was learned back in the late 90’s with Linaeum Model 10 speakers. The designer had a new tweeter and told me how to modify the crossover for it. Simple mod, one cap, one resistor. Bought the parts from Radio Shack, put it together, sounded like crap. Absolute horrid crap! Called him up, he said those parts are crap. Said Musicap, Vishay. But they measure the same? Just do it. I did. It worked. Even though they measure exactly the same, the sound difference is off the charts.  

Even though they measure exactly the same. There is a lesson here. For those willing to learn.

So this is the essence of it: Eric Alexander has made a speaker the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Even better: an affordable Porsche 911! But after a while with my 911, after learning what makes it drive and feel the way it does, it was only natural to change the shocks and torsion bar and other items to bring out even more of what I like so much about the 911.  

That is what we are doing here. Hot-rodding a speaker. Thank you Rick for the metaphor!  

The parts are on order. Next week the fun begins!
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Showing 6 responses by willgolf

Good Luck my Audiophile Tweaker!  You are on another level.  I have a hard enough time trying to figure out how to turn my system on and off.  
MC - just a question or two...you have a wonderful system that is geeked up to the max.  Then you buy the Moab's that you have basically said is the greatest bang for buck speaker on this planet.  Now you are taking it apart and adding more upgrades.  Are you really going to be able to hear a difference?  Where is the point of listening diminishing returns given your current system set-up?  Okay, i know it's a hobby!
A question for MC or anyone...if you had an opportunity to replace the drivers or all of the components you worked on what would you do if money was not an object.  Where do you think the biggest bang for the buck is between the drivers and the caps/ resistors etc?  
Why not just get better speakers? For all time and labor costs, I would think it would be worth it.

I asked the question about changing drivers because I have the opportunity to upgrade the four drivers.  Let me just state that my Viking Acoustic Grande Voix dual horn speakers are phenomenal.  I really don't need to change anything.  However, David Counsell, the designer and speaker builder from Viking Acoustics told me about a German driver that would take my speakers to even another level.  Further, he would do all of the work at my house (it is a 7 hour drive).  

It would cost me over $5k to have the work completed.  My speakers already have an 18" woofer so I get plenty of bass.  The new drivers are spruce wood with ultra detail and more air.  He would use different caps.  The end result would be better detail and more output in the mid range and the highs and a 5% reduction in bass which will balance the speakers better.  

 I am not saying I am going to do it.  I am functionally blind so I can't do anything that Chuck is doing to his Moabs.   I just threw it out there because I have not seen any threads on changing drivers.  Hope that clarifies why I asked and thanks for the feedback.   
Interesting comments.  I will send to David at Viking and get his comments.  I also have all Dueland silver and copper power cords for my components.
MC - I was one of those GUYS who would put their ear up to the 98db speakers and hear a slight hum and get pissed.  Now, After changing all of my cables, Power cords, adding the Lampi Pacific it is pretty much quiet.  

I wonder, can you really compare a $7-8k speakers to a $35-40k speaker?