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!
128x128millercarbon
Sorry, wasn't even thinking of that angle. Was more like that is how expensive just the caps are. Even with no mortgage I can barely afford Duelund bypass caps! Not that Duelunds would fit in there even if I could afford them! Will have to "get by" with just Alumen Z with the Duelund bypass caps.  

It will all be good though thanks to my Krissy magic. Heh. ;)
"get by" oh please.. I can't wait to read your impressions after you've opened up the signal to the drivers.

And I know you're doing the Krissy thing (me too), do heed what rushfan71 was telling you, I would wager this is the next big step, in taming the Corolla...Bwahahahahah
stringreen,

I think AZ is great too to drive in at lower speeds than 80 to 90 in a Porsche if you have one that wasn’t conceived and designed as more of a grand touring car vs. a race car, i.e. 911s built pre-1999 or the the GT and RS series from any year.
I loved the time I passed a 911 on a exit ramp in my 72 Lotus Europa TC..scared me almost to death.. Tom
Air core coils will sound best if you have the signal enter the inside of the foil and exit the outside.....either towards the driver or towards ground.  The xover should never be inside the vibrating box.  Run the wires out the back and have the xover mounted on damped raised platform.....much easier to upgrade xover with time, as well.  The wires to the woofers should be soldered directly to the voice coil wires.......do not go through the binding posts or tabs that are mounted on the driver.  Just solder your wire directly to the voice coil wire where it meats its tab.  Of course, you do not want distorting binding posts or spades, etc on your speaker wires.  You want to hardwire your xover to your speaker wires (the wires from your amp).......or you can use my binding post bypass system for easy connect and disconnect.  Less is more.  If you have midranges in your speakers.....then hardwire the speaker wire to their voice coil wires, as well.....same with full range drivers....way better sound.  Felting around all the tweeters (and midranges) will give a more focused and pure sound.  The felt should run right up to the edge of the dome....covering the entire tweeter.  All of the speakers I have made or modded all had the above done....always with superior sound.