Capacitor upgrade on crossovers?

mjp200581

mjp200581

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Out of curiosity I opened up my Ruark Prologue one speakers to have a look at crossover network and the drive units.
I found that the crossovers are pretty simple affairs with one air cored inductor and capacitor on each circuit. The treble circuit has a what looks like a high spec polypropylene capacitor but the bass circuit is fitted with a aluminium electrolytic type.
Would it be a worthwhile upgrade to swap the electrolytic to a high grade polypropylene type? At a cost of around £10 per speaker it would represent something of a bargain if it improved the sound of the speakers.
What do people reckon?
 
I've heard many good things about resistor upgrades, but cannot help you regarding capacitors.
The upgrade ceartainly won't cost you much so you got nothing to lose.
 
If it will fit in the box then you might as well. Make sure the voltage rating is high enough. Look at Maplin by the way, they used to do some 'audio grade' caps that were good quality and more affordable than audiophile brands.

I would't expect a big improvement, but there might be a small one.
 
Well I purchased some Wilmslow Audio 'supersound' earlier this week and fitted them today. They were awkward to fit at the crossovers are a very difficult to remove from the cabinet and even harder to get back in with the new MUCH larger caps in place.
I'm very glad that I persevered though as they really have made quite a dramatic improvement. The soundstage is deeper and clarity much improved. For a little over £20 this has to be one of the best value for money mods available. Why on earth did Ruark not use better caps in the first place?!
 
... becasue if a production part cost the manufacturer £10 per, it'd have put up the retail price to the customer by £150-£200/pair all told, and that would both break the market for the speaker design price-point, and probably upset performance vs. price for the rest of their range at the time . Might also require introducing a new down-speced model to fill the spot 'yours'once did. And so it goes.

That's how it works - for all manufacturers, not just Ruark. It is also why informed DIY is so popular!
 
Standard poly caps from the likes of RS and Rapid are good enough IMO, and a lot cheaper than some audio branded caps.
 

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