WD25A crossover tweeking

Has anyone tried any tweeks to these yet?

i'd like slightly more bass as its a little quiet in the mix for me.

The article suggests swapping L1, the coil in series with the bass unit (normaly 0.58mH) for one of 0.6mH for a 'darker, heavier bass perormance'

Sounds like this might be worth a try. Has anyone else played with this?

Ive been considering buying an active sub, but i dont want THAT much more bass Just a little more.

[naimart]

Graeme,
Do you have the series 3 crossover or the the series 4?

I seem to remember you where building the WD25a around the same time as I had bought mine - my kit (around May 2006) contained a series 3 crossover which has a slightly lighter balance. I think the WD25a is superb but like you wanted a little more bass. It's a long story but I now have both, a series 3 and a series 4 version of the WD25a - and I have used them with a small active sub. Currently I prefer the series 3 with the sub in my particular room and system - but there is not much in it.
Regards
Robert

Im not sure what crossover i have, is there an easy visual check?
If so, ill pull it out and get back to you.

[naimart]

If you contact Nick at WD they will be able to tell you from the order - would save any dismantling!

[Cobblers]

Before playing with the crossover why not try tweaking the stands?

I have raised my WD25a's on higher stands (22 inches tall for those it may concern maybe not making for high WAF!).
Despite theoretically getting less Bass, I prefer the bass now as it is even cleaner, with notably better defined soundstaging than before (and as you may have noticed I thought it was pretty damned fine on the open frame stands)
Bass seems stronger (it is obviously even better defined) without any of the one note bass I detest.

These old Apollo stands are sand filled twin pillar high ('ish) mass (sorry Petercom!) and it hasn't slowed the pace or blurred definition in my room at all. Different results may be achieved with a concrete floor.
I filled these old things with sand years ago and added a wider chunky wood base for stability. Metal base plate is decoupled from the stand with cork, which stops the bolts loosening because of constant tension on them) .

It could be that even better results could be achieved if the stands were just damped with something light as recommended by Petercom.
It could be merely that it sounds better with the cleaner output from the bass driver away from the floor on the higher stands. I imagine this would lead to even lighter bass though, which is not Graeme's objective.

[Ianm2]

just a suggestion if it hasn't occured, why don't you build your xovers in external boxes, or better for ascertaining, on a flat board of mdf or anything improvised?

so you can try all of the xovers, or even tweak yourself, with cheap components at first, see what you prefer, and then you can spend money on your fave parts for the preferred version?

Its illogical to keep 'opening them up' if you want to change things

check out "solen" on how to layout a xover board spatially

For stands, at the monent, i built a simple mdf pillar, about an inch smaller than the speaker. They are filled with expanding foam so there very dead.

In theory, these should be bolstering the bass to a certain extent. I can here a slight boom but only very rarely (one or two tracks on cd which are very bass heavy with lots of sub bass)

Im sure stands that were more frame like, without the front baffle effect would improve bass sound, but not increase it.

If i mod the crossovers i will probably mount them seperate anyway.

With some of my music the bass is fine, more than fine really, but on some music i have which is supposed to be bass heavy it just sound week. Bass extension doeant reach down quite far enough and it doesnt have enough punch.

What is super anoying is i have a track with a deep punching bass line and the vocal sample says 'is this bass really strong enough' (intended to be ironic) but im left siting there thinking no, not really

Im not looking for much more, just a little more punch which will probably make it sound more extended as well anyway.

I guess crossover mods are worth trying before i commit to a sub.

Im assuming its not the kel84 at fault?

[Cobblers]

Originally Posted by naimart

Graeme,
Do you have the series 3 crossover or the the series 4?

I seem to remember you where building the WD25a around the same time as I had bought mine - my kit (around May 2006) contained a series 3 crossover which has a slightly lighter balance. I think the WD25a is superb but like you wanted a little more bass. It's a long story but I now have both, a series 3 and a series 4 version of the WD25a - and I have used them with a small active sub. Currently I prefer the series 3 with the sub in my particular room and system - but there is not much in it.
Regards
Robert

1

[Yellow]

Originally Posted by graeme

Has anyone tried any tweeks to these yet?

i'd like slightly more bass as its a little quiet in the mix for me.

The article suggests swapping L1, the coil in series with the bass unit (normaly 0.58mH) for one of 0.6mH for a 'darker, heavier bass perormance'

Sounds like this might be worth a try. Has anyone else played with this?

Ive been considering buying an active sub, but i dont want THAT much more bass Just a little more.

Changing an inductor from 0.58 to 0.6 will almost certainly yield NO difference, or very little. The manufacturing tolerance on these is at least 5%, probably more. So a 0.6mH (nominal) could in fact be 0.57mH to start with, and your 0.58 could already be 0.6mH if you get my drift!!! But it could go the other way too!!

The role of the inductor is to roll off the top-end of the bass unit, and playing with the cabinet/port aperture will yield bottom-end results. Changing the inductor will only screw-up the response. You could end up with a big dip in the mid-range that you'll then perceive as "more LF", but in reality, this may not be the case.
One simple way would be to just add a small 0.47ohm resistor in series with the tweeter, just to take a little edge off it. That will drop the response by say 0.5-1dB, resulting in a thicker, more LFy sound. Give it a try - if you have bi-wire terminals, just stick it on the outside of the +ve HF connector then connect your red HF cable to the other end of the resistor. Do both speakers of course!!!! No need to open the box up.

Neil.