Celestion Ditton 66 recap

[Qwin]

Re 66's
I tried reorienting and re-spacing the coils and locating the boards in the lower chamber and that's how they were when I sold them on.

I know this is following best practice and on some designs it might have a significant impact, but to be honest on the 66's, if there was a difference, it was very small.

On the other hand, in my case, the capacitor renewal made a huge difference.

If I was doing another set of 66's I would keep the stock boards/location and do the simple recap, it will get you 95%+ of where you want to be, for a fraction of the work and it sits well from an originality point of view.

Each to their own though, if your after the last once out of them and want to sleep better at night, go for it.

[karma67]

well ive learnt something new today,i spoke with the guy from falcon acoustics who told me that the early hf2000's tweeters with the red metallic sticker on the back are in fact the last type celestion produced. they dont work like the original ones so they are going straight on ebay.

for me the recap hasn't made a huge difference,they are however sounding better for it.
once again id say the best thing to do is just change like for like caps.

[karma67]

I think this definitely means I should keep the original crossovers as untouched and have a good listen first then try to change components in stages.
Sounds like the bass and mid section benefit most from component upgrade or are you hearing better things now from the top end than before changing to the ansar caps?

What were the ohm's readings on your 'red labels' and on your existing tweeters again, could this make that much of a difference or could it be a different type of coil design perhaps.....

Glad things are working out well for you, must be a big relief

it is a great relief yes! lol
the red labelled hf2000's measured 5ohms each,so on paper they are perfect. i dont know what speaker they came from originally.
my origainal hf2000's measured 5 and 9.8 so go figure??!!

if you dont mind keep taking the crossovers out,i would change each drivers caps in stages,that way you can hear the changes more.

[Qwin]

Jamie - The Red label tweeters are HF2000's, they came out of some B&O speakers - Beovox 5700.
I think Celestion used Red labels on items they supplied to other manufacturers, but don't quote me on that.
I was always under the impression that the tweeter and mid range in these were exactly the same as those on the 66's and 44's(tweeter) that opinion is certainly out there if you google it and they are often sold as such on ebay?
See some here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi...nge-query.html

I did an Impedance frequency sweep on them using DATS and the plots looked very similar to my other HF2000's. That said, of the 6 Tweeters I measured, no two were exactly the same, but still they were all very close.
Maybe there is some subtle difference in their make up

Edit: Just caught your post #42, that's interesting to know for the future.
Strange that they would change them though and not give them a new number, as it means they would not have been backwardly compatible as a spare part any more. Still stranger things have happened with British Hifi companies.

[karma67]

ah that explains it then (i think)
the guy from falcon said the b&o hf2000's are 4 ohms.

[Qwin]

ah that explains it then (i think)
the guy from falcon said the b&o hf2000's are 4 ohms.

Hmnnn, wouldn't that make em sound louder, being less of a load?
What ever the reason, I trust your lug holes when you say they were back in the mix compared to the originals.

[karma67]

i havn't got a clue to be honest,im just going by what i was told by falcon acoustics,its all over my head if im honest,i can solder and read the value on a cap and order the same value and put it in,the theory and what is does is beyond me.

[Reffc]

Jerry from Falcon is an expert in these matters. I'd take his word on what he told you. If he said they were different, they were different and will not be a like for like replacement. As you say Jamie, like for like recap (polys in the upper frequency end of the bandpass and for the tweeter caps), and best practice on inductors....job done. Essentially, you cannot change what the designer intended by fiddling round the edges. That would take a complete speaker redesign, to alter fundamentals.

[Qwin]

Hi Paul, I wasn't doubting Jerry when he said they were different, just curious as to what was changed for future reference.
Received my order of a pair of 12" Scanspeak Woofers from him, on Monday of this week.
When I was looking for some close matching caps, he even offered for me to go down and sit with a box of caps and measure/match them myself as close as I liked.
Very knowledgeable and accommodating chap from my experience.

[karma67]

Today i have removed the Mundorf lytic/Ansar poly mix for the MD500 mid and replaced it with 2 low loss 12uf Alcaps, 24uf LL are not available anymore. Now the crossovers are total as per originals,like for like replacement caps.
Job done and no more messing about!