External Crossover

[selby]

I'm about to rebuild some speakers and am wondering if anyone has moved from an internal to an external crossover and seen any real benefits?

Also often the internal wire used in speakers is cheap thin wire, I've often wondered if it would be beneficial to rewire using the same cable as your speaker cable.

So I'd basically have talk 3 cable going to a rebuilt external crossover, then at the other end talk 3 coming out and going to the drivers.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Speak to paul at rfc components he lives on the forum and is extremely good at building external tannoy cross overs!

[YNWaN]

I'm about to rebuild some speakers and am wondering if anyone has moved from an internal to an external crossover and seen any real benefits?

Yes, I did this not long ago when I rebuilt my Yamaha NS-1000Ms. The main benefit of moving them outside the cabinet is the ability to position the components in a more ideal relationship to each other. Using better quality components also means using bigger components and this is easier to do if they are mounted externally. I would also take the opportunity to bin any circuit board and just solder the components directly to each other.

Also often the internal wire used in speakers is cheap thin wire, I've often wondered if it would be beneficial to rewire using the same cable as your speaker cable.

I've also done this, I rewired my previous speakers with the same speaker cable I use and I also rewired my current speakers but mostly because the old wiring had started to show signs of oxidisation.

I don't think there is any benefit in using the actual speaker cable, but there is a benefit in using good quality copper multi-strand (this is not expensive) and soldering joints rather than using push on connectors.

[Beobloke]

When I rebuilt my Ferrograph S1 speakers a few years back I re-located the crossovers to a new case outside the main cabinet for two reasons:

(1) I didn't like the inductors in the crossovers sitting so close to the rear of the KEF B139 bass driver's magnet

(2) The new capacitors were so much bigger than the old ones, the crossovers wouldn't go back in their intended place inside the cabinet!

[Reffc]

Yes, go external James. It's worth the effort. Top tip...Talk 3 is good but not too flexible. Use something like Van Damme Studio (blue ) or Vlack Rhodium Twist (both inexpensive) for the links to the speakers as they're much more flexible than Talk 3. The latter is a super speaker cable but not really designed for flexibility for this sort of application. The BR is also easy to strip and use for hard wiring duties too.