Replacing Caps in Aerius Speakers

[neville]

Hoping someone may be able to help

Ive just had the caps in my dac upgraded and amongst other this have had vcaps installed.

After about close on 300hrs burn in am absolutely staggered what these caps have done to the sound, considering how little money this costs in the scheme off things. So being the kinda guy who can never leave well enough alone, i got to thinking, what about the speakers.

So, anyone done this? anyone done this with vcaps? can you tell me the values of the vcaps i should be looking at, in fact any help would be appreciated. I am a complete novice at this, so will likely involve someone who actually knows what there doing to carry out the work, i just need to know what i should be buying first.

Thanks for you assistance in anticiaption

 

[Tosh]

If it's for the crossover, then the capacitance values should be the SAME values as before, and their voltage ratings should be the same, or higher.

 

[DDzCLX]

I don't know whether you ever finish your crossover but I just finished replacing the Solen capacitors in the crossovers for my CLX.

I don't know the values in the Aerius so I cannot help with that, but Tosh is correct, use the same values as you replace.

I paralleled Vcap OIMP to make the value and bypassed with 0.1uF CuTF. Before installing I burnt them in for 2 weeks in a test jig and a further 2 weeks connected to a receiver once re-installed in the CLXs.

You need to be aware that the Vcaps will likely take up much more space than the existing capacitors, mechanical stability and vibration control will be important.

To say the sound has improved would be an understatement, like 25 year old Macallan compared to (you choose)

I still have more work to do but once complete I will post the build project along with pictures

 

[HiFiFuchs]

Hi,

I know that this thread is quite old but as a new owner of a pair of ML Aerius I would like to aks for some experienced advise on x-over caps replacement.

In the low pass section there is the following seriel caps (in signal path):
470uF bi-polar
100uF bi-polar
Total capacity = 570uF
A MKP it that size is extreamly big and expensive. I am thinking of changing the two bi-polar caps with one 560uF audio grade bi-polar cap and add one 10uF high quality MKP and a by-pass 0,1uF MKP silver.
What do you think about that?

In the current original high-pass filter I find the following caps in the signal path (seriel):
22uF bi-polar
10uF MKP

I would change them both to audio grade MKPs with the same values and app a by-pass 0,1uF MKP silver cap.

Both the 80uF and the 15uF bi-polar which are parallel in the high and low pass I want to change to audio grade MKPs with the same value.

I would very much appreciate zour comments on my suggested cap configuration and especially on the possible improvement in the low pass filter if I wiold go for MKPs in stead of the 560uF bi-polar elco.

I thank you in advance.

Kind regards
Rino

 

[Tosh]

Hi Rino,
I haven't seen an official ML schematic for the Aerius i, but are you sure you have traced yours out correctly? Would you post your schematic? I don't think the 470uF and 100uF are in parallel with each other....?

 

[HiFiFuchs]

Hi Tosh,

Thank you for your reply. The support of Martin Logab was kind enough to send me the official schematic which I have attached here.
View attachment Martin Logan Aerius Crossover Schematic.pdf this is a PDF
this is a JPG

I hope it functions with the files. I would be happy if you could help me but I am pretty sure that they are parallel. There is also some good quality pics online where it looks like they are parallel.

What I am wondering is if it will improve the sound changing them to MKPs.
As a 470uF MKP will be extremely big and expensive I have decided to take a audio grade elco and put a 100uF and a 0,1uF in parallel.
Does that make sense?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Kind regards

Rino

 

[nerdorama]

What I am wondering is if it will improve the sound changing them to MKPs.
As a 470uF MKP will be extremely big and expensive I have decided to take a audio grade elco and put a 100uF and a 0,1uF in parallel.
Does that make sense?

Hi Rino,
I suspect that changing the capacitors in the panel crossover would make the most audible improvement, but I have read claims that using better caps for the woofer will have benefits. I suspect that using a combination of electrolytic and MKP in parallel will work very well, but also consider the 80uF parallel cap across the woofer. If it is suffering from any aging it might be good to replace it with a fresh cap. I have read some claims for other speakers that bass clarity can be improved by replacing the parallel cap for the woofer.

I hope you will report your results if you do this as I have been thinking of doing this for my Aerius speakers.
Thank you,
John

 

[HiFiFuchs]

Hi there,

This weekend I changed all the caps in my 23 year old ML Aerius. I stayed with the original layout as I still have the original woofer.
I used the following components (see schematic in my thread above):

In the low pass:
changed the C4 - from 470uF elco to 470uF audio grade (rough) elco (a MKP is extremely big and expensive)
changed the C5 - from 100uF elco to a 100uF MKP Audyn Q4 (red version)
I renewed the C6 with audio grade elco same value (80uF) as it is not in the signal path.

In the high pass:
changed the C1 - from 10 uF MKP to 10uf MKP Audyn Q4 (red version)
changed the C2 - from 22uF elco to 22uF MKP Audyn Q4 (red version)
put a 0,1uF MPK Audyn PLUS in parallel with them both which are already in parallel.
I renewed the C3 with audio grade elco same value (15uF) as it is not in the signal path.

I have been listening to them for app. 6 hours and additionally burned the in with a special burn in CD with pink and white noise.

Impression:
The bass is deeper, dryer and slightly louder.
The ESL is far brighter and more important more transparent. The sound image is more detailled, deeper, wider and he instruments and voices are much better separated.

All in all the MLs have disappeared a lot more than before = it was well worth the 4 hours of work and I am amazed how good my 23 year old MLs sound.

 

[Tosh]

Looks like you've got it right, and indeed they are parallel. But they are also in parallel with a 1 Ohm resistor, so there's not that much 'signal' going through them to make it worth replacing with MKP.

What is meant by 'audio grade'? Normally it just means 'markup,' but if instead it means close tolerance, then that would be worth paying the difference. My favorite electrolytic caps (e-cap) are Elna RFS, but the tolerance on those is +/- 20%, so not that impressive for crossover use unless you match them yourself. But any e-cap could be made into a bipolar e-cap by series-parallel connecting them.

Overall for Aerius i, the single largest chokepoint to bass performance is the inductor L3. But getting rid of that requires going to an active xo and an additional amplifer for the bass, so a bit of an investment and attitude adjustment that I assume you're not ready for?

Your best return on investment will be replacing the older e-caps in the bass xo with new e-caps. And then in the ESL xo/eq, replace all the caps with your 'favorite' brand film caps.
Vishay MKP1848 'DC-Link' are good value for large film caps.

 

[HiFiFuchs]

Thank you Tosh for your Kind reply, as mentioned in my last thread I already did the caps upgrade (sse my last thread) and it made the bass a bit faster and firmer.

The 470uF elcos are +/- 10% from the German company Intertechnik which also provided the Audyn Q4 MKPs. The Overall Sound surely improved. If it is due to renewing the 1993 caps or due to changing most of them with MKPs, I don´t know, but the result was worth the Money

 

[Bernard]

Rino, please report back on how it sounds after the caps have burned-in for a few months.

 

[HiFiFuchs]

Hi Bernard,

yes I will although since I changed the caps I have also washed (showerd) the Panels which might also influence the Sound improvement.
Until today I can say that the clarity and the Sound Image improved quite a bit. If I had to quantify the improvement, I would rate the improvement to about 8-10%.

I will Report back in a month or so.

 

[Gimpy95]

I replaced the capacitors for the panel with Mundorf evo oil, man these are very big! They also sound amazing. The detail I know have is profound! I will soon be changing the capacitors for the subs and am very excited to do so.