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Installed Kappa 32.5CF's + upgrade
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Posted by Dean (more from Dean) on Sat, 19 Apr 2003 16:45:56 Share Post by Email
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drs_install <- search keyword

This is a repost, after the big server crash :(

Subject: Installing 3.5" dash speakers, specifically in an 03 Aero.

The Aero comes with a Harmon Kardon audio system, with HK's own drivers. The L&R dash drivers do not have tweeters and are 2.5" speakers in 3.5 frames. There is a huge amount of high frequency information that is lost and/or distorted.

I used the Infinity Kappa's because other here have recommened them, and because I liked the technical spec's. They have an outboard in-line LRC crossover network and most everything else in a 3.5" speaker just has a small electolytic cap to feed high frequencies to the a tweeter. With an out board X-over, one can keep the high frequencies off of the midrange element. Otherwise the high frequencies can be emitted from the moving driver which then get dopper shifted, a form of inter-modulation distortion.

You will need a thin blade to pry up the grill, start at the front. The screws are torx, #20. The is little room. I use the bit with a box wrench that has a 1/4" hex ratchet in it. One of the cheap stamped and riveted jobs.

Some have cut off the factory harness connectors and others have spliced in connectors. I did neither. I took the leads from the X-over and twisted them tight, then bent these into a tight bend. I soldered these, or tinned them, then with smooth jawed pliers, I flattened these to make my own spade connectors to go into the factory harness connector. Easy and effective. After doing as described, then use a knife to scrape the flats of these to remove flux and to level them off a bit. When you install them to the connector, you will have to grip it tight-in or hold with pliers to insert. Then bend back over the flat side of the connector and put a nylon wire wrap around the connector body. to act as a strain relief. I also put a washer under each screw when installing.

The leads from the X-over need to be connected to the speaker terminals. They are all of different sized to make sure things go right.

The speaker is a tight fit into the opening, but it fits fine.

The speaker has a black plastic spacer ring lightly glued in place. This is easily removed by hand. It must be removed.

There is lots of room below the dash for the X-over and additional wires. I put a bit of polyester batting in there at the sides. The X-over should be cushioned in something too.

The improvement is very pronounced. Things resolve and come into focus.

Thats it.... but today I did this.
==================================

I opened up the X-over boxes, they are nice plastic bits that pop right open. No tools required, just grab it. The PCB is retained in one half by 4 tabs, push these back and the BCP is soon free. There are two caps. One is 2.2uF from the input to the tweeter. It is a bi-polar electrolytic. I bypassed it with a .47uF film and foil electolytic capacitor. The main driver is feed through an inductor to keep out high freqencies and a larger electrolytic cap shuts remaining high frequencies to ground. I bypassed that with a .15uF cap. I had the required 4 caps on hand in my parts box as the upgraded parts from my Conrad Johnston vacuum tube pre-amp. So these were C-J caps which they make in house. There are are lots of other caps that one could use, but you will not find any at RadioShack. A bypass cap simply is connected across or in parallel to the the electrolytic cap being bypassed. It is often quite easy to 'tack' these onto the back of a PCB, onto the original solder nuggets or by scraping off some of the solder resist from a trace and tacking there.

I secured the caps to each other and the PCB with 3M double sided foam mounting tape. The wrapped the whole sausage with some of material the same as the woven and bonded plastic tarps that you can buy. A few turns of that as an insulator and a separator. The overcast the whole thing with electrical tape. If you ever get into it again, you will be glad that you had a separator wrap and that the electical tape did not leave goo all over the componets after summer heat!

These 4 added caps really clean things up further. The high frequencies and vocals are better defined and detailed and natural. Why? electolytic caps are small and cheap. But there functioning depends on eletrochemistry, sort of like a battery. They are not fast enough and things do not get through without some distortion, and some energy is stored and release later, at-the-wrong-time. This 'time smear' is what you can greatly eliminate with bypass caps. If you replace the 2.2uf with a 2.2uF film and foil cap, that would be better. But you can get most of the benefits with a bypass cap of a smaller value. Perhaps 10 or 20% of the electrolytic's value. I used around 20% because that is what I had on hand. A 2.2uF film an foil cap can be quite large and the cost of a nice bottle of wine. So size is an issue. So the resultant capacitor value changed? Yes, but remember that the tolerance of the elctrolytic caps is oftern around +/- 20%, and the actual value changes with temperature too. So don't get hung up on that.

Is this a bit much. YES, but I have spent hundreds of dollars on audio capacitors over the years. Many others have too.

If you want to try this, try the URL below for X-over capacitors. There is room below the dash if you want to remove the 2.2 bipolar and replace with a film and foil cap. A metalized polypropylene cap will also be a big provement, less bulky and expensive. Or a good by-pass cap as I have done, lots of options.

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=61

This would be an excellent replacement cap:
AUDIOCAP PPT THETA 2.0uF-200V FILM/FOIL CAPACITOR $14.00 each. But there are other choiced.

But these metalized caps at $1.85 each would not disappoint!
SOLEN 2.2uF-400VDC POLYPROPYLENE CAP

As I work on the Saab, I am very please with the quality of the radio and amp. As you improve the caps you can hear things better. Believe me when I say that sometimes inproved X-overs can reveal things about an system that you regret hearings. The HK gear sounds very very good.


posted by 66.139.120...

speaker measurements

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