In regards to Vintage Speakers; last week I replaced my Altec A7 stock crossovers with some custom Hiraga design units by Pete Riggle in Kennewick, Washington. I wired them to the speaker posts with Duelund Dual DCA16GA tinned copper multi strand wire in cotton and oil, which I must say is about as large a gauge as one should try to get into the Altec speaker wire clips. The crossovers and wire are still burning in, and the sound is still improving, but already the difference is as great as night and day. The bass so big now that it rattles the back plywood panel because of delimitation that was not apparent before the change. I believe the improvement in sound is due to two things, first the proven Hiraga design, second Pete's use of large NOS oil-filled capacitors.
The crossovers follow the Hiraga design mostly, as they also have switchable notch filters, allowing the ability to remove 2db, or 4db at 3.5kHz, but I found they sound best on my system set for flat response crossover at 525Hz. There is also a separate circuit for adding a Super Tweeter at some stage.
The only way I know how to add a photo to this site is by adding a video, so made a short one of two photos of the crossover (front and inside) as follows:
For any of you with Altec A5's or A7's who have not already changed the crossovers, I would recommend Pete's whole-heartedly. As I already implied, the improvement is not subtle.
I am sorry, wasn't able to get the inside included.
