Audio and Electrical Engineering
Upgrading Elac 5.2 Debut Speakers With DIY Crossover
The Elac Debut Series is one of the most highly rated and reviewed range of affordable speakers on the planet. They have the distinction of having been designed by audio legend Andrew Jones, which that alone sets the bar very high. From the website:
"...the Debut B5.2 sets a yet higher standard, delivering performance in inverse proportion to its diminutive size. And it remains the best value in the world of affordable speakers, with sound that surpasses speakers many times the price."
These speakers have well made cabinets, with a soft dome tweeter and Aramid Fiber (it's the same thing as Kevlar™, but Kevlar™ is a protected trademark name that they do not pay to use) B&W™ is probably the company that made Kevlar™ drivers the most famous, with their yellow tinted versions they used for years and years until they designed their own Continuum™ replacement material.
Well, if these speaker are so great, what do you need to fix? Well, it's a common situation in loudspeaker design and manufacture... you make the stuff on the outside as pretty as can be, and the stuff on the inside as affordable cheap as possible.
That is what we have here. One well designed, yet made with extremely cheap components crossover:
Let Us Get Started
So they cut corners — most do, on the inside where you can't see it. Not in pic is the cheap audio polyfill they use to stuff the cabinets. It's super cheap plastic cotton candy and it just doesn't work very well to dampen the cabinet.
What this upgrade aims to do:
- Keep the existing Andrew Jones designed crossover, just rebuild it with very high quality parts
- Use extremely high quality wire
- Replace the magnetic and terrible speaker binding posts with ones that accept banannas or tube connectors as well as spades or bare wire.
- Remove all acoustic poly fill, polyester cotton essentially, and replace with high quality acoustic foam sheet
- That means: No iron core inductors, no electolytic capacitors, no sandcast cheap wire-wound resitors
The new crossovers and standard banana posts. These posts aren't the greatest, but you have to spend a lot of money to do better, and they are better than the stock set. Replaced nuts with non magnetic ones and you'll see in a later pic, we solder the wire directly to the posts for the best connection possible... no nuts used:
All the parts ready to go together and starting to squirt some silicon in to mount the crossover. I like using this perforated metal base and silicon because:
- It has dampening and prevents rattling
- The silicon oozing through the holes makes a very strong, yet ultimately removable connection
- Super easy to cable tie all your componets to the base
You can see the magic happened here, and added some more silicon on top, again to prevent movement or rattling of any component as the speaker is playing. Not pretty, but highly functional and again, removable and can be disassembled.
The completed set. I use these as test speakers on my work bench for testing hi-fi equipment when I am building or repairing. The outcome of these speakers is nothing less than unprecidented given the total cost. It could be the best sounding for dollar speaker you can buy, at least in America. Highly recommened, especially if you do this mod.
