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ELAC UBR62 Speaker Review

wric01

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May 24, 2020
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Have you mapped out the circuit components? Specifically, I am curious as to how the steel core inductor is wired on the midrange circuit. I speculate that it is in parallel with the midrange, shunted to negatIve. If not, and instead it is in series with the midrange, replacing it with an air core inductor probably is the biggest bang for the buck for improving midrange clarity. I may pull mine apart to check how it is wired if you have not already done Iso.
Sorry out of my league. I was upgrading caps and resistor, it's quite difficult finding space thus stuck for the moment. I suggest you split it into two boards like the original if you create new crossover.
 

terryforsythe

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Here's an update on my listening with the Uni-Fi Reference speakers since my last post:

After spending some time with these speakers, I am finding that in some recordings, which I am very familiar with, the lower midrange seems just a little smeared - it's there, but seems to lack a little bit of clarity.

I am wondering if it is an issue with the distortion level at the crossover frequency between the woofer and midrange, around 260 Hz, which Erin found in his measurements. Since the woofer and midrange/tweeter have separate binding posts, I was able to take distortion measurements using ARTA. The midrange is the bigger contributor to the distortion at that frequency - it seems like Elac is pushing the midrange a little too low with its crossover design, which Erin also found in his response linearity measurements.

This is puzzling to me - by crossing over at 260 Hz rather than, for example, 500 Hz, larger inductor and capacitor values are required, which would add a little bit to the build cost. So, they made the speaker a tad bit more expensive to build (maybe a couple of bucks), increased the level of distortion, and sacrificed some response linearity at higher output levels in order to push the midrange down to 260 Hz. I am not sure what the benefit is to do that, and whether that benefit is worth the sacrifice. Sometimes getting certain woofers and midranges in phase at certain frequencies is challenging, depending on their impedance/phase characteristics. So, perhaps getting them in phase and smoothly crossed over at 500 Hz was challenging and added too much complexity to the crossover design. Or, maybe the woofer just craps out above 260 Hz. At this point I don't know. If anyone else has some insight into this, I am all ears.

I am pondering playing with the crossover to see if I can move the crossover frequency up without screwing up the frequency frequency response and phase characteristics. If I do, I'll probably also replace the steel core inductor on the midrange circuit with an air core. I think my next step will be to take the frequency response and impedance measurements on the individual drivers and play around with it in VituixCAD to see what I can come up with.

I have another project I am working on right now, but I will try to post an update in a few months if I can come up with anything worth sharing.

EDIT: It just occurred to me why Elac may have made the sacrifices to crossover at 260 Hz - vertical off-axis response. Still, I think I am going to play with it to see how much of an impact moving the crossover frequency higher will have on distortion, response linearity and vertical off-axis response.

Also, I changed my subwoofer/Elac crossover frequencies to 110 for the sub and 90 for the Elac, both 24 dB/octave. I let Dirac EQ for the room response, though a little overlap at 100 Hz smoothed out that region a bit before I ran it.
 
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Topartisan

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Jul 23, 2022
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Hi Mate from the UK, I am trying to remove the x-overs to make a small adjustment (if possible) to the padding resistor on the tweeter to lift the treble response a fraction but I cannot remove the x-over plate. All screws removed from bass driver but it seems stuck and wont lift out. How did you get the driver and x-over out please.
 
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