What mods have you done to your Avantgarde speakers?

[Tam Lin]

I've done three mods to my Trios.

1. I changed the binding posts to Cardas CPBP-CS. They are more secure and have less unnecessary mass.

2. I replaced the internal coax wiring with the same Litz wire as my speaker cables. I also soldered the internal speaker connections.

3. I replaced the Mundorf capacitors with Duelund Cast. This produced a monumental improvement.

In the future, I plan to replace the inductors with Duelund Cast.

The Duelund Cast capacitors are very large and did not fit within the tubes that hold the horns. Therefore, I glued them to the outside of the end caps. The first picture is the cap for tweeter horn; the other is the cap for the mid-range horn.

 

[Paul]

Thanks for share. So glad to hear that you were able to upgrade the sound.

Is this Grosso version ? Would you mind the share the whole system ? Perhaps the pic would be nice.

At the moment with my Mezzo XD I do not want to change anything, I just love the sound as it is. Not wanting anything more so I’m afraid to change [emoji3166]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tam Lin]

Paul,
The speakers are Trio Omega. Like you, I didn't think Avantgarde speakers needed improvement, but after I heard what what the Duelund cap mod did in my Coincident electronics I had to go all in. I'm glad I did.

 

[haygeebaby]

Jon - very cool. Interested in more details.

1. for the binding post change - what improvements did you see over the stock WBT units? Would you consider this a change that is worth doing - benefit/effort/cost? I would be interested as I am considering upgrading to WBT AG units.

2. what speaker cable are you using and what type of solder did you use? Again - worth it upgrade? What changes did you notice?

3. are we looking at about USD$2k for each Dueland cast cap - so about 6k per speaker? What improved in your sound?

 

[Tam Lin]

haygeebaby,
#1 & #2 yielded minimal improvement in sound but immeasurable improvement in other areas. I dislike WBT. I was doing a lot of experimentation with speaker cables and the gold plating on the outside of the binding posts quickly wore off revealing a silver metal, probably chrome plated brass. If the gold wore off the outside it surely wore off the contact surfaces where it is supposed to do some good. The gold on the outside is just bling.

The portion of the binding post that actually carries the electrical current is very small. The rest of metal mass is unused and, as I have read, allows the formation of eddy currents, which is not desirable. The Cardas posts I used are pure, unplated copper with minimal mass. They also provide a secure connection with enormous clamping pressure.

The speaker cable is my own design using multiple strands of 44 awg magnet wire. I use Cardas solder.

The cost for #3 was about $1K per speaker. I used the tinned copper cast capacitors. I dislike silver in the audio signal path. But even if it was $6K per speaker it would be worth it!

 

[Hear Here]

Great to read about your mods to Trios. I've taken a slightly different approach and made modifications to improve the looks of my early Duos, although the mods were originally designed for my Unos.

See my Avatar photos with full story and pictures here - https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m....ching+the&sort=score&sortOrder=DESC&forum=hug


Drawing available on request! Peter