Quad 11L Loudspeakers Tweak
Having happily lived with a pair of Quad 11L Loudspeakers for the last two years in my system, I was curous to find out whether they could be improved without tinkering with the design too much.
When it comes to tweaking loudspeakers, many websites recommend drastic things such as removing internal dampening, unwinding inductors and changing the values of capacitors in the crossover - that is not what this post is about. When trying to improve a loudspeaker that is the last thing you should attempt especially with a loudspeaker as well designed as the Quad 11L Loudspeakers. Quad will have no doubt a spent a good deal of time and money researching and developing the Quad 11L Loudspeakers and optimising the crossover so attempting these kind of changes is very stupid. What I wanted to do is try and enhance the basic design by improving how the drive units interacted with the cabinet and crossover and to do this all that was used was blue tack or one of the similar derivatives.
The first thing i did was unscrew the drive units from the cabinets using an Allen key. They are fitted to the cabinet quite snuggly so do not come away easily but can be prised out. The first reasuring thing you notice is that each drive unit is connected to the crossover with some good quality OFC loudspeaker cable not the average bell wire like so many designs, so this can left alone. The Quad 11L Loudspeakers crossover can be cearly seen fixed to the back of the cabinet behind the woofer and consists of 6 discrete components, 2 inductors, 2 electrolytic capacitors, a yellow polypropolene capacitor and a wirewound resistor for the tweeter. Each of the electrolytic capacitors on the Quad 11L Loudspeakers crossover board is carefully wrapped in bluetack and the yellow polypropolene capacitor and resistor are wrapped together because of their close proximity.
The effect of bluetack on discrete components was noticed by Celestion many years ago and ther is no official reason why this works but it does. In the Quad 11L Loudspeakers crossover I believe that the blue tack also acts as a barrier against rear projecting waves from the woofer which effect the performance of the crossover but I have no eveidence to back this up - but the sound does sweeten once the blue tack is in place. The final use of the blue tack is to act as a dampening gasket between the drive units and the Quad 11L Loudspeaker's cabinet. The Quad 11L Loudspeaker's tweeter is quite plasticky so any dampening and isolation from cabinet vibration is surely going to improve it's performance. I would strongly recommend using a new pack of blue tack as it is easy to cut it into 3-4mm strips to line the drive unit cut out holes in the cabinet. Once you have done this place the drive units back and tighten up the Allen screws and you are done.
Almost immediately on first listening to the Quad 11L Loudspeakers you should hear vastly improved and more detailed treble and tighter bass. As the new drive units settle in and adjust to the improvements made to the crossover, over a period of 24-48 hours, improved detail accross the entire frequency response should be apparent and the midrange in particular should become smoother yet more detailed without altering the balance or the overall sound quality of the Quad 11L Loudspeakers.
I was very impressed with the subtle changes that this tweak made to the Quad 11L Loudspeakers sound quality and the good thing is that it is fully reversible if you are not convinced.
This entry was posted on Thursday January 4th, 2007 at 2:18 PM and is filed under Tweaks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.
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