Heathkit Altecs

[voice of the theater]

Thanks for the heads up on the Valencias--I'm going to leave those crossovers alone--they sound great and I don't want to mess with them. I opened up the other AS 101 cabinet again and the two AS 101 crossovers are wired differently from each other!* This is a heathKIT so I guess I shouldn't be too shocked.* Surprisingly enough, the guy I bought these speakers from (two weeks ago) teaches engineering at a local university and he made a point of telling me how his father was the original owner of these speakers back in the 70's and that his father is an engineer as well!* Good thing this isn't a heathkit amp or dynaco amp or there'd be smoke coming out of it! In case this is of interest/something that can be easily remedied here are the differences I detected--see photos of this second crossover/LPad below.
If you compare this to the photos of the other crossover (see my previous post from earlier today)--the top near terminal has a red wire connected to the positive terminal on the horn, and there is a "jumper" wire connecting the top near terminal on the L pad to the bottom far terminal.* However, THERE IS NO BLACK WIRE ON THIS TOP NEAR TERMINAL CONNECTING IT TO THE 8 uf CAP (which the other L pad DID have a black wire)--just the red wire and the jumper on this top near terminal.* The top far terminal is wired exactly the same on this L pad as on the other one:* it just has one black wire that leads to a post connected to the chassis of the crossover.* That post is wired identically to the corresponding post on the other crossover--it has one wire from the post to the 11uf cap, a SEPARATE wire from the post to the 10 uf cap, and one more SEPARATE wire connecting the post to one of the (two)Copper colored "inductors"(?).* The bottom near terminal is also wired DIFFERENTLY than the bottom near terminal on the other L Pad.* This one has a black wire connecting* it to one of the two copper colored inductors(?) just like on the other L pad, but unlike the bottom near terminal on the other L pad, this one has a second wire connected to it.* This wire connects the bottom near terminal of the L pad to the 8 uf cap!!* Believe it or not, there is an even more disturbing difference on the bottom far terminal.* Just like on the other L pad's bottom far terminal, this bottom far terminal has just one wire soldered to it--the jumper from the top near terminal.* But as you can (hopefully) see in at least the top photo of this reply, the bottom far terminal of this L pad is physically touching a post in the center of the crossover chassis!!!* It isn't soldered to the post so i think it is an unintentional connection, but it is touching the post in the center of the chassis because the whole L pad is facing a different direction (about 90 degrees different) than the L pad in the other crossover (compare to photos of other crossover in my previous post earlier today) which puts the lower far terminal touching the center post in the chassis.* I suspect at some point someone was adjusting the treble by turning the L pad knob on the back of the speaker and inadvertantly twisted it too hard and rotated the whole L pad 90 degrees!* Anyways, this post that it's touching has a black wire connecting the post to the 8 uf cap, and a separate wire connecting the post to one of the copper colored inductors(is that what they're called?).**

The funny thing is that in spite of all this--the two speakers sound virtually identical to each other.* I temporarily have them in the basement next to my Valencias and I've been doing A/B comparisons and (with the help of my alesis graphic EQ that I use for my valencias) they sound incredible--virtually identical to the Valencias when EQ'd the same.* Incredibly vibrant, powerful, and crystal clear.* At first I thought one AS-101 sounded brighter than the other but I moved the right one to the left side of the room and the left one to the right side of the room to see if acoustics were playing much of a role and they now sound virtually identical.* I'm still going to replace all 6 caps because at least two of them have leaked oil and I'm sure it will improve the sound and make them sound even more identical but right now obviously my top priority is to get these things wired correctly.* Once the wiring problem is figured out I'd still like to bypass the L pads if possible.* My rationale is that since I leave the L pad "all the way up" like I do on my Valencias, I'm unneccessarily putting the signal through 40 year old L pads which are "all the way up" and if they were in perfect condition would sound the same "all the way up" as bypassed.** But since they're 40 years old and corroded I'd just as soon not send the signal through them unless it's going to be a pain figuring out how to remove them from all wiring....
Well, there you have it--multiple differences in the wiring --how can I fix this wiring screw up?** I would really appreciate any guidance in this matter--see schematic and photos in my previous post from earlier today.... Thanks again!

[voice of the theater]

UPDATE--I've fixed the wiring problem with these crossovers and also bypassed the L Pads (since I leave the L Pad treble control all the way up anyways on these speakers). The 38 year old L Pads were definately degrading the signal--the speakers sound "cleaner" with the L Pads bypassed. Now I'm ready to order caps to replace the 38 year old caps. I'm probably going to buy the Daytons but they have two types of Dayton Caps for speakers at Parts Express. One is the standard Metallized Polypropylene Caps that they've been selling for years rated at a 5% tolerance. They now have a new line of caps for speakers called Precision Audio Metallized Polypropylene Caps which are rated at 1% tolerance "which can eliminate ?stereo wandering? and solidify the imaging and soundstage of your speaker systems." Anyone out there used these new Dayton caps yet? They're not much more expensive--wondering if they'll sound at least as good as the "standard" Daytons.

[voice of the theater]

Yes, I recapped the Heathkit AS 101's that I owned a couple of years ago. It made a noticeable improvement in their sound and I highly recommend replacing capacitors that are that old (approx. 40 years old). Their values have probably shifted quite a bit in 40 years. That recap was my first thread here back when I joined this forum in February 2009. It's embarrassing for me to read this thread--I was really ignorant when I joined this forum (even more than now!). Here is a quote from the thread that gives the capacitor values and some pics. Hope this helps....

The three that are in there say 8 mfd 50 vdc, 10 mfd 50 vdc, and 11 mfd 50 vdc...... The original caps say "chicago condensor corp" +/- 10%.....