Crossover CN232

[SA660]

How to inspect a old crossover?
A local man has a pair of CN232 for sale exchange. I am interested. How can I test the crossover before I buy without any loudspeaker?

Thanks,

[Romy the Cat]

Richard, why would you need it? This crossover is, if I remember correctly is second order 500Hz with a foolish non-working Zobel. You might build the same for $5-$10, even with better parts, with more suitable for your system characteristics; not to mention that 500Hz is a very wring choice for those midrange drivers. Unless you are wiling to tease a Moron-collector who accumulates the hi-fi junk and who would drool looking at the Vitavox logo I have no idea why would you be interested in it...

Rgs,
The Cat

[Peter Empson]

Hi Richard,
I don't think I can be much help because all I can think of would be to open it up and inspect it. If you can take a multimeter, measure as many of the components as you can to see if they've gone open/short circuit.

Alternatively if you can carry some gear over how about taking along a cheap full range speaker and some kind of portable stereo with a speaker output. Try the speaker on both the high HF and LF sides of the network.

I have a CN233 in my collection here and it is very nicely built, so I suspect it would be quite hard to damage. The most likely problem would be a leaky capacitor which should be easy to fix (if you're not concerned about losing some originality).

Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Peter.

[SA660]

Romy the cat, Peter

Romy, you are right this is for a collector that wants to spend money on old items.
I am not making money with this but I like to keep this person happy as it may be willing to exchange an old pair of JBL 375/2440 with a Westrex 30150 that I have. So this is a good gesture for this man. I just do not want to send him faulty crossover.
However, I was told by some old Vitavox fans that the crossover build by Vitavox were design for the impedance curve of Vitavox drivers only and did not work very well with other drivers. My understanding was the Vitavox impedance curve must be different to most others similar drivers.
Is this correct? or fiction?
Regards,

[Andrew B Gransden]

Richard; did you ever get an answer to your query about the impedance curve of the crossover? I'm interested in building (or having built) a pair of crossovers for my kit (K15 40 / S2). Can anyone offer advice?
Thanks,
Andrew

[Romy the Cat]

Originally posted by Richard Debarbouille:

However, I was told by some old Vitavox fans that the crossover build by Vitavox were design for the impedance curve of Vitavox drivers only and did not work very well with other drivers. My understanding was the Vitavox impedance curve must be different to most others similar drivers.
Is this correct? or fiction?
Regards,

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, they use impedance normalization network but it is very simple to build own network if you wiling to ?fix" impedance. Beside the original network (with 50 years old, probably dead electrolithinks and not the best resistors) made for the original diaphragms. The new Mike?s diaphragms and the original diaphragms have completely different resonanses (the older are way more neutral). If one wants to get more or less OK result and wiling to use that Zobels in the same time then it would make sense to re-run the impedance curve and to see if the current network acts exactly against the primary resonance. Also, the Vitavox impedance curve is not much different form any other 16R compression drivers. I did 2 years ago the traces against different Vitavox S2 and different diaphragms. If I find them on my file server I post them in here. All that I remember now that it was good enough that did not need any normalization. Probably the Vitavox people designed their systems at the time when they did not know about the negative affect of the impedance normalization to Sound.

The Cat