Review of the new MK602X

[LOUT]

Has anyone done any tweaking on these yet? Santa brought me a pair and I have to concur withErin’s assessment that they are just too bright. Was considering sending them back but thought maybe I could use this as a learning experience and try to improve them. I’m thinking maybe adding another coil and cap to the LP to steepen the slope a bit and possibly tweaking the padding resistors and it could sound pretty good. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not sure what parts are already in the existing XO, but I think this complete substitute looks somewhat promising..at least in a SIM.

It might also be worth seeing how much difference you notice (positive or negative) with the port temporarily plugged, assuming you aren't planning to use a different box.

[jtheisen521]

Thanks LOUT, I may give that a try. I’ll see what parts I already have on hand this evening as I’m trying to keep it low budget. Will let you know results. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LOUT]

If/when you take it apart, can you try to see what XO parts are already in there and share what they are (what uF and mH values are printed on them)?

[jtheisen521]

Finally got back to looking at these since it was (finally) warm enough to work in the garage again. I liked @Lout's idea of a new crossover, but honestly didn't want to end up turning a $150 pair of speakers into a $250 pair. Decided to try playing around with the tweeters padding resistors to see if I could tame it a bit, but the existing ones are an odd format that I couldn't find anywhere. So I ending up just splicing in some additional resistance between the XO & tweeter using some spare resistors I had on hand. Nothing scientific, just trial & error, started with 1 R (no difference) & worked up from there. The largest I had on hand were 12.5 R and I ended up leaving them in. Below is a before/after snapshot, blue is original, red=after. While the contrast doesn't look all that dramatic, sonically it made a huge difference. It was enough (for me) to put some padding between the fingernails and chaulkboard and I can actually listen to them for an extended period now. I'm going to try this arrangement for a while and may end up upping the resistance to like 15 if fatigue starts setting in again.

[fpitas]

Peaks in the response can cause fatigue; maybe if you measure them, you could find and tame any peaks. That's usually just an LCR circuit, not too tough or expensive.

[LOUT]

I think those crossover parts altogether should total around $26 for both speakers (assuming there isn't anything already useable in the speaker)...though I suppose that jumps to ~$35 after shipping if you don't already have a collection of other things you want to buy to push the total up to the free shipping amount (I miss it being $50 for a while instead of $100).

That said, it's hard to argue with the price of $0 if you're already getting likeable results using what you have on-hand to pad the tweeters down.