New woofer for SL3's

I am very close to finally getting the sound I want out of my system.

I see a few posts about upgrading the woofers on SL3's, but no definitive answers

I don't care for the sound of a sub. Tried a couple, and never felt like any of them integrated properly. Maybe it's because of limitations with placement. M room is a theater, but I care more about my 2 channel sound.

Is there a newer tech screw in replacement woofer anyone recommends?

I don't need a lot more bass. Just little bit more "pop" than what I get now with my room/equipment combo.

Currently my SL3's are36" from the back wall, in a 20x25 room.

One thing I still need to do is come up with something that closes off the entry to my room as behind the left speaker is somewhat open. Screws up my soundstage a little.

But, a tiny bit of improvement the bass would be really nice.

Sorry, I've yet to see a direct replacement from a third-party.

Given your statement about placement and bass integration, I'd recommend investigating a preamp with Audyssey room correction as well as looking into some room treatments to potentially mitigate room-induced bass problems.

You'd be amazed at just how much one or the other can do, but the combo is absolutely killer, greater than the sum of the parts for sure.
Please read some of the articles in the Acoustics and room treatments section for guidance, or post questions with your specific needs.

A good modern preamp with Audyssey will also allow you to try a sub again, as it will both correctly measure and compensate to assure tight integration.

you might try calling the guys at madisound.... they are really pretty good.


The one thing you can try with a sub is, a passive reinforcement setup. Figure out the response curve of the sl3, and adjust the sub to "fill". My experience has been equalization circuits always seem to have sonic degradation.

Ive even tried a NHT x2 (what the evolution series uses) on the woofers only of the loans... I bet with a lot of tweaking it could be good. I gave up since my requests have significant bass response.

The X2, even has a LFE input from a processor, boundary control gain control, can even sum channels.

Hi Caspyr,

When I had the SL3's, I did a couple of minor things that really helped out with bass definition.

There is a product called "Road Kill". Its used to tame vibration induced resonances in car audio.

It's a adhesive mastic that you apply, in cars, on the inside of a trunk, etc. I covered the entire inside of the bass cabinet (except for the crossover mechanism) as well as the all the "metal ribbing" on the bass driver.

I also installed some very substantive cones replacing the stock spikes.

Finally, I adjusted the panel azimuth to be much closer to perpindicular. You can accomplish this by installing shorter cones on the front and longer ones in the back.

Total investment maybe $200. In return, you get much better bass integration with the panel. The bottom octaves have more punch, speed, and definition.

Highly recommended.

GG

PS: If you are not bi-wiring, replace the ML jumper with a high quality speaker wire. In my opinion, this was audible and also improved the bass.

Which woofers do you have in there now? My late model SL3 have the VIFA M26WO-06-04.

What feet are you using? I found the cone feet made the bass excite the structure of the house in the wrong way and reverted back to the glider feet.

I noticed the inductor in the bass crossover is made from quite a small gauge wire (19AWG). Perhaps you can replace it with one made from 18AWG or 16AWG with a slightly lower DC resistance to make the bass louder (and also slightly change the xo frequency unfortunately).

Several years back, the DIYAudio guys looked into this with inconclusive results:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=47911

If really set on experimenting (and you have some measurement software) and are prepared to add/remove resistors in the bass part of the crossover (several of the resistors are there strictly for relative volume balance purposes), then you might consider some of the following candidates:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1705

Or this one (with extra stuffing added to the cabinet, as well as the dampening goop Gordon recommends):
http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1599

This thread needs to be combined with this thread here about SL3 woofers.

The Peerless SLS 830668 is also used by Linkwitz in the Pluto, but I feel it's a bit of a lightweight compared with the VIFA in the SL3. (Plus the Peerless is 8 Ohms and only has 33Hz fR.) If one were to go to an 8 Ohm woofer, the XO would need twice the inductance. Also the only resistors in my SL3 bass XO are the two parallel 4 Ohm for the bass control switch (which I have always had switched out anyway), so except for a lower DCR inductor, there isn't any resistance to remove for any experimenting...

I look forward to actively biamping to completely get around the ugly inductors. On a related note, I recently finished significantly upping the PS capacitance in my amp, and I was pretty impressed with the extra bass control even at normal volumes.