Wharfedale EVO 4.2 disassebly and crossover mod

[@fylabs9776]

Hello, your video is very interesting. I searched for this mod on the internet, yours is very satisfying. I also have the evo 4.2 but the sound for my taste is too dark. I decided to make the change you posted. But I didn't understand if you need to replace only the blue capacitor(50μF) with the mundorf 150μF or both? including the 6.8μF capacitor with the 6.8μF audio jantzen. Thank you for any answer If you also have other editing suggestions I am interested in making them. best regard Fyl😊🙏🙏🙏

[@k4syx]

Hi! Both of them. You would be replacing 50uF with 150uF and than soldering in parallel MKP 6.8uF to the 150uF. So, all in all you'll be replacing 50u with 156.8 uF :)

[@fylabs9776]

@@k4syx Thank you so much for answering me! if you like I will update you when I finish the mod.

[@k4syx]

@@fylabs9776 Yes please share! :)

[@vicg5323]

Nice video. Please do another showing cap replacement on the crossover!

[@k4syx]

Thank you. I'll probably replace all of them with something better, but that still a future plan. No time to work on that now :(

[@ДейвиДжонс-ш1й]

Hello! Please tell me what material the bass speaker basket is made of?

[@k4syx]

@@ДейвиДжонс-ш1й plastic as far as I remember

[@andrei.bogdan]

Hi. Did you change the big white 6.8 cap also that is bypassing the blue one? or did you install the mundorf and bypassed it with jantzen and left the white one there?

[@k4syx]

@@andrei.bogdan I've left the white one there and just installed new mundorf with jantzen as a bypass.

[@rmzidann]

You have to change all the resistors and inductors as well as all the cheap caps to fully realize the potential of that speaker. It’s a great speaker. 👍👍

[@k4syx]

Yes exactly, these drivers and cabinets are superb and it seems like the crossover was meant as a brake to put them in specific price/performance bracket

[@rmzidann]

@@k4syx … that’s true for almost all commercial speakers below say $3-4k. They skimp on the crossover parts.

[@azar3006]

@@k4syxI agree, after upgrading the crossover on my 30 year old speakers ( BW-302 ) they sound superior to my new EVO 401. The new speakers are back in the box waiting on funds to upgrade, I might go active but would need another amplifier and am following you channel for a great Chinese clone !

[@k4syx]

@@azar3006 Thanks!

[@thetonyblair1]

How did the capacitor upgrade go, sound more suitable now?

[@k4syx]

@@thetonyblair1 Yes better highs, more transparent. I think it's described somewhere in the comments below in more detail:)

[@vztxpl]

Czy z Twojego punktu słuchowego opłaca się wykonać taka modyfikacje? Być może warto również wymienić rezystory - mills, mundorf?

[@k4syx]

Tak, wymiana kondensatora poprawiła nieco górę. Najlepsza byłaby wymiana wszystkiego na wyższą półkę, ale to już dużo większy koszt części i może finansowo się to nie opłacać. Zresztą wtedy to już może dobrze byłoby po prostu przebudować zwrotnicę żeby przy okazji usunąć lekką "nosowatość"

[@SebasAQ]

​@@k4syxPanie, czy głośnik amt demontuje się w taki sam sposób? Moje kolumny mają jeden amt poza osią (krzywo zamontowany) i nie wiem jak to poprawić

[@k4syx]

@@SebasAQ Tak, tą gumowaną ramkę trzeba ostrożnie wysunąć żeby nie zrobić rys na środku plastiku AMT. Delikatnie i czymś miękkim, niczym metalowym

[@SebasAQ]

@@k4syx Dziękuję Ci bardzo za pomoc. A pamiętasz może czy ta guma jest klejona czy na wcisk ?

[@frankfarago2825]

Now that they have been opened -- the price for a pair suddenly drops to €29.95 or USD $24.95. Right?

[@k4syx]

Or raises. I sold mine because the guy that was buying some headphones with local pickup saw them and asked if he could listen to them modded: few days later he made me an offer I couldnt refuse, thats how much he loved their modded sound :) I got BNIB 4.1 last week (they are quite cheap now) and will mod or rebuild x-over too.

[@WojciechKozioł-y8p]

Ja w swoich wyjąłem wszystkie gąbki wytłumiające i włożyłem tylko po jednej z powrotem do każdej z kolumn. Góra odzyskana i grają pięknie. Pozdrawiam

[@k4syx]

O, ciekawa opcja, spróbuję w wolnej chwili!

[@StimsonNguyen]

Hello HiFi Zone! I need a lil help here plz! Can you tell me exactly what size the woofers are exactly of for Wharfedale Evo 4.4 if you know somehow. And what is the impedance of one woofer ? Actually I have wharfedale Diamond 240 floorstanders and I wd like to replace two of its woofers with the Whardale Evo 4.4's woofers if possible. The Wharfdale Diamond 240's having 6.5 inches woofers and I think the woofers are parallelly connected to each other. Please shed some light if you know anything about the EVO 4.4s . Thanks and wd wait for you to respond

[@k4syx]

I don't know about 4,4 but my 4.2 has 165mm drivers. I didn't measure driver impedance when I had them open, but it's irrelevant. It won't be direct replacement anyway because you need to account for different sensitivity and freq response. You'd need to measure it and design a new xover I'm afraid.

[@StimsonNguyen]

@@k4syx Thanks for the prompt response. However, I was just intending to replace one of two woofers on a cabinet. Wharfedale EVO's mids arent as good as Wharfedale Diamond 240. So I wd only love to replace just a single woofer out of the two woofers in each unit.

[@k4syx]

@StimsonNguyen your saying that Evo's mids are worse than Diamond 240? Unless it's a mistake in writing, I beg to differ - I had 220s once and while they are great for the money (especially now) they are nowhere close to current 12 line, and Evo beats that with good margin :)

[@StimsonNguyen]

​@@k4syx Not my personal experience...but read reviews from reputed guys on the internet stating the mids on the Evo 4.4 isnt that good. But mids of the Diamond 240 were considered too good by many and I also find it to my liking. I so wanted to buy the evos 4.4 but these reviews kept me from buying them. So I thought why not try to replace one woofer out of the two 6.5 inch woofers and make a combo of both the diamond 240 and Evo 4.4. May be it will sound good or robust if I change the lower woofer of the Diamond 240 and put one EVO 4.4 woofer in its place. It will be an experiment but somewhat a costly one. I live in a place where there are no speaker shops or audio shops to audition any speaker ever.

[@k4syx]

​@@StimsonNguyengood luck with the project then!

[@nomekopym]

Hi, may I ask if the woofer basket/frame is made of plastic? Thank you!

[@k4syx]

Hi! Yes it is, same way as in Diamond 12 series. All plastic.

[@nomekopym]

@@k4syx Thank you for sharing. Almost buy them until I saw your video showing the plastic woofer basket/frame 😨

[@koyoshima45]

there are tons of hi fi speakers which use polymer hybrids or mixes for baskets. Plastic does not resonate. Do your homework.​@@nomekopym

[@aldepal]

It’s time for more speaker content videos! How bout try those ChiFi Coaxial driver designs with driver size 5” and larger to review for channel?

[@k4syx]

I got my first set of speakers from China in September, still not delivered - shipments is via railroads so maybe (I HOPE) they will get here at the end of this month. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[@carlitosgomez71]

So what was the result sound wise with these changes, was it worth the effort

[@k4syx]

Yes definitely. It was 40 minute job, so quick one. The result is that they have more his now, sound more neutral at the top. If you'll look for measurements on the web youll see that Evo rolls of at the top, which makes them sound a bit dark. I wanted them to be more neutral and I got it. As these new caps are also better quality than stock one, you also get a bit more transparency.

[@MalcaratMartinez]

Hi !!! I am just about to mod my Evos 4.2 too, for the same reason (too dark), However, I do not fully understand some of your changes, maybe you can help me : - Original 32 uF cap is already bypassed with a 6,8 uF poly cap (the big white cap immediately below the 23 uF cap). - Changing the 32 uF cap to a 150 uF cap should make no difference in the treble response, but actually change the slope in the HF filter (slight dip down around 2kHz) What I will do to mine is to change the 12R resistor at the upper right corner, that's the HF limiter resistor. I will parallel it with another resistor, to make it reversible. I have purchased a 30R and a 15R resistor. The 30R resistor should bring treble up by 2-3 dB, I will post my results here too !

[@k4syx]

Yes please share your results. I'm bypassing this with Jantzen as I like their sound and that are a better quality cap. The limiting R - have you tried to forsee the results in numbers (fq limits)?

[@MalcaratMartinez]

@@k4syx Yes, I traced out the schematic and I have it on Xsim, so I can simulate, any component change. This is exactly why I will change the limiting resistor, as that will not be a subtle change........ i determined 2 different resistor values, 30R would give me around +2 dB from 3kHz and up.

[@k4syx]

@@MalcaratMartinez that's great! Please do share the results!

[@robertgartner6072]

Howdy - really like what you are doing here and I am looking to make some modifications too. Can I ask a favor. would you share the schematic of the crossover with us? Best Regards, -Bob FYI - from some things I have read, The AMT can be hard to listen too at certain frequencies, so Wharfedale decided to lower its efficiency at the top end so it would not offend listeners. @@MalcaratMartinez

[@MrSplit57]

@@MalcaratMartinez hi! Please if you could share crossover scheme - I'm preparing to mod Evo4.2 but would like to prepare myself with XSim and buy all material before opening the Evos. Thanks in advance! 😄

[@thomasdiyaudio5353]

Why not upgrade all the components? Other than the E caps, the yellow non polar caps are very ordinary. EVO deserves better than this. Also upgrade to air coil inductors. Another thing is to upgrade all internal wiring and solder directly to the 3 speaker units. Bass will definitely improve. My favorite is Gotham speaker wire. I have done these in a few pairs of speakers (different brand) and they all show huge improvement.

[@k4syx]

It's all about the money:) Yes they deserve better and maybe they will eventually get a full rebuild, but a I am not 100prc sure that I won't replace them with something even better as these are my "auxiliary" speakers - the main setup is based on Martin Logan electrostats. I may replace Evo with something better if there will be some good opportunity - or maybe I'll leave them and do the full rebuild in future!

[@hifibloke]

Spoko video teraz wiem jak to rozbierac, mam zamiar kupic evo 4.4 i upgrade kit od GR-Research

[@SpecialOne-wu4tk]

You're absolutely fabulous. Thanks

[@k4syx]

@@SpecialOne-wu4tk Thanks!

[@nasalmirror]

Dude you're my hero. I recently got these speakers and while I'm breaking them in and really loving them, I was wondering if I can make them better. I literally searched for this kind of mod yesterday! 2 questions: what's the Italian company that does this modification? I wanted to read more about it, and where did you buy the capacitors? Also, what's the bypass thingy you used and where did you install it?

[@k4syx]

Hi! I don't remember the name of the company, another KZbinr that I got the value from mentioned them in comments under his video. You can buy these capacitors (both of them) in many internet shops with electronic parts, or even on eBay. The bypass is another capacitor, not electrolytic but foil (MKP) type. It has much lower capacitance - within 5% error rate of the bigger one. It's soldered in parallel to the Mundorf one. Film caps are better for SQ, they are more precise and musical, but they are way more expensive and much bigger.

[@carlitosgomez71]

Might be a good idea to show a pic or diagram of the final build for the uninitiated and a note to state this would invalidate your warranty and perhaps an estimate for the total cost

[@k4syx]

@@carlitosgomez71 that's actually a good idea, thanks!

[@massimilianobufardeci1312]

but if you replace a 32 micro farad capacitor with a 150 micro farad one, you are heavily modifying the response of the filter, so a bit by nose.... You can replace a capacitor with a better one, but of the same value, otherwise you should redesign the entire crossover...

[@k4syx]

Yes that was the goal exactly - the idea here was to modify response to get more top end and less "nasal" sound. I dont know if the value was calculated in any way or was it just by the ear - I got the value and info from some Italian audio forum :)

[@Acoustic-Lab]

Use higher volt caps in HF

[@k4syx]

Better quality vs size vs really needed voltage, that's always dilemma. What's your reasoning here?

[@Acoustic-Lab]

@@k4syx no matter what brand, a good caps if you measure the THD and harmonics they tend to have more lower percentage distortion and have smoother graphics harmonics.. if this caps put on high pass filter the sonic will sound smooth.. I see bevenbi caps on your wharfedale.. i think they are good.. try replace spirit cap with bevenbi 400v

[@marks7663]

I cannot believe that these drivers have plastic baskets. For $1000 these speakers should have a proper cast baskets or at least stamped steel. I bought these due to their decent sound and heft. I got duped. Back to the store they go!!!

[@k4syx]

I've read that plastic baskets can be superior to stamped ones. Though casted would be better. But all that finally matters is sound quality.

[@Bimmerstye1]

I find this a pretty ignorant statement. So you bought the speakers and you liked the sound but because the baskets are plastic you feel duped and you are returning them? If you liked the sound of them, then why would plastic baskets be a problem? Plastic baskets aren't necessarily a bad thing. A well designed plastic basket can be far superior to a generic stamped basket and can even match a cast alu basket. The days of ’metal good, plastic bad’ (in caveman voice) are long gone. Plastics these days can be just as strong and durable as metal. And in the end you liked the sound of them so I really don’t see the problem..? 🤔

[@k4syx]

@@user-jp3vl5jx1j IMHO cast iron or cast alu would be a bit better for damping, plastic properly designed is still probably better than stamped metal baskets.

[@vicg5323]

Plastic won’t last as long as steel or Aluminum but it is probably quieter than both!

[@DueM]

lmao, heaps of speakers use composite baskets and housings. i have seas drivers both the mid and tweeters have composite housings, more speakers than you realize use them.

[@alainduquenois3812]

J'ai possède cette enceinte wharfedale evo 4.2 et je trouve que son caractère d écoute n est pas des plus propre je trouve qu'elle était coloré dans toutes les fréquences de plus elle était agressifs par moments et un gros manque d aération