Scan Speak Ophelia

Recently I decided to upgrade my Ophelia’s from the German magazine Klang und Ton 2014. A new crossovers with Jantzen capacitors. It is a great success.

With new experience in soldering cross-overs based on the default way Troels Gravesen is building cross-overs, I thought I give it a try. An alternative would be building a new design with these drivers from Scan Speak. Troels Gravesen advised me to build the Scan Speak Ekta Grand. Other designs with these drivers could be the B1371 from PBN Audio and the Scan Speak Mun17-3W also from Troels. But the result is so good that I will keep these Ophelia’s with the Scan Speak drivers. These drivers are really remarkable.

The drivers

The tweeter in this 2,5-way loudspeaker is the Scan Speak Beryllium tweeter type D2908/714000. An excellent tweeter not often used in loudspeaker systems but with amazing details, neutrality, and transparency. With this upgrade, they deliver the top details I have ever heard on my loudspeakers. Even better than the CNO Grand with the Seas Excel tweeter T29CF002 can deliver. 

The mid and woofer drivers are also from Scan Speak, the mid-woofer 18W/8531G00 8 ohm drivers. They can be found in different production loudspeaker systems like Sonus Faber, the Vantage Classic from Audio Solutions, and the Spanish Kroma loudspeaker like the Audio Elektra. 

Crossover

Soldering now with clean silver solder in the way Troels Gravesen is making his cross-overs. And new fresh cabling from Michael Jantzen. He advised me to use the Superior Z-Cap capacitors. With the Superior Z-Cap finest nuances are heard. The sound never gets over-edged, superb naturalness with a somewhat bright top-end according to SoundImports.eu. When testing the Ophelia indeed, they played in a different order with an obvious and transparent image.  

In this photo, you can see the way Troels is building cross-overs. It is an easy way and very simple to build a cross-over. The coils are from Mundorf.