North Creek B&W 801 crossovers? Tried them?

Tahoe
If you never get them, you'll always wonder what could've been. As Kehut said they're easy to connect. Years ago, you had to hard-wire four boxes and pay $2400. Since you have an S3, the cheap clips have been eliminated, the iron core inductors changed to air versions and fluid cooled tweeters added. Aside from the NC's, you NEED the Soundanchors stands and Polycrystal/brass feet.

Bob,

You can indeed do this. To start, you turn the speaker on one side and work from underneath the speaker. If you have the soundanchor stands mounted to the speaker...they must be removed including the base that attaches to the 801 itself. A large allen wrench is used here.

From there, you unscrew the bottom wood cover to expose the XO board. If you have the soundanchors already, this cover may already be off. At this point, you follow the instructions supplied by NC, and as I mentioned above.

George Short is a great guy, and you will be able to call him for any info needed during the set up if you need to. He will surely be most happy to help you by phone.

As Tab110s mentioned, if you dont already have the Soundanchor stands for these..by all means you NEED them to place this speaker off the floor. It changes the sound so much for the better, that its like night and day difference. The addition of the external crossover will add refinement and dynamics to an already nice sounding speaker.

Ken

Ken, thanks for the additional detail. I see the route in now. ;)

Do you have to leave the 801 bottom covers permanently off in order to use the NC XOs? I already have the speakers on Sound Anchor stands.

Dust is an issue at my place. If the NC replacement binding post plates do happen to fit on my speakers, does that mean I can hook up the new external XOs through them and close up the speaker bottoms? If that is the way its supposed to work, then even if the supplied replacement plates don't fit, I could possibly recut them so that they do.

If you can use the new plate in the stock hole, then you will be able to close up the bottom. That bottom plate when on.. may still allow you to run the wiring out the side even if you cant use the newer plate in the old plate hole. I think the plate has some areas that wires can be passed out of??

You certainly could cut the speaker to allow the NC plate to fit..but then you would be making a permanent change and I suggest this only if you are going to either keep the speakers or sell the speakers later with the XO's.

When I sold my pair, I sold them together, but offerd the buyer the option of taking the speaker with or without the NC XO's. I could have then reconnected the stock XO's and binding posts if necessary. You have to make that decision for yourself of course.

Ken, Thanks again. I've got a much clearer picture now of how it will work out, depending on whether the new binding post plates fit or not.

I wouldn't alter the speaker box to make the new binding post plate fit. I was speaking of possibly re-machining the new plate to conform to the existing hole in the speaker.

BTW, I noticed a vintage Mac MR-77 tuner in your setup. I have one that I bought new around 1974. It stopped working awhile back, and is now at Audio Classics being rehabbed.

Cheers, Bob