Firstly, the alleged defects of electrolytic caps are overstated. However
they
do inherently tend to have a very broad tolerance which will mean that one
crossover will not match the next very accurately and so on. That alone
might be
a good reason to replace them with 5% tolerance plastic film caps.

I can see your argument here & therefore I should theoretically hear a
difference if I swapped the crossovers over & just listened to 1 SBL.

As for Mundorf and the like, these are no better than a snake-oil
'Monster'
version of 'ordinary' caps. There is no measurable difference between them
and
any other competently manufactured cap using the same dielectric. And no,
esoteric dielectrics don't sound any better either.

Therefore by your consensus different dielectrics do sound different because
they measure differently.

All of this stuff is
superficial snake oil. Any polyester film cap will be just fine but do get
the
5% tolerance type, not 10% or 20%.

The tighter tolerance the better. Is it worth going even tighter if that is
possible?
Also I've seen some designs to use brass cores over the capacitors to lower
the Q is this useful?

It is true that ferrite and iron cored inductors will cause some small
distortion at higher power levels but replacing them with air-cored types
(which
are free of this effect) is very likely to increase the DC resistance of
the
coil and this will potentially have an adverse effect on the crossover
oepration.


Yes I'm aware but say 1.5mm cross section of copper wire of well lets say a
few extra feet is not gonna measure a huge amount of resistance I would of
thought, less than 0.5 ohm?

Please define the actual meaning of the words "soundstaging, imaging,
depth,
neutrality, greater bass weight, dynamics & so on ".

I surely do not need to explain such words as dynamic range or depth.

Neutrality: Where a sound is reproduced as accurately as possible without
emphasis of any frequency.
In other words as life like as possible.

Bass weight: A stronger representation of the lows as if it were a larger
speaker.

Imaging: placing voices & instruments at a point in space.

Soundstaging: How a performance fills the room, does the sound feel it is in
the room (if so does it fill the whole room or sound as if it is confined to
within the speaker listening positions), confined towards the speakers or
eminating from the speakers!


You could do worse than read my post in the thread "What a sad excuse
for a group this is..." about this matter along with the replies. I can
assure
you that a change in component is not going to suddenly made the stereo
image
suddenly leap out at you.

I shall read....

Bear in mind that component substitution in a filter network is likely to
cause
at least some subtle change in frequency response because of tolerance
issues
with the components unless you measure the original part and fit
*exacrtly* the
same value. This subtle difference is typically erroneously interpreted as
'better' by the audiophool who has no understanding of the underlying
science.
Simply a change in the sound will convince him he did the right thing. Any
change in the sound will assure him of that.

This I understand, speakers can sound radically different if fed the wrong
frequency range, from awful to really good.... I've experienced this. A
change in sound does not by any means mean better. Unless your speakers are
revealing more of the source then change is not better.

If you really want to listen to good speakers, you should be considering
bi-amplification with accurate electronic filters. This is the ONLY way to
deal
intelligently with 'crossover issue' imperfections..


I would of thought so as any passive component put in an amplifiers way to
control a speaker can only reduce it's success to control it. However I
already think my speakers are good! I don't want to spend shed loads on
active crossovers I just wanted to improve them if I could at a minimal
cost. If this could bring me closer to active crossover heaven then great!

Finally, when these crossovers were designed they did not have the benefit
of todays computer modelling software, would a more accurate design benefit
them in a large way?

Steve