This is great! Thanks guys. It looks like Chess is correct and that lump of sand is a 7W/5Ù resistor. The capacitor is a tiny 4.7uf/100V.
OK, I'll tell my secret. The first Axiom made speaker I bought was a Merak MC6H center channel speaker from ubid.com for $19.00. Blew away my expensive Infinity CC3 center. The Merak has the same basic shape as the VP series, but 2x6.5" drivers (not Axiom aluminums). I spoke with Joe and asked what would happen if I swapped a pair of the Axiom 6.5" drivers. His answer boiled down to "Distortion." OK, hey, obviously I'm partial, so I had a dented Axiom 6.5" and swapped it for one of the 2 Merak drivers. Sound improved. Not a little, a lot. I finagled a second Axiom driver and hold on, this is now the best sounding center I've ever heard. (I'm partial to horns even though the Merak horn probably cost $0.39.) I demoed the system with the hybrid center for a few folks, didn't tell them what I'd done, folks who had heard and loved my office system before and all thought the sound had gone to a new and much higher plane of audio goodness, damn close friends to audio nirvana. So, I picked up 2 more Merak centers from ebay, one an MC6H (horn tweeter) and the other an MC634 with the same compliment of 6.5"s and a Merak titanium 3/4" tweeter (same as used to be used in the M2Ti.) I'm going to order a bunch of Axiom 6.5" drivers, swap the resistor with a Caddock and the capacitor with Solen Chateauroux Polypropylene fast caps, (except for one which I'm going to run with a Mundorf cap) rewire the speaker with my favorite speaker cable - Clearview Golden Helix, make sure they don't burst into flames, give some away, and enjoy the music.
The one I listen to now (stock caps and resistor but Axiom drivers) has unbelievable slam, and sounds simply and stunningly great. There was a piece of new age music on our digital music station which I've heard before, has the sound of running water in the background. I got up to check if there was a leak. It sounded like water running. Actually running, not like stereo sound, but the real deal. Ed Gerhard's Slide Improve and Homage sounded better than it ever did on this system.
So, I'm pumped, and thanks for the resistor value!
