Monitor 5's

Litz

Polk and I harken back to at least 1986 when I discovered them. My 1st set was a pair of SDA-12's. I was enamored with the transparency, detail, fluid sound and rich bass. I eventually got a set of Monitor 4's for the bedroom,and the larger 4b's for the livingroom. They had very impressive low end. The limits were more in the electronics driving them, than the speakers.

I recently found 2 pairs of Monitor 5's on ebay. Pair #1 I was outbid by $2.00, but they had some cabinet flaws. The second set were in near mint condition, and I paid LESS for them.

The monitor 5's, have to be one of the best balanced and underrated small speakers on the market. They have such a wonderful musical sound, with a low end that far exceeds thier size. The detail is great, and unlike other speakers, they have plenty of balance from a low to medium volume. Many, if not most speakers need to be louder before they flatten out.

I have a very competant sub to mate them to if needed, but I find these to be some ultimate, non-fatiguing bedroom speakers. It's a joy listening to jazz and vocals on these when you don't feel the need for ear-splitting volume. I compare them very favorably to the much more costly Vandersteen 2ce's in terms of musicality, transparency and balance. These were a GREAT design!

Bobsama

Pics or it didn't happen.

Litz

Bobsama wrote: »

Pics or it didn't happen.

Here is a quick pic...

lightman1

Welcome....to hell.
I still love mine to this day. They come alive with even the modest of power.
Great score and long may they live!

Litz

lightman1 wrote: »

Welcome....to hell.
I still love mine to this day. They come alive with even the modest of power.
Great score and long may they live!

The 1st time I heard them, it was with a small Carver amp. The original non-modded carver M400 really didn't have much current. I was listening to GRP "live in session" and I was amazed at how open and transparent the sound was compared to anything near the price.

I was quick to note that even at converasational-level listening, I could plainly hear all the instruments, and they had plenty of body...unlike a lot of speakers at that volume.

lightman1

Funny how that happens. It doesn't take much to appreciate what a smaller speaker can do.;)

heiney9

Litz wrote: »

Polk and I harken back to at least 1986 when I discovered them. My 1st set was a pair of SDA-12's. I was enamored with the transparency, detail, fluid sound and rich bass. I eventually got a set of Monitor 4's for the bedroom,and the larger 4b's for the livingroom. They had very impressive low end. The limits were more in the electronics driving them, than the speakers.

I recently found 2 pairs of Monitor 5's on ebay. Pair #1 I was outbid by $2.00, but they had some cabinet flaws. The second set were in near mint condition, and I paid LESS for them.

The monitor 5's, have to be one of the best balanced and underrated small speakers on the market. They have such a wonderful musical sound, with a low end that far exceeds thier size. The detail is great, and unlike other speakers, they have plenty of balance from a low to medium volume. Many, if not most speakers need to be louder before they flatten out.

I have a very competant sub to mate them to if needed, but I find these to be some ultimate, non-fatiguing bedroom speakers. It's a joy listening to jazz and vocals on these when you don't feel the need for ear-splitting volume. I compare them very favorably to the much more costly Vandersteen 2ce's in terms of musicality, transparency and balance. These were a GREAT design!

I agree 100%. They were my first Polks back in 1986 and I recently acquired a pair for my office rig. Add in the new RD0-194 silk dome tweeters and rebuilding the x-overs with fresh modern caps and resistors have taken these speakers beyond belief. I run them with a 15 wpc 6V6 based integrated amp. Sublime.

Here's my build link

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51420

I recently used Mortite (rope caulk) in place of the tattered, worn driver gaskets and it really improved. Matt Polk made this suggestion as the rope caulk provides better coupling to the baffle. He said they used to use it in the early days when they didn't have the money to mass produce exact gaskets.

Give it a try you'll be floored by the improvements.

H9

heiney9

Litz wrote: »

Here is a quick pic...

Yours are early 5's with the peerless tweeter. Great tweeter no need to use the newer RD0's. Upgrade the caps and resistors and use rope caulk in place of the gaskets and these will play beyond belief. Also remove/jump the fuses too if you're sure you won't need their protection.

H9

Litz

heiney9 wrote: »

Yours are early 5's with the peerless tweeter. Great tweeter no need to use the newer RD0's. Upgrade the caps and resistors and use rope caulk in place of the gaskets and these will play beyond belief. Also remove/jump the fuses too if you're sure you won't need their protection.

H9

I definately will try the cap/xover upgrade. And yeah, with modern protection circuits, there is no reason for yet another connection (fuses).

anton.chigurh

Nice! I've got some 5A's with Peerless and love them.

Down the road....take H9's advice redo the crossovers with some new quality caps and resistors. They'll sound even better. I just did my Peerless Mon 7Bs a few months ago and couldn't be happier.

Litz

anton.chigurh wrote: »

Nice! I've got some 5A's with Peerless and love them.

Down the road....take H9's advice redo the crossovers with some new quality caps and resistors. They'll sound even better. I just did my Peerless Mon 7Bs a few months ago and couldn't be happier.

I will have to open up the 5a's and look at the cap and resistor values. I know caps are THE more crucial as electrolytics dry up over time. Not to mention higher grade caps smear the signal less. Anything to dig out and fire up my hakko soldering station again. It's been idle a long time.

heiney9

Since you have the peerless you have 2 resistors in the signal path for the tweeters. Replacing those will Mills non-inductive type is very beneficial and they rune about $3.00 each so the cost is not prohibitive. The old sandcast resistors aren't really that great.

Litz

heiney9 wrote: »

Since you have the peerless you have 2 resistors in the signal path for the tweeters. Replacing those will Mills non-inductive type is very beneficial and they rune about $3.00 each so the cost is not prohibitive. The old sandcast resistors aren't really that great.

I think I can swing $3.00 each. I don't think I am aiming to $60.00+ caps though...a bit of overkill. I am looking at partsexpress non polars right now. Maybe some aeon. I am not going nuts with auricaps.

heiney9

I have found Clarity Caps PX series are excellent and more inline budget wise for a pair of 5B's

http://www.madisound.com/manufacturers/claritycap/index.php

Madisound is an excellent retailer as well. I use the PX on the tweeter and it an excellent "budget" cap.

Don;t bother with electrolytics. I beleive you need a 12uF and 34uF. Clarity doesn't offer a 34uF but Solen does.

So I'd suggest the Mills and Solen 34uF from Parts Express and the 12uF Clarity PX cap from Madisound for the tweeter. That's what I'm using and it's a great budget friendly combo.

H9

Litz

heiney9 wrote: »

I have found Clarity Caps PX series are excellent and more inline budget wise for a pair of 5B's

http://www.madisound.com/manufacturers/claritycap/index.php

Madisound is an excellent retailer as well. I use the PX on the tweeter and it an excellent "budget" cap.

Don;t bother with electrolytics

Yep... I have ordered from madisound before... good call! Solens are plenty affordable.

I was unsure what caps were used back in the day. I knew a lot of amps used electrolytics. I watched an old parasound explode when the caps dried...

geoff727

Litz wrote: »

The monitor 5's, have to be one of the best balanced and underrated small speakers on the market.

I agree with the general opinion.

Two years ago, I upgraded a set of these (have done more since). It was, what I consider, a "pretty good" upgrade. Went to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest a couple days later, where a person can indulge in systems costing sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars (And I did. And enjoyed every second!). Came home a few days later, listened to the 5's on my system. And man was I pleasantly surprised.

For the price of 100 bucks to buy, and a couple hundred more in refurb/upgrade parts and materials, there is hardly a better audio value out there than these things.

geoff727

Since ClarityCaps are being mentioned, I did these w/ Calrity PX's.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73205&highlight=geoff727

I 2nd heiney9's opinion.

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

I agree with the general opinion.

Two years ago, I upgraded a set of these (have done more since). It was, what I consider, a "pretty good" upgrade. Went to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest a couple days later, where a person can indulge in systems costing sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars (And I did. And enjoyed every second!). Came home a few days later, listened to the 5's on my system. And man was I pleasantly surprised.

For the price of 100 bucks to buy, and a couple hundred more in refurb/upgrade parts and materials, there is hardly a better audio value out there than these things.

The 5A's I just got from ebay cost me $95 for the pair...near mint. Some guy sniped me on a pair that wasn't as good, he ended up paying $120 + $60 shipping. I definately got the deal.

I have been to a number of hifi shows. I remember being painfully disappointed in some $100K+ systems. In fact, some of the stand-outs were very modest by compare. Vandersteen, PMC, proac, living audio, Totem... all made nice music and were no where near $10K, let alone $100K

geoff727

Litz wrote: »

In fact, some of the stand-outs were very modest by compare.

Very true.

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

Very true.

The worst sound (IMO) were some giant meridian actives, and some JM labs, with a large front port. It's been a couple years---but I remember being shocked at how expensive they were, and how poor they sounded, day 1 and day 3. Other large systems had a similar room and sounded MUCH better.

geoff727

That's funny! I always really liked the big JM Labs speakers. Especially the Grande Utopia EM's (of course!), which are not front-ported in the current iteration. Interesting how our auditory likes and don't-likes are all different.

Saw your other thread mentioning vintage Infinity's, Klipsch, and LSi9's. With the exception of the JM Labs speakers, our auditory likes are right on the same level. I own several vintage Polk's, several vintage Infinity's, and some Klipsch and Lsi9's are on my list.

geoff727

geoff727 wrote: »

which are not front-ported in the current iteration.

Oops. I goofed. I thought they weren't. I thought that was just a big angled base down there, but there is a front-firing rectangular port built into it.

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

That's funny! I always really liked the big JM Labs speakers. Especially the Grande Utopia EM's (of course!), which are not front-ported in the current iteration. Interesting how our auditory likes and don't-likes are all different.

Saw your other thread mentioning vintage Infinity's, Klipsch, and LSi9's. With the exception of the JM Labs speakers, our auditory likes are right on the same level. I own several vintage Polk's, several vintage Infinity's, and some Klipsch and Lsi9's are on my list.

Well, on those Utopias here is what I heard CLEARLY: Port noise! It was an unforgivable problem from a brand I normally like. The chuffing was prominent on many recordings. Even on Yo-yo Ma:solo I could hear it. Revel were UGGGGGLY boxy sounding.

ATC and avalon were two of the show stoppers as well. I mentioned I don't care much for (accutron) diamond tweets? On both the avalon and Kharma, I MUCH preferred the ceramic tweets to the diamond (ok carbon crystal) tweets.

When Arnie Nudell designed the Infinity speakers with emim/emit and poly woofers, I loved those! As soon as the kappa series got axed, that's when I lost all interest in new infinity. I know a guy that got some Rs-1b's for... $800. I wept openly...

Litz

Note: It's been 5 years since I have made any audio tweaks. Last thing I did was upgrade some amp caps, and some cd player caps to blackgate. I added a small mylar cap in shunt with the xover of some old signet speakers and it REALLY opened them up. I also re-built xovers for a friends old cerwin vega speakers. He was just blown away by the improvement. I changed the xover point so that VOICE wasn't coming out of the 15" woofers. And I ditched the angel-hair thin inductors for some beefier stuff, and the bass grip was vastly improved as well.

EDIT:
Ok I lied. About 3 years ago, I built a dayton titanic III 12" sealed sub with 500w plate amp. It works *extremely* well, especially considering it was $499 for the kit. I forsee it with the 5A's.

RS-1b:

geoff727

Litz wrote: »

Well, on those Utopias here is what I heard CLEARLY: Port noise!

Interesting. I shall have to listen to them again at this year's show. For 180 grand, there definitely should be NO port chuffing! There's also a new one coming out: the Stella Utopia I believe it's called. Same general config as the superseded Nova Utopia.

Speaking of good subs (you mentioned the DIY Dayton Titanic), I have been thoroughly enjoying a pair of F12SE's from Rythmik Audio next to my Magnepan's. I obviously didn't assemble them, but check them out if you haven't heard of them.

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

Interesting. I shall have to listen to them again at this year's show. For 180 grand, there definitely should be NO port chuffing! There's also a new one coming out: the Stella Utopia I believe it's called. Same general config as the superseded Nova Utopia.

Speaking of good subs (you mentioned the DIY Dayton Titanic), I have been thoroughly enjoying a pair of F12SE's from Rythmik Audio next to my Magnepan's. I obviously didn't assemble them, but check them out if you haven't heard of them.

How many time my mouse has hovered over drivers like Adire audio.... LONG xmax on those... And I have considered a VMPS new larger sub kit... 12/15 and 15 PR.

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

Interesting. I shall have to listen to them again at this year's show. For 180 grand, there definitely should be NO port chuffing! There's also a new one coming out: the Stella Utopia I believe it's called. Same general config as the superseded Nova Utopia.
.

These weren't $180K, they were between $30-$60K.... They do not make this model anymore. The port was in the middle, in front. It (IIRC) was kind of oval. The newest JM labs are not ported in this manner.

Stereophool drooled over them, so I checked them out and wanted to kick Micheal Fremer in the dangly bits for praising them.

geoff727

I think the 12" drivers that the Rythmik's use are made by TC Sounds. Not positive, though. If I remember, the xmax (as far as the voice coil/magnet gap is concerned) is 1.4". The actual physical excursion limit is something like 2.6".

PartsExpress is carrying some TC Sounds stuff again. I think they stopped for a while. One of these days I will probably DIY some bass towers using the servo plate amps, probably using the drivers that are available for them from GR Research.

Nice chatting! Must do this again sometime. We could probably have a good conversation about vintage Infinity's. Oh, and by the way, about the picture of the RS-1B's...... if you're the owner of these, or any other EMIM-based speaker, Graeme Keet from Australia (who makes the new ribbon drivers for Apogees) is on the verge of producing new & improved diaphragms for the EMIM's. He is also contemplating doing the same for the EMIT's, from what I understand. The threads w/ updates are at audiokarma and apogee forums. (Polk supports their vintage speakers w/replacement drivers a little better than Infinity!;))

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

I think the 12" drivers that the Rythmik's use are made by TC Sounds. Not positive, though. If I remember, the xmax (as far as the voice coil/magnet gap is concerned) is 1.4". The actual physical excursion limit is something like 2.6".

PartsExpress is carrying some TC Sounds stuff again. I think they stopped for a while. One of these days I will probably DIY some bass towers using the servo plate amps, probably using the drivers that are available for them from GR Research.

Nice chatting! Must do this again sometime. We could probably have a good conversation about vintage Infinity's. Oh, and by the way, about the picture of the RS-1B's...... if you're the owner of these, or any other EMIM-based speaker, Graeme Keet from Australia (who makes the new ribbon drivers for Apogees) is on the verge of producing new & improved diaphragms for the EMIM's. He is also contemplating doing the same for the EMIT's, from what I understand. The threads w/ updates are at audiokarma and apogee forums. (Polk supports their vintage speakers w/replacement drivers a little better than Infinity!;))

The TC sounds are pretty similar in spec to Adire...worth looking at! (More performance than the dayton anyway)

TC sounds:
EGAD! "The LMS-R 15" subwoofer brings linear motor technology to a 3" diameter voice coil driver. Capable of over 2" of peak-to-peak excursion with absolute linearity." About $500+

Sadly, I do not own the Infinity. I know that the EMIMS were single-ended, and new neodymium drivers are push-pull, much better (Arnie developed some for his spinoff Genesis IIRC).

The originals were warm and transparent. Much like the Polks of yore, they can be improved with modern technology. I remember reviewers whining that the poly cone woofers sounded "plasticky". Ok granted a little, but they were overall great sounding. One dense reviewer underpowered some of the kappa 9's and whined of a foil coloration. Anthony Cordesman reviewed them with proper power and had no such issue.

geoff727

Litz wrote: »

Sadly, I do not own the Infinity. I know that the EMIMS were single-ended, and new neodymium drivers are push-pull, much better (Arnie developed some for his spinoff Genesis IIRC).

Actually, the EMIM's have been push-pull from the beginning. frame-magnets-diaphragm-magnets-frame. In the late '80's, they began using neodymium (NdFeB) magnets in place of the original samarium cobalt magnets. These are the EMIM drivers in the IRS V's, Beta's, and Gamma's. These were plagued with problems of the nickel coating peeling away from the neodymium magnets, and LOTS of them need other options for coating the magnets to keep the corrosion boogeymen away.

A little later, maybe the early '90's, they again used neodymium magnets in a newer engineered set of planar drivers, called the "High-Energy EMIM" and "High-Energy EMIT". These are on the Renaissance series, along with the later IRS's (Epsilon's, Omega's, and Sigma's).

So many Infinity owners have been screaming for these parts for a long time. Now, finally we have someone who has the know-how and equipment to do this. If only Infinity (now under Harman Int'l) had been able to offer the same level of vintage speaker support that Polk does, a lot more of these speakers would still be working.

For the Genesis speakers, they originally used the Carver ribbons for the midrange, along with a tweeter that I assume was a spinoff of the EMIT-R (the later EMIT with a circular diaphragm). Later on, the Carver ribbons were supplanted by the Bohlender-Graebener line source planar units, which are easily available. I believe the Genesis 1.2 uses the RD75 for the midrange, which you can buy at Parts Express for about $750. The speaker system, of course, retails for over 200, grand now!!!

Litz

geoff727 wrote: »

Actually, the EMIM's have been push-pull from the beginning. frame-magnets-diaphragm-magnets-frame. In the late '80's, they began using neodymium (NdFeB) magnets in place of the original samarium cobalt magnets. These are the EMIM drivers in the IRS V's, Beta's, and Gamma's. These were plagued with problems of the nickel coating peeling away from the neodymium magnets, and LOTS of them need other options for coating the magnets to keep the corrosion boogeymen away.

A little later, maybe the early '90's, they again used neodymium magnets in a newer engineered set of planar drivers, called the "High-Energy EMIM" and "High-Energy EMIT". These are on the Renaissance series, along with the later IRS's (Epsilon's, Omega's, and Sigma's).

So many Infinity owners have been screaming for these parts for a long time. Now, finally we have someone who has the know-how and equipment to do this. If only Infinity (now under Harman Int'l) had been able to offer the same level of vintage speaker support that Polk does, a lot more of these speakers would still be working.

For the Genesis speakers, they originally used the Carver ribbons for the midrange, along with a tweeter that I assume was a spinoff of the EMIT-R (the later EMIT with a circular diaphragm). Later on, the Carver ribbons were supplanted by the Bohlender-Graebener line source planar units, which are easily available. I believe the Genesis 1.2 uses the RD75 for the midrange, which you can buy at Parts Express for about $750. The speaker system, of course, retails for over 200, grand now!!!

Ok, thanks for clearing that up...My memory is spotty from back then. I could have sworn (maybe it was Brian Cheney of VMPS that told me) that emit/semit/emim were all push only. I had B-G ribbons at one point, raven, monsoon and (I forget who) the neodymiums for a while. VMPS used the spiral ribbon tweeters from infinity at one point.