SDA-II Interconnect Cable Help

Mytmauro

Hi all - brand new member and 1st post.

My father bought SDA-II (or SDA 2 - 2 tweeters across top, 3 mid range and the larger sub below) almost 30 years ago. We've enjoyed them for 10 years and they haven't seen regular use in the last 20 years. He no longer wanted them so I took them.

It comes at a funny time as I was thinking about buying some new PSB Imagines or Maggie 1.7s when I started to research the Polks that I newly own.

What I found is that the Interconnect Cables were never plugged in and when I picked them up they weren't there.

I understand that there is a big sound upgrade when the IC Cables are connected. Have you experienced this?

Also does anyone know where I can get these cables? I understand they are out of manufacture for years. Is there a work around?

Thanks all!

F1nut

If yours is the blade/blade type, I think Polk still offers a version of it. If not, you can make your own using this, //www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_248760_-1

Mytmauro

Yes I have the blade/Blade. I will contact Polk tomorrow to see if they have it.

If not - what is the recommended type of cable/wire do you recommend adding to the link (thanks for that I was all over the internet trying to find that)?

Thank you so much for the help.

BTW - How is the sound difference with the Interconnects hooked up? I am pretty geeked to hear them.

F1nut

The stock wire was 16 gauge stranded copper, but you can use whatever you like.

Let's just say, you're in for a treat.

ben62670

If Polk does not have them anymore...
Here you go.
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74853

On3s&Z3r0s

Before you order the plug ends, it'd be good to take a close look at the sockets. I got a pair that had a working IC cable and the plug ends were fine, but the sockets inside the speaker cabs were toast. They were made out of a fairly brittle plastic that had broken, and because pieces of it were missing the metal parts of the slots did not make good contact with the blades and wouldn't hold the plug in.

In your case if the IC cable had really never been used, then you're probably in good shape, but if like the pair I bought the owner stopped using the cable because the sockets were bad then buying all the parts at once might save you some wait time.

Mytmauro

Sockets look like they are in good shape - they've been moved a couple times but never used.

I have an Emotiva XPA-5 Amp and Marantz Zr6001 receiver. Does anyone know if the Emotiva is SDA 2 approved and safe (ie Common ground)?

Mytmauro

Jst to close the loop here - Polk sells the Blade/Blade ICs so I was able to buy that. Also the the Emotiva XPA-5 should work fine.

BTW - I re-arranged the speakers as a guess for config and they sound really good just getting that right.

On3s&Z3r0s

Congrats on picking up a factory cable... that should save you some work. Once you get it, let us know how you like the SDA sound on those. It's a very interesting thing and more noticable on those than on other SDA models I've had/heard. Enjoy!

punk-roc

congrats on finding the cable! out of curiosity, could you pick a length? or were they all the standard length?

Jason

Mytmauro

punk-roc wrote: »

congrats on finding the cable! out of curiosity, could you pick a length? or were they all the standard length?

Jason

Jason - You know I thought about that later as I went to Blue Jeans to get some new Speaker Cables and had to request lengths.

They never asked and I never said......it seemed pretty informal, like there is standard length. The person I spoke to said that her boss makes the cables himself - usually same day. So you probably can certainly specify what you need since he makes them himself.

It's $40.00 for the cable and 20% off for Polk Club members - so $32.00.

By the way they do not have (or make I should say) the Blade/Pin.

I will certainly advise on the SDA sound. Just by educating myself a little on positioning the speakers correctly. Even without the cable my sound has improved 100% through some positioning tweeks. I will be using a laser level once the IC Cable comes in to dial it in further.

As for my set up - I am on a 20' wall with the speakers about 2.5 feet off the wall (the face of each speaker is about 2" in front of an entertainment center) and about 14' spaced. Main seating area is then about 9' back. That math is slightly off there as far as "perfect" so I will mess around with it when the wires come in.

I have the 2 SDA II originals and a 10" Emotiva sub (I am still dialing this in - each time I think I got it I hear a different tune and it's still a little too aggressive).

I am going to get a Polk Csi-a5 or a6 for a center channel (Polk recommendation for matching to the SDAs). I have a Marantz 6001 (I am thinking about upgrading this - but this unit works well right now) and a Emotiva XPA-5 (200 watts/channel). I do more music listening than HT (70 Music/30 HT) and am trying to understand what music the Polks play best.

Right now it seems Jazz plays better than Rock. The seperation of instruments is pretty nice right now. I will try it on every type of music I have (36,000 songs and probably 15K FLAC) which ranges from Jazz, Classical, Rock, Pop, Rap - anything. As long as it's good I'll play it. BTW -Really into Jacques Loussier right now. He takes classical music and re-does it as jazz. Many recording from the 50's and 60's and I have them FLAC'd. It's really good.


I understand the SDA effect to be similar to Maggie sound. So I suspect, as with Magnepans, that Live music might sound better.

Also I read where the SDAs are forgiving of recording quality. I have not experienced that - my SDAs are picking up most everything. Maybe because the speakers have seen so little use? Not sure. My father bought them and basically never played them and they sat in a basement for 25+years. Plus half the speakers are in fact never played as he never hooked up the IC Cable.

punk-roc

cool, good to know. I'll have to add this to my list when I ordered up another couple RDO194s, thanks

Jason

F1nut

Too far off the wall, too far apart, nothing like Maggie's, you shouldn't need a sub with them for music, try a different amp and they are fantastic for rock.

ben62670

Do not toe them either.

Mytmauro

F1nut wrote: »

Too far off the wall, too far apart, nothing like Maggie's, you shouldn't need a sub with them for music, try a different amp and they are fantastic for rock.

F1 will the entertainment center effect the SDA effect? I had read in a thread it might and it was suggested to move the speakers forward.

How far should they be apart and off the wall? I know these are picky speakers regarding placement.

As for the Amp - currently the amp isn't hooked up I am just running them off the Marantz. Polk shipped the IC yesterday so I hope to get it this week. Then I will be hooking it all up together - new speaker wire, amp and IC Cable.

Oh also - do you think the Csi-a6 or a5 would be a good match?

Mytmauro

ben62670 wrote: »

Do not toe them either.

gotcha - I have them parallel to each other and not toed in.

punk-roc

I liked the sound of my SDA-II's best when they were about 7-8" from the back wall..

Mytmauro

Hi all -

Got the IC Cable in From Polk about 5p last night - I would say it is a good 20' long.

Started trying to put some critical ears on the fellas. It's not an easy process at all. In fact the sound of my speakers degraded!?!!??! on some songs.

I did comparison listening from FiOS music channels to same songs in my music library on my PC (which I listed to mostly) and found that FiOS sounds better.

The sound my PC configuration became worse when I plugged in the IC Cable and in some cases the music is no longer listenable.

If the song sonically is really "busy" the speakers seem to get "confused" and don't process the music correctly. Without the IC Cables it was doing it fine.

Specifically it's bad on Rap Songs Jay-Z Ny State of Mind and some rock songs that really rock like the Who.

So I determined my speakers hate rap.....jk

Ok - so here are the details.

- Left channel 3' from wall and 7" off wall.
- Right channel 4'2" from a wall that slants away at a 30 degree angle.
- 7'8" between the speakers
- Main listening position is 9'6" back

Running off the Marantz 6001 right now. The PC is connected with a poor quality cable coming off the 1/8" speaker port that terminates to RCA. Again it worked fine before now I think it's gonna need to be upgraded.

I haven't hooked my amp in yet and I think I will re-connect my CD player.

I will say the FiOS music sounds really good. Again most jazz sounds great where some rock sounds great, some is alright and some is not listenable.

Next up put the Amp in the mix, change some cables and try again.

Sorry for the long post -


** Please give me some pointers here or ask any questions that will help clairfy.

I will post more listening results as I go through with this.

On3s&Z3r0s

Your experience is actually pretty consistent with mine. I have the original SDA-II's too and as I mentioned I had a hell of a time getting my cable to work so I ended up listening to a lot of music without and then again with when I finally got new sockets. Some music improved, and some that was "busy" as you say sounded pretty wonky. I noticed it most on anything where the recording engineer had put in any reverb or echo. It seemed worse if you're not in the SDA sweet spot, and the sweet spot on those is unfortunately pretty small.

Most people chalk the negative effect up to the dimensional tweeter. From what I've gathered, Polk abandoned the dimensional tweeter pretty quickly after the first generation of SDA's. Later versions just have dimensional mid-woofers and if they have multiple tweeters they're all on the regular stereo channel.

Anyway, like you said, on some music the SDA effect was great, especially in the sweet spot. On the albums/tracks where it bothered me I would just unplug the IC. Some members who have built their own IC's have said they put a switch or pot in the cable so they can break the SDA connection without unplugging, but unplugging was easy enough for me.

I'd guess the degradation in the PC sound probably does have to do with the quality of the signal and output. I've never gotten decent quality out of an 1/8" jack, and the SDA is probably just emphasizing that. I do mostly music from a server too, and most recent MOBO's are including a S/PDIF optical output. If you have that, running that into the marantz would be a huge improvement I'm sure.

Lastly, my biggest complaint with the 2's was that it seemed hard to get good bass out of them. It wasn't until I put a good 200wpc amp behind them with the amp not on a power conditioner / surge protector that I finally got the bass that I wanted. After that, F1nut is right, no need for any kind of bass support at all, at least not for 2-channel music.

Anyway, hope you're still enjoying the process... at least now you've gotten your first taste of the SDA!

Mytmauro

Thanks for that post. At least I know that I'm on the right track.

I will post more after this connected up -

Also if anyone is interested I am connecting the new Blue Jean Sonic Welded cables and I will let you know how those sound.

Thanks all

ben62670

Disconnect one wire on the outer tweeters. Then hook up the SDA cable.
Enjoy.
Ben

On3s&Z3r0s

ben62670 wrote: »

Disconnect one wire on the outer tweeters. Then hook up the SDA cable.
Enjoy.
Ben

Hey Ben, is that safe to do without modifying the crossover at all, i.e. it won't hurt the crossover components or stereo tweeter any? Somehow I got the impression that doing this also required a change to the XO. My 2's are in storage right now, but this might be a good reason to get them out.

ben62670

It won't hurt a thing. If it sounds better, but the highs are not loud enough then you can change out one resistor in the XO to compensate for the dimensional tweeter being disconnected.

Mytmauro

Ok got the new Blue Jeans in and the amp connected - the speakers sound very good.

Still have that issue on some songs with the speakers SDA getting "confused".

1&0s I think you're right, I think it happens when there is a special effect - echo or reverb - Jimi was having issues.

I am really happy with them right now.

The blue jean sonic cables are really nice. I switched them out first to test them before adding the amp and could tell a nice detailed improvement. My cables were pretty bad so this probably is expected. However they were dirt cheap as far as cables go (maybe $35 for 7' cables sonically welded).

The sweet spot is wider and there is really nice detail.

Ben - what your suggesting sounds interesting. Does that totally disconnect the SDA effect?

ben62670

Just in the dimensional tweeters.

Mytmauro

Oh one tip I had on the SDA IIs.

I noticed that my speakers would lean a little because of my carpet and it effected the sound. I had some spare shelves made of MDF. I put these under the speakers and they provided a nice stable base.

Mytmauro

Ben on the tweeter wire. It's sounds like a simple tweek. Can you give me a more detailed walk through?

Thanks!!!

ben62670

Sorry I can't. It is just that easy. Unscrew the tweeter and pull one of the wires off. Tape it to the other wire so it doesn't short out to anything.
Enjoy.
Ben