All the Polk SDA upgrades located in one place!

F1nut

Yes, you will need a common ground amp. All SDA speakers require a common ground amp. However, the ones with the pin/blade SDA cable can use the AI-1 or Dreadnought, which will allow the use of a non-common ground amp. The 3.1TL's have the pin/blade cable, so if you get one of the isolation transformers mentioned you can use a non-common ground amp.

pauldsteve

Wow! My head is swimming. I need some advice. I have a set of SDA-1A speakers. Serial No's 1920, 1921. I bought them Sept. 28, 1985, brand new. I have always loved them. As I have gotten older (62) I must admit that I listen to them more as part of my Multimedia Set Up. They are the Main Speakers for my Denon 7.1 DTS Surround Sound AVR.

I have proudly shown everyone how fine the system sounded until 10 months ago. Then the Left Speaker developed a Popping Sound on extreme noises like Explosions and Car Crashes. It sounds like you are taking a 6 volt DC Battery and touching the Speaker Leads to it. Pop, Pop, reduce the volume level and it goes away.

Now let me explain something. I am in transition here. So please, none of you vomit because I did not know better, and I do now. Since August 12, 2008, I have had them mounted 14 foot apart (Center to Center) Horizontally, without the Umbilical Cable attached (please look at attached picture).

Now I have been surfing the internet and I came across this man named David Shirley. He has helped me a lot but he also has confused me. He specializes in rebuilding Bose 901's. But he seems to know a lot about Polk SDA's. Upon his definite sound of regret, for the sacrilege of what I had done to the some of the finest speakers in the world, I am taking the speakers off the wall and returning them to a standard floor position. That will happen this coming week. I am limited to 10-foot width (outside to outside measurement) on them because of the doorway. He said that would be fine.

David Shirley advised me to check the Drivers and Tweeters (one at a time) by visual inspection and ohming them and upon doing that I did find a blown TL2000 tweeter. I have bought 4 each of the RDO-194-1's to replace all the tweeters, they were delivered today. He told me yesterday that I should have only bought two and I should leave the Dimensional Tweeters disconnected with the leads taped off. The explanation was that Polk had found them to be useless in achieving the goal they were after. Since joining last week I have been reading all of the posts on here and I find nothing about that subject. But either way, I am not upset because I liked the speakers the way they were 10 months ago. I just want to get rid of the Popping in the left speaker.

So upon the Speakers being put back like they ought to be. Upon my replacement of the two main and / or two each dimensional Tweeters with the upgrades. I know because I have swapped speakers around that I will still have the Popping. Considering the enclosures still hold dynamic pressure for over 5 seconds, without moving. Considering that none of the drivers make noise as I move them gently back and forth and there is no visual damage to the passive radiators (I have never removed them from the enclosure).

What do you gurus think I ought to look for next to try to find out why I have this popping noise? I would like a 1.2.3. checklist of actions to take. Is my channel going bad from the Receiver? Is the Speaker Crossover suspect? WTH? I am not an electronics guru as you guys are but I take instruction well and I have messed with other electronics a lot. I have the tools to do it. David Shirley mentioned this forum and he mentioned VR3 favorably. I just need some good advice. Thanks in advance.
.

dkfreebird

David knows his Sda's and is topnotch in updating them. He has rebuilt two sets of crossovers for mine and countless others. It sounds as if you amp could be the problem. You could swap the speaker wires without the interconnect connected and see if the popping follows that channel.

hauxon

http://www.polkaudio.com/support/ does not show any results if I type in my speaker model or part numbers. Has Polk stopped supporting the SDA line?

agfrost

hauxon, Polk offers (some) replacement drivers and replacement/upgrade tweeters for the SDA series. If you have a specific question about your SDAs, I'd recommend starting a new thread in the vintage speakers subforum. SDA knowledge and advice, at this point, is carried by the members of this forum--They'll be happy to help answering your question.

hauxon

Well I was considering replacing the SL2000 tweeter in my SDA 2B with the RD0194-1for more rounded highs. I had previously seen them listed in the Polk support page.

hauxon

I sent an email to Polk customer support on monday asking about RD0-198-1 tweeters. I've heard nothing from them yet. Are they usually slow to respond? Seems like a fairly simple question. Maybe connected to them shutting down the info page on vintage Polks and erasing vintage products from the support page? ...hopefully not...

vcwatkins

Calling always seems to work much better. Be sure to tell them you're a member here if getting a quote.

F1nut

CALL

hauxon

Yes, I will call (from Iceland) if there's no reply early next week.

crashb4

RDO-194 tweets are currently back ordered. Placed my order early December and was told to expect them February or March.

hauxon

I've not called yet

hauxon wrote: »

I sent an email to Polk customer support on monday asking about RD0-198-1 tweeters. I've heard nothing from them yet. Are they usually slow to respond? Seems like a fairly simple question. Maybe connected to them shutting down the info page on vintage Polks and erasing vintage products from the support page? ...hopefully not...

I think Polk might have sent the reply to me with horses. Still waiting, three weeks later....

crashb4

Call them. My order from 11/29 shipped on 1/17.

analogluvr

That happened to me and I used contact cement as my speaker tech recommended and it worked great

dyanddyoung

My 5.1 Home Cinema has bragging rights for the following equipment......
[1] Screen...... 120" measured diagonally in a fixed black velvet frame.
[2] Projector ......JVC DLA -X70R (E Shifting Technology)
[3] Front Left and Right Speakers are Polk Audio SDA SRS 2.3 (20 5/8" W: 4" H and 155Lbs.
[4] Centre Channel......Tannoy Definition DC6 LCR (32.5" W and 15" D)
[5] Surround Speakers.......Monitor Audio
[6] Sub-Woofer ........Monitor Audio
[7] OPPO Blu-ray Disc Player BDP-103D
[8] Audio Video Receiver........ARCAM 450
[9] Speaker cables for Front L/R/C are Nordost and Audio Quest for Surrounds.
[10] HDMI Cables are all Audio Quest.
[11] Operating the System with the MX-450 (Universal Remote Control)
Shall update as my Home Cinema evolves
[/list]

Shelby66

Maybe I'm blind, on the all in one reference page I see no mention of what cap values to go with.

I have a question concerning crossover updated cap values for the original SDA SRS model.

Do I go by the original polk schematic or use gimpods list and schem. for a 1.2 w/SL2000's?

Why did they eliminate the 92uf and 130uf caps? was it to utilize SL3000's because I have SL2000 RDO 194s which were replaced new in 2010.

http://www.gimpod.com/parts12.html

pitdogg2

Go by the original SRS if that is what you have. Do you have blade/blade interconnect? Or is it pin/blade? There is a big difference between the two.
Answer this and we can further help you
Welcome to club polk

Shelby66

blade/blade...thats what we went by the original SRS schematic. I was just curious why DHS/gimpod modded the original values and if it was for the 3000's.

F1nut

DHS/Gimpod didn't modify anything. Polk made 3 versions of the big SDA's and each has a very different crossover.

pitdogg2

Shelby66 wrote: »

blade/blade...thats what we went by the original SRS schematic. I was just curious why DHS/gimpod modded the original values and if it was for the 3000's.

Well i believe they just replaced the stock caps with much better film caps. Some do replace stock inductors to better made current production inductors. There's nothing wrong with the original and the do not wear out. Better resistors than stock. You will need to go by the SRS schematic, but i would take a look at the one you have and write down the values you see and compare if need be. Polk was known to switch up on the fly. Example you may have an early 1.2 with a blade/blade socket but wired like a pin/blade socket.
B/B used both blades both sides went to the crossover.
Pin/blade only used the pin to crossover blade went to ground/neutral side. This is why on later models you could use mono blocs if you used the transformer cord or made your own transformers like many here did

Shelby66

F1nut wrote: »

DHS/Gimpod didn't modify anything. Polk made 3 versions of the big SDA's and each has a very different crossover.

I see that now, thats kind of misleading on his site if someone assumes they can just use his parts list for a 1.2 for a 1985 SRS. Thanks for the input guys!

F1nut

IIRC, he states on his site that his boards are not compatible with the SDA SRS.

Shelby66

F1nut wrote: »

IIRC, he states on his site that his boards are not compatible with the SDA SRS.

Where does it state that?

pitdogg2

Does your speakers have two cross over boards? The bigger new boards are for the pin/blade one board type XO's. Personally i have not had eyes on the first gen SRS boards. Looking at the gimpod site all are pin blade 4th and 5th gen speakers i believe.

Shelby66

pitdogg2

Nope that won't work with the new boards. That is more like the RTA12 boards.
1.2 and later 1.2tl use Molex connection to the boards for the wires. Those wires are individually soldered.

Shelby66

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Shelby66 wrote: »

blade/blade...thats what we went by the original SRS schematic. I was just curious why DHS/gimpod modded the original values and if it was for the 3000's.

Example you may have an early 1.2 with a blade/blade socket but wired like a pin/blade socket.
B/B used both blades both sides went to the crossover.
Pin/blade only used the pin to crossover blade went to ground/neutral side. This is why on later models you could use mono blocs if you used the transformer cord or made your own transformers like many here did

I'll make a note of this to observe if I use monoblocks in the future, so far I've only used a common ground yamaha M2 to power them. Thnx!

pitdogg2

There is no way to use mono blocs on blade/blade stuff. NONE!
Unless you do not use the cable at all. To use the cable with mono's one of two things happens. Very loud piercing sound or you let the magic smoke out of something.
Yours are SRS they are not 1.2's

VR3

SDA SRS

pitdogg2

VR3 wrote: »

SDA SRS

Trey is the man on this stuff. He'll hook you up and knows it inside and out.