Picked up a pair of Monitor 5's

dpowell

Thought I was going to get 5jr.'s but they appear to be a pair of 5's. Not sure how to tell the difference but the serial tags say series 5. These have SL2000's. Cabinets overall are in nice shape. Paid $80. Going to try one (or two) out as a center channel with the 2.3TL's. Are these 8Ohm speakers?

Mystery

Mine are exactly like yours and are 6 ohms but I've read some of the same series could be different ohms. :rolleyes:
These are 5B's with SL2000 tweeters.

gwg_97

Nice. Those look like 5s to me. I have a couple sets myself. If I remember correctly, they are 6 Ohm speakers. I'll be interested in hearing your impression of them as a center channel. What would it take (as far as an amp) to drive two of these as a center?

cnh

All 5s have an 8" PR. The 5jrs. have a PR that is the same size as the mid-woofer. It's pretty easy to distinguish between the two (also smaller cabs).

The 5s though they don't punch out the bass of the 7s are a very capable bookshelf easily equal to or better than most 8" two way designs from that period! Really "under-appreciated" IMO because the 7s get all the attention.

Enjoy!

cnh

dpowell

Thanks all. These have the 8" passive. Just listening last night to a single 5B as a center sounded good even though I hadn't run through the Pioneer MCACC setup. I've noticed that I was getting lousy results with the MCACC when using a temporary Klipsch center channel with the 2.3's. Basically I just ended up unplugging the center and letting the 2.3's image the center which they did much better by themselves. I took a look at the XO's and they are amazingly simple (which means a cheap upgrade to sonicaps) and if I think it's a permanent fixture, I'll do the upgrade. I'll need to do more critical listening to see if tweeter position at one end or the other of the cabinet offsets the center image in movies enough to bug me.

I've considered taking vintage drivers and building my own center channel but I'm not much of a wood-worker and with passives, the cabinets need to be solid and correct dimmensions.

If they are indeed a 6Ohm speaker then two of them together would be a 3Ohm load......currently running one of them off of a Parasound Halo A51 which is rated down to 4Ohms. Not sure I'm willing to take the chance at 3Ohms...

gwg_97

dpowell wrote: »

If they are indeed a 6Ohm speaker then two of them together would be a 3Ohm load......currently running one of them off of a Parasound Halo A51 which is rated down to 4Ohms. Not sure I'm willing to take the chance at 3Ohms...

Yeah, I wouldn't risk the Halo! I'm guessing that 3Ohm load would also be a bit rough on my Outlaw monoblock. Maybe I'll try one of my Monitor 10s as center. Could be fun with the 1Cs.

heiney9

The passive cutout and midwoofer cutout on 5Jr+'s slightly overlap in addition to the PR being 6.5" vs 8" for 5B's. With the right amp the 5B's are actually capable of pretty good bass. I can rattle the closet doors (on hanging sliders) very easily as well as the brass pull handles on a cabinet in my office rig.

Nice grab!

H9

P.s. depending on the midwoofer, it's either a 4ohm or 6ohm nominal rating. My 5B's which have tweeter fuses are early 5B's and are 4ohms and have the MW6502. Not sure what the later 5B with a 6ohm rating uses. Also be aware there are 5B's with sl1000 tweets too.

dpowell

I may keep my eyes open for another set of these. They're a great size for a desktop office rig and would run circles around the little Boston Acoustics PC speaker set currently on my desk....

PolkieMan

If they are indeed a 6Ohm speaker then two of them together would be a 3Ohm load.

Why don't you wire them in Series?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzGMdr6SH-E

dpowell

Thanks for the suggestion. After listening to the monitor 5 as a center channel for a few days, I can tell that it will not be a permanent fixture in the HT. The vocals are too boomy. On the Eagles Hell Freezes Over DTS DVD, the bongos on Hotel California sound like they're going to pop the drivers right out of the cabinet.:eek: I may have to go the way of an A6 or CS400. Man I wish I had kept my old CS1000p but had no reason to when I bought the SRT's.

westmassguy

I have an early pair of 5s which have MW6500s, and 8" PRs. These are true 8 ohm models. When I rebuilt the crossover, I noted that none of the published schematics matched the capacitor or resistor values found on my crossovers. All the later models used MW6502s which are 4 ohm drivers. I recently aquired a PDF file, which has all the Polk Stereo Review articles from the 80s. If memory serves, SR stated that the M5s and M7s should have been 4 ohm rated, not 6 ohm, since they spent most of their time at or below 4 ohms during testing.
I'm actually in the proccess of building a custom center channel using a rebuilt M5 crossover, an RDO-194 tweeter, flanked by two 8 ohm, MW drivers wired in parallel. I may or may not have to L-Pad the MWs, depending on the overall balance between the two MWs and the single RDO-194.
Polkieman's suggestion of wiring two M5s in series is valid, and IMHO would make a very nice, and very wide center channel.

westmassguy

anonymouse wrote: »

The caps in that speaker are likely shot. They used simple electrolytics even for the high pass if my memory serves me correct when I looked into mine. I'd spend just a few bucks on a capacitor upgrade before you write them off. If you do not want to go Sonicap, go with Jantzen, Solen etc. just to see how big of a difference it makes.

Agreed +1

teekay0007

dpowell wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion. After listening to the monitor 5 as a center channel for a few days, I can tell that it will not be a permanent fixture in the HT. The vocals are too boomy. On the Eagles Hell Freezes Over DTS DVD, the bongos on Hotel California sound like they're going to pop the drivers right out of the cabinet.:eek: I may have to go the way of an A6 or CS400. Man I wish I had kept my old CS1000p but had no reason to when I bought the SRT's.

Someone listed a CS400i for sale just a day or two ago - reason he's selling it: picked up his second CS1000P! Both are great centers for the SDAs. I have a CS400 in service with my 2Bs and just love it!

farfam

Hi to all. New here, just won an auction (evil site it is) for a pair of 5 jr's. They have the dreaded silver dome tweeter, so I'm guessing I'll be upgrading at some point. Just wanted to say thanks for the great info and great site. I've already learned a lot here and i'm sensing an addiction soon if all the praise i've heard for polks is true. Thanks, Scott

westmassguy

farfam wrote: »

Hi to all. New here, just won an auction (evil site it is) for a pair of 5 jr's. They have the dreaded silver dome tweeter, so I'm guessing I'll be upgrading at some point. Just wanted to say thanks for the great info and great site. I've already learned a lot here and i'm sensing an addiction soon if all the praise i've heard for polks is true. Thanks, Scott

Welcome! That's exactly how I started my addiction as well, with Monitor 5s. The Silver Coil tweeters sound a bit ragged to some, while others are quite happy with them. I'd do the crossover upgrades first, let them "burn-in" for a while, then decide on whether to replace them or not. In my case, I prefer textile dome tweeters over laminates or metal domes.

dpowell

Very nice! Get the XO's done for sure. The M5 XO's seem to be very simple to do and wouldn't cost much to do. Welcome to the addiction.

farfam

Just picked up a yamaha rx-770 receiver from cl to replace the pioneer vsx-521 surround receiver I hate. 80 watts my still-lovin'-the-old-school-watts butt! I like the old school stuff. My favorite is my pioneer sx-939. Now that's a real 85 watts. Can't wait to get it all together and see how it sounds.

gwg_97

westmassguy wrote: »

I have an early pair of 5s which have MW6500s, and 8" PRs. These are true 8 ohm models. When I rebuilt the crossover, I noted that none of the published schematics matched the capacitor or resistor values found on my crossovers. All the later models used MW6502s which are 4 ohm drivers. I recently aquired a PDF file, which has all the Polk Stereo Review articles from the 80s. If memory serves, SR stated that the M5s and M7s should have been 4 ohm rated, not 6 ohm, since they spent most of their time at or below 4 ohms during testing.
I'm actually in the proccess of building a custom center channel using a rebuilt M5 crossover, an RDO-194 tweeter, flanked by two 8 ohm, MW drivers wired in parallel. I may or may not have to L-Pad the MWs, depending on the overall balance between the two MWs and the single RDO-194.
Polkieman's suggestion of wiring two M5s in series is valid, and IMHO would make a very nice, and very wide center channel.

Please keep us posted on your center channel project. Sounds like a fun project. If I remember correctly, others have done this as well.

onebadchad

Have a pair on my bench, great old speakers

westmassguy

gwg_97 wrote: »

Please keep us posted on your center channel project. Sounds like a fun project. If I remember correctly, others have done this as well.

Will Do