Replacement Tweeter and Crossover Questions

hjlamb

I have a pair of Monitor 5jr+ that I use in my office during the day and one of the tweeters has started to fail. They currently have SL3000s in them and I know that the RDO198 replaces that speaker. When I looked at the crossover, I see that it is actually using the original 5jr+ circuit that includes the polyswitch. Should I rebuild the crossover to use the revised circuit when I replace the tweeters or can I safely use the existing circuit? I bought these used about 10 years ago with the SL3000 in them and they have worked beautifully until recently. I just wanted to know before I put in the new speakers to prevent any potential damage.

Thanks in advance for your advice or assistance. I have only recently joined the forum and found that it is an invaluable resource. I have been a huge fan of Polk speakers for years (I also have a pair of amazing RTA11s that I use in my main system).

Sincerely,
Herb

agfrost

Welcome to the forum.

Are your speakers the original 5jr+, or 5jr+ Series 2?

The Series 2 shipped with SL2500 tweeters, and the RDO198 is the replacement there.

The original 5jr+ shipped with SL2000 tweeters; and RDO194 would be the replacement for those. Since you indicate you have a polyswitch, it looks like this is what you have since the schematic for the series 2 doesn't appear to have one.

Once you've decided which one you need, call the Polk customer service number to order--you'll get a discount/free shipping to the lower 48.

hjlamb

Thanks for the quick reply. That's part of my confusion as well. The sticker on the box says Series 2 but they do have the polyswitch on the crossover. I thought that they might have made two version of the 5jr+ series 2. I guess that I'll just check with customer service to see what I should do. Thanks again.

pitdogg2

Polk is known for using left over parts. I say a picture of crossover and drivers would help a bunch to get a 100% right answer.

agfrost

From the schematics (have you found those at the top of the vintage speakers forum?) it looks like the two differences in the two models are 1) Presence of polyswitch in the original (SL2000 version), and 2) the lone cap is 12uF in the older version, 13.5 uF in the newer/Series 2 version. Looking at that cap would be helpful (as pitdogg indicates).

Jay

hjlamb

Thanks everyone for the feedback. It turns out that these may have used the old crossover on the the series 2. Anyway, I ordered new RDO-198s and will just remove the polyswitch and replace the capacitors. Polk customer service said the the new tweeter will work with either crossover but would be optimized with the updated version. Thanks again for everyone's responses and feedback.

Herb

F1nut

Polk customer service said the the new tweeter will work with either crossover but would be optimized with the updated version.

If the crossover was designed to use the SL2000 as you seem to indicate, the SL2500/SL3000/RD0198-1 is not the right tweeter regardless of what they told you.

hjlamb

Thanks for the reply. I have already ordered the replacement capacitors for the crossover to make it fully compatible/optimized for the RDO198.

Great signature be the way.