Early father's day present - Monitor 5's

HTguru1982

I was able to pick these up a couple of days ago for cheap. Monitor 5B's. These must be early B's as they have the fuse protection on the back. They're in good shape(aside from those marks on the SL2000) and of course, they sound great. The top end has some bite but I imagine some 194's and a crossover refresh will take care of that.

Mikey081057

They look great.. I have the same ones and have had them since the 80's and still love to listen to them... I put the 194's in and it really helped the shrill of the 2000's....what are you going to hook them up to?

voltz

Those are nice! these Vintage Polk's sure get in your blood. after grabbing up some M4's & M10's I look at your 5's and I starting thinking "oh I'd like a pair like that too"

Now I see why you all have a house full of these Polk's

HTguru1982

Mikey081057 wrote: »

They look great.. I have the same ones and have had them since the 80's and still love to listen to them... I put the 194's in and it really helped the shrill of the 2000's....what are you going to hook them up to?

I think I'm going to set them up in the bedroom with a Kenwood KA-894 integrated. Probably not the best vintage piece but it should do okay. I'd like to get a NAD at some point, though.

voltz wrote: »

Those are nice! these Vintage Polk's sure get in your blood. after grabbing up some M4's & M10's I look at your 5's and I starting thinking "oh I'd like a pair like that too"

Now I see why you all have a house full of these Polk's

It's a disease lol. I'm looking at your Monitor 10's and am thinking the same thing. These vintage Polks are amazing IMO.

westmassguy

If you're going to do the crossovers, do the TL mod, and put 198s in

pwgphoto

I just picked up a set of 5's myself on Father's Day from a guy off Craigslist for $40. I am not exactly sure which model 5's they are, I am new to the world of Polk speakers, but they looked in decent shape and sounded good so I bought them. The one I photographed does have the dust cap pushed in, but that is all that seems to be wrong with them. I just got back into playing vinyl records after not having done so since I was a kid in the early 80's. These speakers seem to be a nice upgrade to the old Infinity SS2002 bookshelf's I was using.

Can anyone tell me what model these are and some basic info on what you all do to make them better?

boston1450

Nice looking monitors HT & pwgphoto.. There are a few things you CAN do - drop in replacement tweeters from Polk if your not pleased with them. Also with vintage speakers Upgrading the crossovers at some point if you have the budget.

boston1450

There is alot of info on the Monitor speakers here & plenty of members to help. If you read the STICKY when you opened this Vintage Speakers you can read alot of info. I would definitely pull the(middle MW)driver & apply some JB-weld around the magnet to keep it from shifting. One little drop/hit & the magnet will shift. There are threads here to walk you through step-by-step. While your in there look at your backside of your driver & it should be stamped Year/it was manufactured

westmassguy

pwgphoto wrote: »

I just picked up a set of 5's myself on Father's Day from a guy off Craigslist for $40. I am not exactly sure which model 5's they are, I am new to the world of Polk speakers, but they looked in decent shape and sounded good so I bought them. The one I photographed does have the dust cap pushed in, but that is all that seems to be wrong with them. I just got back into playing vinyl records after not having done so since I was a kid in the early 80's. These speakers seem to be a nice upgrade to the old Infinity SS2002 bookshelf's I was using.

Can anyone tell me what model these are and some basic info on what you all do to make them better?

Welcome to Club Polk. Those are 5Bs. You can find the schematics here: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?38755-POLK-AUDIO-Speaker-Wiring-Schematics-amp-More-ALL-MODELS-except-SDA
Typical upgrades are: rebuilding the crossovers as is and upgrading the tweeters to RDO-194-1s or doing the "TL" modification, and upgrading to the RDO-198-1 tweeters, installing Hurricane Nuts and Machine or Cap Screws, Dynamatting the woofers and PRs, gluing the woofer magnet assemblies with JB Weld, epoxy or Loctite Power Grab, installing Blackhole5 behind the woofers, re-sealing the cabinets internally, installing new gaskets if needed, and replacing the original binding posts with better quality posts.

HTguru1982

Westmassguy, what's the difference between the 198 and 194? What has to be changed on the crossover to accommodate the 198?

boston1450

Interesting -- http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?97267-rdo-194-vs-rdo-198 dont think it quite answers question but interesting

westmassguy

HTguru1982 wrote: »

Westmassguy, what's the difference between the 198 and 194? What has to be changed on the crossover to accommodate the 198?

In my opinion, the 198s have more detail than the 194s. The 194s are no slouch, but the 198s do everything better.
If you look at the 5B SL3000 schematic, a 5.8uf shunt cap has to be added across the 2 ohm resistor, and the .23mh shunt inductor has to be changed to a .27mh. The schematic calls for a .27mh inductor @ .5 ohms, which I could not find from my normal suppliers. I had to use a 20 gauge .3mh Jantzen, unwind it to .27, and add a .2 ohm resistor in series with it to equal the required .5 ohm resistance for the shunt.