Polk 7 B on Ebay right now

Pastor Bill

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191252150464?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

A little too rich for me after shipping is figured in. Sigh.

Nightfall

That's a overpriced IMO. I paid a little more than that for my RTA-12B's...

That's the exact pair I would like to try as a center channel in place of my Monitor 5's though.

nspindel

Very overpriced. You can get SDA's for $200.

pglbook

I agree that they are overpriced.

I spent months last year finding a buyer for my Polk 7Bs (with peerless tweeter) and mine were priced at only $120.

cnh

I agree. A bit too high. But they do have the Peerless, which is a plus.

BTW, Pastor Bill, I picked up some Fried Q2s the other day so I can now do a side by side comparison with the Monitor 7s. The 7s are a larger speaker. The Q2s have a transmission line like cabinet with a 2 1/2 inch square by 10"+ foam vent plug on their bottom (a little like the Dynacos) which can actually be used to tune the bass (denser or less dense foam, or no foam at all). They're a nice speaker, but definitely MORE forward than Monitor 7s.

I'm still experimenting with them. They are interesting; they have very "fast" bass (faster than Monitors) but they are brighter with most of my amps, and I'm a "warm" guy, so I really have to give the nod, so far, to the Polks.

Nonetheless I can understand why some might like this speaker with its tighter and somewhat less pronounced bass a little better and, perhaps, more detailed top end of its tweeter? You need to get your older "ears" back on some 7s, IMO.

Happy hunting!


cnh

Nightfall

Maybe Pastor Bill would like a pair of Klipsch or JBL's if that's the case?

Pastor Bill

Have seen JBL 2500s but have not heard them. Any Klipsch that I have heard has been very pleasing initially...but after listening for a while, they seem to be a bit "brighter" or more "strident" than I would like.

cnh - would love to "re-audition some 7s, to see if my aging ears and more mature tastes have changed my opinion of them.

I have a "deal" pending with a fellow that has offered to part out his Qs...if I can secure that, I'll rebuild to original (as close as possible) the one speaker that I had to have repaired. Still looking, though. :-)

westmassguy

Pastor Bill, those are way overpriced. I paid $100.00 for a near mint pair of Monitor 7s, original owner, and original Polk Stands, 35 miles from me: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?159345-Looky-what-followed-me-home

cnh......interesting that you find the bass "faster" than the Monitors. The 6.5" Polk drivers are very fast, and fluid coupled to the PR.
Have you checked for airtightness on your 7s?

Mystery

I sold my recapped peerless 7's for $125.

cnh

westmassguy wrote: »

Pastor Bill, those are way overpriced. I paid $100.00 for a near mint pair of Monitor 7s, original owner, and original Polk Stands, 35 miles from me: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?159345-Looky-what-followed-me-home

cnh......interesting that you find the bass "faster" than the Monitors. The 6.5" Polk drivers are very fast, and fluid coupled to the PR.
Have you checked for airtightness on your 7s?

I'm not saying that the M 7s don't have tight bass but that the Frieds are a little tighter. Bud Fried was, evidently, a "master" when it came to this quasi transmission line tuning and the 8" bass driver in the Frieds seems to have a lighter mass polycone?

I don't have a decent camera so here's a stock pic of the Q3s (I believe a newer model after the 2s but it looks pretty much the same). Not a big cab...about 20" X 10 1/2" x 8 1/2" so much smaller than the M-7s and lighter but the bass is rounding through the top and coming down a tunnel to that foam vent so it puts out more bass than you'd expect, but a very tight and controlled bass. Nothing sloppy.

Oh, on JBL 2X00 series. If you want bass don't go smaller than the 2600. And you'd probably be best off with the 2800 (8" two way). But watch out for their Titanium domes, they fail at a very HIGH rate!

cnh

cnh

Pastor Bill,

Here is the LINK for the foam you can use to replace the original. Seems to be ACE A/C foam you can get at the hardware store. Open cell.

http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1301198

cnh

Pastor Bill

Interesting...without seeing the Q2s, I've noted some differences.
My cabinet is a walnut finish.
The woofer on mine uses a butyl surround and a paper cone impregnated with some type of polymer. (I "think.")
The foam in my bass port appears to be lighter duty and folded over. It is deteriorating and will soon need replacement.
My tweeter appears to be domed units without the metal grill.
Grill covers on mine are long ago gone...I don't think they even had a frame or attachment hardware. They were a friction fit if I remember.

Thanks for posting this, cnh!

cnh

Qs were available in Walnut, this is the black version.

The earliest models may have used a doped paper cone. Fried sourced drivers from a variety of manufacturers over the course.

This is a pretty standard foam plug for these speakers. Most have this kind in them. Fried, himself, suggested that owners "play" around with the foam plugs and even run them without the foam depending on one's room, etc.

Domed units on most Qs I've seen almost always have a grill? What's important is what's under the grill, the tweeter has a very "distinctive" surface and can easily be distinguished as original.

Not sure on later models, because some A-s also look like Qs. I know from mhardy's post and some googling that Fried did start to use some KEF drivers later on.

Unfortunately, there is NOT a lot of info on these on the net.

Actually, the bass sounds fuller now that I've actually replaced the old foam with the material I link above, which also makes them a tad less forward--which, IMO, is a GOOD thing!

cnh

Pastor Bill

cnh:

I'll follow your experiments and postings with more than a little interest.

Bill

JerryR1verz

I got my 7b's out of Virginia and paid $90.... My brother in law picked them up then had to wait for the next vaca to the east coast to get them home.

Pastor Bill

Howdy all:
(and especially directed toward cnh)

Things have just become interesting. Managed to purchase two FriedModel Q3 woofers (newly refoamed) to replace/match in my Fried Model Qs first offering. Hopefully, everything will fit and that original "sound" I appreciated will return. I'll also play with replacing/tweaking the foam in the transmission line port. I "could" have purchased a pair of 5jr+ plus for the same money...with the addition of a 3 plus hour round trip. Sentimental value and the urge to tinker, I guess. Will post again following the install...good, bad or indifferent.