SDA purchase advise

tonyp063

Bloody rabbit hole.Yes, I know I was warned. I'll suck it up like a man.

From what I can tell, they appear to be SDA-2As with SL-2000 tweeters.

Fair price? And, realistically, what will I be planning for post-purchase expense?
Not to buy & flip, but to keep. Need to have agreement from Herself.

Thanks

smglbrth

First off, welcome to Club Polk! Price varies greatly on location, condition. I paid $150 for mine in good shape. Totally stock with a few locations where the vinyl siding was pealing on the edges but they worked with no issues. Some will pay mucho bucks if they can't find anything in their area so it all depends on what you're willing to pay, basically...

deronb1

Yup, and odds are, you will spend more moding them than what you paid for em. Worth it though.

boston1450

I see a pair in my area for 150.00 sweet dollars. Youll need a IC cord & a amp to drive them. No AVR is going to work on those. IF price is right. I would DO it. Then down the road if you find something better sell them off
Edit:: they may come with the cord-check with seller

nspindel

Good advice above. Wait for 2B's.

boston1450

Valid point above first off. I agree with the better SDA's-if the Opening Poster is looking to spend the money on upgrading the speakers. Thats not being asked here. We have no idea what the ones he is looking at will cost to buy now 50-150.00 ?? if i was looking for SDA's local & they didnt come up often id buy them at a sweet deal. What one is better-well the 2b is a better sounding speaker from what ive read & ive never heard the SDA2A's Im kinda wondering if anyone who bought the 2a's enjoy the sounds of them. Gotta be someone out there that does like them

boston1450

The 2a are i believe a 4 ohm speaker & will need a amp that will accommodate them...... The 2b's can be used with a receiver at least 80wpc or amp. Will a receiver work. Yes. Will it make them dance. No. Buy a amp

ROHfan

I'll echo the above sentiments. I've owned the 2As and now have 2B Studios and I can state with confidence that you should wait for some 2Bs to come along. To my ears, they are THE speakers. Nothing has sounded better to me, ever.

nspindel

The 2A's have massive caps that will be expensive to replace. Besides being better sounding, the 2B crossover is much cheaper to upgrade. I give the same advice to anyone considering buying original CRS vs. buying CRS+.

Also 2B can be TL'ed and used with a dreadnaught.

deronb1

I have my 2Bs back and glad. Really pretty easy to drive. Im using a 130 wpc Onk. Drives em just fine. Can i tell a difference from the 205 wpc Parasound? Yes, mostly in the low end, but its not night and day

TennMan

I have a pair of 2BTLs that have the low DCR Erse inductors installed. They measure below 4 ohms. My Adcom 555 drives them best for 2 channel listening but my Yamaha 100 watt AVR does a good job for home theater use too. The Yamaha has a 6 ohm setting for the speakers as well as 8 ohm. When set to 6 ohms it handles the 4 ohm load just fine. The main difference I hear is in the tightness of the bass when listening to the Adcom. Best of both worlds would be an AVR with pre-outs to feed the Adcom for 2 channel listening.

PolkieMan

I hooked up my Carver TFM-25 to my 1C and since I only play at moderate levels in a 14 x16 room I went back to my Onkyo HT360, in fact I think the Onkyo sounds better and less gear to mess with, now if I was going set the room on fire things might be different LOL

westmassguy

tonyp063 wrote: »

Bloody rabbit hole.Yes, I know I was warned. I'll suck it up like a man.

From what I can tell, they appear to be SDA-2As with SL-2000 tweeters.

Fair price? And, realistically, what will I be planning for post-purchase expense?
Not to buy & flip, but to keep. Need to have agreement from Herself.

Thanks

Unfortunately, I disagree with a lot of the points made. I own fully upgraded 2As, that are TL'd, and are as formidable as the 2Bs when given the same upgrades. The crossovers are more expensive to upgrade than the 2Bs, but that's only due to the 260uf caps required for the Sub-Base Drive. Everything else is a wash.
I've done side by side listening tests with my 2As, and 2Bs, and there is no difference when the same quality caps/resistors are used in both. The 2As are limited to Common Ground amplifiers however. You cannot use an AI-1 or Dreadnaught with them.

PolkieMan

I prefer the wood caps on the 2B like all of the newer models and a simpler interconnect

nspindel

Dave, the question is though, if tonyp063 has not purchased these speakers yet, why would he not hold out until finding 2B's? I don't doubt that the off-label TL'ing of 2A's sounds great, but why would you choose to go that route over finding 2B's? Like you said, you still cannot use a dreadnaught and must use common ground, and you still need to do those big caps.

westmassguy

He asked for opinions, I gave mine. There seems to be a misguided opinion that 3rd generation SDAs are inherently inferior sounding to 4th generation, and that's simply not the case. I don't know where the OP lives, or how often vintage Polks show up in his area. They're like hens teeth here in New England for the most part.
As for Crossover parts, it's about $150.00 additional for the caps, with all else being equal.

Schurkey

westmassguy wrote: »

I don't know where the OP lives, or how often vintage Polks show up in his area. They're like hens teeth here in New England for the most part.

I haven't seen a pair of SDAs for sale in this entire state in the five years I've been watching Craigslist and longer than that for eBay. (I don't watch for other model Polks.)

I'd jump all over those speakers if they were the right price and I wanted a pair of mid-size SDAs. Any SDA that doesn't have an SDA tweeter is a good piece...and some folks are making a case for the models WITH the SDA tweeter--with mods.

YES, the big capacitors are expensive to replace in the 2As. There's some savings with the smaller SDA inductor, though. The 2A uses a 5.6mH inductor, the 2B uses an 18mH inductor.

deronb1

What do you mean by SDA tweeter?

deronb1

Oh yeah, now i remember. Didnt some SDAs have a dimentional tweeter?

westmassguy

The SDA-2s sound exceptional when upgraded, and the dimensional tweeters disconnected.

tonyp063

I don't know where the OP lives, or how often vintage Polks show up in his area. They're like hens teeth here in New England for the most part.

The OP lives in Baltimore, about 3 miles distance from Polk HQ :-)
I appreciate all the comments. Learning mode for me.

For the record, I'm the guy that just got back into the sound with a pair of 10As that are now in burn-in mode. Another CP member commented that I really need to consider the SDA rabbit hole because
More! Better!

So I have been looking at CL etc. around here.
A *huge* amount of current stuff & tinny 5.1 or 7.1 small crap for sale. Occasionally some really good (I assume) older stuff.
But I am not so naive to think I have a clue as to what is a fair or reasonable price for something, where it stands in the pantheon, or what I'll need to plop into it as a *needed* upgrade.

For example, the afore mentioned 10As cost me $100. Cosmetically ok. Not rough, not fine, but ok.
So the caps, resistors, yada yada yada added another $100+
Is it worth it? Probably yes, based upon what I'm hearing now.

I'm just trying to be *informed* about the SDAs.
Are they something I want? who knows.
If I don't like them, have I gotten burned on a price because I got blinded by a shiny thing & can't turn them over to someone who *does* like the things I don't?
And then where do I go?

Like I said. Trying to learn.

tonyp063

And I just realized that I didn't include the link to them
http://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/4870950230.html

Schurkey

In the absence of other options, $250 is an acceptable price. Nobody's being cheated, it's certainly not a "steal". It's OK. You cannot buy equivalent sound quality new for double that price.

Lack of IC cable is irritating. HOW can that get "lost"? Considering the lack of the cable, perhaps he'll accept $200?

As with my same-generation 1Bs, you MUST use a common-ground amp with the 2A if the IC cable is in place, and that's somewhat irritating, too. Probably accounts for the missing IC cable!

ARE there currently other options for SDA speakers in Polk-Land?

TennMan

I've had a pair of monitor 10s. They were good speakers but I like the 2Bs much better. If I were you I would pass on the SDA2s and wait until you come across some 2Bs. I don't know that 2Bs would sound better than the ones you are looking at on craigslist but they are a simpler design and a cheaper speaker to upgrade. I think the 2Bs are a more desirable speaker.

Be patient and you will eventually find some 2Bs. Keep cash on hand and be prepared to go pick them up as soon as you can when they come available. If you snooze you lose on craigslist deals. When my 2Bs popped up on craigslist I had them loaded in my car and headed home within a few hours. Don't quibble over a few dollars once you find what you want. Some people may be buying them for $100-$150 but around here they are going for closer to $300 when you are lucky enough to find them.

In the meantime enjoy your monitor 10s.

westmassguy

$250.00 is what I paid for mine. As Schurkey said, offer $200.00, with the explanation that you must fabricate or purchase a new interconnect cable. You won't be able to fully test them without one though.
BTW, the early 2Bs with the wrap-around grill, slab top and bottom, and Studio Monitors used the 2A cabinets. Polk used up leftover 3rd generation cabinets.
Even the labels from the 2As were used on the early 2Bs

Mystery

If not upgrading crossovers, 2A or 2B whatever is cheap, get it.
If plan is to upgrade, then don't get 2A because it'll add as much as you paid or more for the additional parts.

tonyp063

Thanks.
The guy wouldn't budge. So I will wait.
Garage sale season is approaching, so who knows

F1nut

I have a pair of 2BTLs that have the low DCR Erse inductors installed. They measure below 4 ohms.

You cannot measure the nominal impedance at the binding posts, that's resistance.

TennMan

F1nut wrote: »

I have a pair of 2BTLs that have the low DCR Erse inductors installed. They measure below 4 ohms.

You cannot measure the nominal impedance at the binding posts, that's resistance.

As usual you are probably right. I couldn't find my impedermeter that day so I had to use my multimeter set to ohms.