polk sda srs 2.3 tl

Jessefaulcon

hi. wanting a speaker that sounds like real instruments , will sda srs 2.3 tl do that ?

honestaquarian

Hey welcome to the forum
The answer to that question depends ENTIRELY on the listener/owner.
Some think that the SDA's do and some think the opposite. There is,however no doubt that they DO have a unique sound that CAN be VERY addictive.
I've been addicted since I first heard the Original SDA-1's way back in 1982!!

Rex81

The SDA series are all well balanced speakers. They do a great job of emulating real instruments. Of course there are speakers out there that will resolve better and have more of that last level of detail, but none will have the wide soundstage and none will be as good for as little money. Anything comparable will be many times more money, and will still not give you the enormous soundstage.

Most who hear SDAs (and all of us on this board) love the soundstage. I have heard that some people find it jarring and yes, even find it unnatural. Here's my personal take:

It sounds unnatural to what people normally hear from speakers. Sound normally comes out of the speaker. That's where people expect it to come from. With a well set up pair of good speakers you will hear the sound directly in front of you, between the two speakers as well.

With SDAs that are properly set up, the sound comes from everywhere in front of you, including far outside of the speaker. To me, it's the difference between being in the 10th row of a concert (regular speakers) and being on stage with the band (SDAs). I'm a musician, so I like the sound of being on stage with the band. It gets you closer to the instruments. But others may prefer to have a more direct sound coming into their ears.

The only way to know for sure is to hear them in person and compare them to other speakers. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with what you hear out of the 2.3TL.

amb426amb1

Have a set of the 2.3TL's and love the sound stage. I think they are far beyond my Infinity RS iii's which were also well regarded in there day. The one thing I would say is you will need to upgrade components to really get the most out of them. After upgrading the tweeters available from Polk they really improved. There are several other optional upgrades listed throughout the forum to get the most out of them.

Jessefaulcon

thank you for the insight . i do love the sound stage effect ! Just need to clean the sound of the mid range a little and add a tad bit mor definition . hoping upgrades will do the trick

machone

Jesse,
I have been upgrading my 2.3TL's this year.
I would recommend replacing the tweeters with RD 198'S first. They made a huge difference in the overall sound. Even the bass tightened up.
After the tweeters there is a long list of improvements. My speakers have transformed with upgrades.

Gunther16

I think I can knowingly contribute to this post. Very recently I had the rare opportunity to do a side by side comparison with my 3.1TL Polks. The comparison was made to a very fine Bowers & Wilkins 803D2 which cost about 5X what the Polks did. Not to get into the fine details or recommendations it very quickly became apparent that both sets have their positives and negatives. The B&W's had a fine soundstage and were very enjoyable to listen to but were literally blown away by the gigantic soundstage of the Polks. This is not to say that the Polks are a better set it only says that in my opinion there is no speaker made at this time that will provide a true concert soundstage as the SDA Polks. Yes I must admit that the B&W had me enthralled by their sound but so do my humble 3.1TL's. The Polk SDA Series speakers are truly in a class all by themselves. Either you love the humongous sound or you don't. It happens I do. But I also liked the other. For what its worth I'll be hanging on to my Polks for the forseable future.