Vintage monitor 10A (restored) vs. 10B (restored) question

MrBlackCrow

Hi, i’m Wondering if somebody took a pair of monitor 10A’s and rebuilt the crossovers and replaced all the active drivers (replaced the peerless tweeters with MT-4115 tweeters and replaced the MW6500 midwoofers w/ new MW6503 midwoofers) and then essentially did the same thing w/ a pair of 10B’s- rebuilt the crossovers w/ like components and replaced all the active drivers (replaced the SL1000 tweeters w/ RDO 194 tweeters etc.) which ones they would like better- the “new” 10A’s or “new” 10B’s? I realize this may be a difficult question to answer because everybody likes different things but just wondering what the general consensus would be. Thanks

xschop

10B with CRS+ crossovers and Dayton DC28F tweeters dropped in is my vote. Actively looking for a set to do just that.

delkal

I always thought my 10As with the MW6500 drivers and Peerless sounds better than my 10B with the 6503 and SL1000's. But it is not just the difference with the tweeters. To me the 6500's give clearer midrange and tighter / deeper bass. I always had to use a subwoofer with the 10B's but with the 10A's I have been turning the sub off more often (same system, just swap speakers).

Might just be my setup but I don't think the 6503s are an upgrade to the original 6500s. FYI, Both of these had the original crossovers. In the process of recapping the 10A.

I wouldn't replace the Peerless till you recapped the speakers and listened to it for a while. They will grow on you, I really like the sound.

pkquat

Unless the peerless tweeters are confirmed to be bad, which is rather rare, I would not replace them. While I have heard decent things about the MT-4115 tweeters, I think people still prefer the peerless sound.

The RD0-194's or 198's will be close to the peerless in quality, I think opinions are mixed there. IMO the 198's might actually be a bit better, but the peerless has a sound I find pleasing.

I would agree, I am more impressed with the MW6500 sound. That said there may have been some cabinet changes to the 10's between the models. I know there were for the 5 and 7 series when switching to the newer MW's which affected their overall sound and bass. I think for the 5's and 7's some would say the later ones have more bass, but they can be a bit boomy in the upper bass range.

Converting 10's to SDA speakers is also an option. 10's are more considered "rocking" speakers because they have more thump than the smaller models with only one MW, but because the 10's MW's are side by side the imaging is not as good.

MrBlackCrow

i picked up a pair of monitor 10A speakers- the cabinets are in excellent shape. now, i somehow overlooked the fact that everybody said the original peerless are better than the MT-4115 clones. so, i dropped in the clones thinking i'd have "nice new tweeters", but that wasn't so as the MT-4115 clones have a bad harshness to them. so then i put the original peerless back in and they sound great. i replaced the original MW6500 drivers w/ new 6503 drivers before really listening to the MW6500's, but the 6503's sound just fine so there's no reason to put the 6500's back in. i also had the crossovers rebuilt w/ sonicaps and mills. these speakers sound great to me. so, all in all, the project turned out fine. thanks to everybody for their advice.

F1nut

Out of curiosity, did you let the clones burn in for say 50 hours before judging them?

MrBlackCrow

yes, 100+ hours

F1nut

Thanks, guess it's time to stop recommending them.

MrBlackCrow

so, based on what delkal posted, i decided to put the original MW6500 drivers back in. delkal was correct, the MW6500's have clearer midrange and deeper bass over the MW6503 drivers. not sure why polk decided to stop producing the MW6500's. now, my 10A speakers w/ the original drivers and the newly rebuilt crossovers w/ sonicaps and mills sound really nice. thanks to all for their input.

westmassguy

Polk my have adjusted the weight on the Passive Radiators, or used different PRs entirely when they switched to the MW6503s. There were many documented and undocumented revisions along the way.

MrBlackCrow

Well, this hobby is funny isn’t it...sometimes when someone else hears something you begin to hear it too. Anyway I found out about comb-filtering. So now these speakers don’t sound so good to me. They sounded good when I was a kid in the 80’s. Was just going on what I remembered when I dove into this project. Now i’d Say that my system is too good, at least in my mind, for the sound to get screwed up at the speakers. That’s why I have moved to 5A’s. The imaging and all, ya know.