Can't remove woofer grills from my Polk Audio LSi15 speakers

rdavidw

I got a pair of Polk Audio LSi15s around 2003 that were formally store demo speakers. They have served me well but I want to upgrade the wolfers. I can't get the woofer grills off and have torn up the fabric trying. There is a little molded plastic tab in the bottom of the ring that holds the fabric. I used a metal pick, I tried a thin metal drywall spatula, working it all the way around. I hooked up a slide to the metal pick and hooked the pick end under the tab and hammered it to the point that the wood sides started to separate. I then got a wood working clamp and made a elevated brace and slid one end of the camp under the plastic tab and then clamped it against the brace. It just started to crack the plastic tab.

Any other ideas? Were the woofer grills on the demo speakers glued in or something? I am just outside Baltimore, MD. Is there a place I can bring them in to to have this done?

As a side note - They sounded fairly good on my old Pioneer Elite receiver of the same vintage. I replaced that with an Emotive XMC-1 (GEN I), XPA-2 (Gen II) amp and XPA-3 (Gen II) amp and I couldn't believe the sound was coming out of the same speakers. Night and day improvement. I am running a Velodyne SPL 1200 Sub which has strong tight bass but I am hoping the upgraded woofers in the LSi15s will improve the overall bass further.

Thanks for your help with this. Big Polk fan!

rdavidw

I sent an email to Polk as well and got the following reply back: "The grille on the older models of the LSi15 speakers can be difficult to remove. The grille is held in with a strong adhesive tape and needs to be pried off. A stainless steel putty knife is generally considered the one of best tools to use to pry the grille off. While it will require some amount of force to pry the grille off, you will want to take care not to damage the cabinet when doing so."

I got a stainless steel puddy knife and worked my way around the cloth circle but it would not budge at all, not even a little. At this point my cloth woofer grills were already torn up some so I decided to cut the cloth out so I could get a pry bar in under the grill ring from the inside. Once I cut the cloth out I could see the plastic woofer cloth ring was flanged and screwed in from the back. I then decided I had to pry off the wood side. I got my putty knife in and it popped right off as it was only held on with Velcro plugs. This is totally different then the photos I saw on this forum and elsewhere. Maybe I got an early model that was later changed? With the sides popped off I was able to easily replace the drivers and put in some new grill cloth.

All good now. Hopefully this will help if anyone else runs into this.

F1nut

Thanks for sharing that info. Looks like someone installed the wrong woofer though.

rdavidw

Yup - Would have rather kept it all Polk. What us the right Polk woofer upgrade that is currently available? The ones I used seem to be an improvement over the old stock ones but I am sure the recommended Polk woofer upgrade would be superior.

I have been happy with my current setup:
Polk LSi15, LSiC & LSiFX
Velodyne SPL 1200 Sub
Emotiva XMC-1, XPA-2, XPA-3
Samsung 82" TV, Pro-Ject RM 1.3 turntable (Acrylic Platter & Ortofon 2M Blue, Pro-Ject Speedbox S & Tube Box S) Roku Ultra, & Media PC
Screen Room & Outdoor Bar: Two Emotiva A-150 off the XMC-1 Zone 2 with a spliter each powering a pair of Polk Atrium 8 SDI

I am keeping an eye out for good deal on some Polk LSiM707s. I wish I knew about the sale Polk had on them. Amazon has great deals on the LSiM center and surrounds.

Cheers!

classic carl

@rdavidw
What do you mean by woofer upgrade? What was wrong with the old woofers? If they were toast, they should have been replaced with the exact same woofer. The original woofers were designed for those speakers.

pitdogg2

Carl the polk db woofer was considered an upgrade to LSi series. Polk no longer makes the db series that was all the rage for these I'm aware of. He has taken a chance with this woofer to try and replicate the same results as with the db series.
Also from what I understand parts for the LSi 15/25 speakers are long out of production and very hard to obtain.

rdavidw

Hey Carl -

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/89529/db840-sub-in-lsi15s-replace-the-stock-8-driver/p1

http://rudy.sloup.org/projects/LSi15_Modifications/

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/189896/polk-lsi15-subwoofer-upgrade-to-mid-bass-driver

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/comment/2624729#Comment_2624729

The Alphasonik HSW208 Hyper 200 Series 8” woofers on amazon got fairly good reviews with one being used in the same SLi15. It's a noticeable improvement in the low mid-range. Sounds more snappy and full in the lower mid-range but this is subjective. I ran DIRAC room and speaker corrections - https://live.dirac.com/ before changing out the woofers. This changes the signal to the speakers to create a more linear frequency response to the listening position. Works amazingly well. I have not rerun it with the new woofers and likely won't as my personal preference is the slightly enhanced lower range. I believe the replacement woofers are a bit more efficient then the stock ones.

The woofer replacement is noticeable but not significant improvement but not expensive either. The crossover upgrade would be a bigger improvement but that is around $500 or so. I moved to a larger house and my system is now in a two story high, very large room so I am looking to upgrade to the larger SLi707s.

Cheers

rdavidw

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Carl the polk db woofer was considered an upgrade to LSi series. Polk no longer makes the db series that was all the rage for these I'm aware of. He has taken a chance with this woofer to try and replicate the same results as with the db series.
Also from what I understand parts for the LSi 15/25 speakers are long out of production and very hard to obtain.

Correct Pitdogg