Help identifying vintage speakers

PaulWithSpeakers

Hello everyone,

I have recently bought a bulk lot of vintage HiFi items from a local auction, which included a pair of vintage Polk speakers which I am interested in identifying. Unfortunately, there is not much to go on, other than what appear to be consecutive serial numbers. The speakers are quite small, pretty heavy and, from their design and the orientation of the 'Polk Audio' badge, designed to sit horizontally.

Does anyone have any ideas? The other set of speakers I got from the auction were a pair of Acoustic Research AR18s. I like knowing when things are from, a bit about their history etc., and while this information is pretty readily available for the AR18s, I am struggling to find much about these Polk speakers.

Unfortunately, although I have been able to confirm that these speakers do work, I do not have a reliable amp to test them for extended listening, and am currently eyeing off a Rotel RA-820BX2 to drive either these or the AR speakers.

I'll upload some pictures in my next post.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

PaulWithSpeakers

Gardenstater

Polk Mini Monitors. Maybe 1976

PaulWithSpeakers

Thanks - that was quick! All the mini monitors I had googled looked slightly different. I am assuming that the trapezoidal cabinets and centered tweeters indicate that they are an early model, as pretty much every comparable image I can find has a rectangular cabinet and the tweeter at the top.

F1nut

Yours are the very early Mini Monitor. They actually had optional brackets for mounting in a vehicle...LOL

PaulWithSpeakers

All interesting stuff. Thank you.

I decided to have a look at the speakers and was quite surprised to see what is to my mind a fairly non standard arrangement. Can anyone comment on this? It all seems a bit DIY.







But for all I know this is 'normal'. The other speaker is as expected (i.e. the whole thing comes out in one piece and it wired in), and I opted to leave the tweeter for fear of damaging something. I don't these to have survived for the last 47 years only to have me put a screwdriver through them now.

Gardenstater

Nothing abnormal there. That's a passive radiator.

PaulWithSpeakers

The things you learn. Thank you.

It was the chunk of wood with the screw in it that seemed particularly out of place for me.

Gardenstater

They had changed the driver arrangement by the time Stereo Review looked at it in Aug 1979:

Gardenstater

PaulWithSpeakers wrote: »

The things you learn. Thank you.

It was the chunk of wood with the screw in it that seemed particularly out of place for me.

That might be an inductor that it is holding in place, maybe even a point to point basic crossover circuit. Check it out.

ChrisD06

Others have already answered your questions, so I'm just here to say that's a very cool find! Have you hooked them up yet?

stevep

PaulWithSpeakers wrote: »

It all seems a bit DIY.

That pretty much describes very early Polk.

PaulWithSpeakers

There is something nice about something being visibly hand made, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

Regarding how they sound, I have hooked them up, but my only amp that is compatible has a dead channel, so I can only do mono until I sort that situation out. So I listened to Bob Marley's Exodus album (seemed era appropriate) after I put them back together the other night and while I was happy with what I heard I know I wasn't doing the speakers justice.

PaulWithSpeakers

Just an update for anyone who is interested. I did end up getting the Rotel RA-820BX2 amp and, after hooking up these speakers, was really very impressed with the sound. Obviously there is not a great deal of bass, which took a bit of time to get used to, but once I became more accustomed to that I found that there were a whole lot of details in the highs that I wasn't used to hearing through my regular setup (which is a Sharp Optonica GS-4250A with stock speakers). For example, listening to Milkshake by Kelis (as one does) I found the synths had a very pleasant buzz and the darbuka slaps sounded great. Other, better songs also sounded good. I think using an amp without tone controls helped me to appreciate these speakers, since otherwise I think I would have been tweaking them to sound like how I thought they should have rather than just listening and letting them do their thing.

All that said, I have now hooked up the AR18s I got at the same time, and I don't think I will be switching back. I still think the highs of the Polks were probably better, but the overall fuller sound of the Acoustic Research speakers suits my listening habits better. This is an instance where I would love for my amp to have a speaker a/b switch, since I think the Polks would be great for listening to acoustic music.

Thanks again for all the info on these little speakers. It really is appreciated, and I reckon I'll have to figure out a way to keep listening to them in some capacity.

Gardenstater

Did you ever get a photo of the crossover or other innards under that screwed down plywood piece?

They fared pretty well (bested by Braun L-200 and ADS 300 and tied by Realistic Minimus 7 and Sansui J11) in the comparison with different mini speakers in that issue I gave the excerpt from (Beautiful Babies: Listening Tests on 19 Minispeakers). I remember a friend in high school had the Lafayette Pip Speaks or something like that. They sounded pretty good.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/70s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1979-08.pdf