Vintage vs. Contemporary

Early B.

Not really familiar with the vintage Polks. Just wondering what the appeal is for vintage Polks compared to the current RTi and Lsi series. Is it the price, quality, sound, looks, nostalgia, or what?

How does the SQ differ?

For those who own vintage Polks, would you recommend that newbies and slightly seasoned Polkies (i.e., say 1-3 years) pursue vintage Polks for their main rigs in lieu of the new stuff?

nadams

Well, I can't accurately answer all of your questions. For me, the appeal of vintage polks is their appeal, and the fact that they still sound good. Polk used high-quality drivers in their speakers, with rubber surrounds, so that they don't deteriorate over time. The reason I cannot answer all of your questions is because I have actually NEVER heard a contemporary Polk speaker. Whenever I see them in a store, they're not hooked up, and the price prevents me from buying some to play around with. While they may not be high-priced in terms of high quality speakers, they are in terms of 18 y/o HS graduate looking for a job and making a truck payment

The SQ of the old Polks is, to me, extremely impressive. While my 10A's may not be totally vintage (is '91 vintage? That's the oldest date that I've found on my drivers), they still blow me away every time I get them cranked up. :cool:

danger boy

i think what gets me interested in vintage gear is the price.. you can get some great deals on used speakers, receivers, tuners, amps.... etc. the sound quality like nadams said.. is very impressive. I only own a pair of Monitor 7's. and they still sound fantastic.

Larry Chanin

Originally posted by Early B.
Not really familiar with the vintage Polks. Just wondering what the appeal is for vintage Polks compared to the current RTi and Lsi series. Is it the price, quality, sound, looks, nostalgia, or what?

How does the SQ differ?

For those who own vintage Polks, would you recommend that newbies and slightly seasoned Polkies (i.e., say 1-3 years) pursue vintage Polks for their main rigs in lieu of the new stuff?

Hi Early,

I'm afraid that I can't answer all your questions, but one thing the vintage Polks have is a technology that is simply not offered today, by Polk Audio or anyone else for that matter. I'm referring to Stereo Dimensional Arrays (SDA). With the right type of source material my vintage SDA-1Cs can throw a sonic image beyond the width of the speakers so it sounds like the source is outside the room. I don't hear this all the time, but when I do it still never fails to startle me.

I have a pair of LC265is with performance enclosures. They are the In-Wall version of the LSi series. They are serving as my surround back speakers in a 7.1 setup. I like these contemporary Polks speakers very much and they can go rather low. However I can't fairly compare them with my SDA-1cs which serve as my main speakers, since they are performing entirely different functions.

Larry

I-SIG

Yep, SDA goes a long way in increasing the appeal of vintage Polks.

The newest Polks that I have spent quality time with are the much desired RT55i's. They may be ever so slightly more detailed in the midrange, but are otherwise no match for the SDA's.

Wes

Pauly

Originally posted by nadams
While my 10A's may not be totally vintage (is '91 vintage? That's the oldest date that I've found on my drivers), they still blow me away every time I get them cranked up. :cool:

Dude those cant be all orig drivers...91?? The A's (10 and 7's) were are talking 70's early 80's from my knowledge. The 10's i just picked up yesterday were mfg 87's and these are C's. The peerless tweets with the pin hole in the middle , yours got those?


As far as vintage polks go, i own the Monitor 7's and 10's and you talk about some kick **** sound for some old gems..man, its a beautiful thing. I got started out on Polks for HT and thought those were great, man you aint heard nuttin yet If you are ever in the Tampa area let me know

Pauly

nadams

They look original to me, except for the tweeter.

Breakdown is this:

SL2500 Tweeter date: 1995 (looks to have been replaced, but with a Polk replacement)
Mw6503 drivers: both 1991
PR: 1991

I can't hardly see someone blowing out a PR.....

In all reality, I now see that I do not have Monitor 10A's... I have the Monitor 10 Series II. The 10A's had SL1000's and MW6500's. Oops.... Perhaps mine is a final revision of the Monitor 10 series? The Monitor 10B is listed as '84 '85.

Pauly

to my understading the early 7's and 10's had the peerless tweets,,, not even polks. i might be wrong on the 10's but the 7's for sure...Maybe Russman could chime in, i know he knows that history.

Pauly

Edit..yeah I think the series II were after C's ( a,b,c's respectfully). None the less they all sound good

nadams

I know that my mid-80's Monitor 5jr's had the peerless SL1000 tweeter, but these SL2500 are branded as Polk Audio tweeters, which I believe makes them a later model. I, admittedly, know very little about Polk history (part of why I'm here), so I don't know if the Monitor 10 Series II were manufactured into the 90's. I'm going to assume from my driver dates, however, that they were.

Early B.

I'd like to try out a pair. What's a good price for a pair of Polk Monitor 10's in very good condition?

Emlyn

Old Polks win easily on price, quality, and sound for two channel music if one can find a good clean pair. The speakers below were manufactured in 1986 and sound better for music than anything Polk currently makes. All original drivers, and they cost a grand total of $310 shipped for the pair. About the cost of a pair of new RTi bookshelf speakers. I may replace the tweeters with the replacement silk ones. I have the new tweeters in another pair of SDAs and they sound smoother than the original SL2000s. This would add another $96 to the cost. I haven't heard better speakers for music for under $2000-$3000 (except the other SDAs I've heard of course). For a home theater system though I'd recommend getting LSis, which I currently use for that purpose but never found entirely satisfactory for music by themselves.

nadams

I've been told (by Russ) that the SL2000's have a "Nasty +5db 'hump' right at 12-13Khz". (Hope you don't mind me quoting you, Russ) He claims the SL2500 is a better driver. I wonder why Polk engineered the tweeters that way

mhardy6647

Forgive me for free-associating, but thought it might be appropos to share a couple of scans from a Polk brochure I got back when I was shopping for speakers the first time around (ca. 1977). These were the drivers in the original 7's and 10's.

mhardy6647

Here's the front cover (resized a bit for posting). Note the small (8") PR in the Monitor 7 and the fact that the PR's in these early "Monitor series" speakers were not coated.