Bring Back the SDA - Fan List

dudeinaroom

I will never be able to thank you enough. Now I will be able justify hooking up the kenwood tuner I have in the closet(kt 5300 I think). The tuner sounds alot better than what the technics has built in. This will also let me pull the technics from the system (the 2ch part of my system did not make it into being as the busty one(did say little lady, but she came in and said "little lady? Don't you mean the busty one) said she would not be able to listen to the radio). The ht is going to be put up until we can get a house. when said does happen the Infinitys will be pulling main duty most likely with the panny's as center and surrounds, and the klh sub. The polks will be paired with the adcom/kenwood setup and the following year's income tax sould bring in a cd/sacd player.
But for now in our little appartment I will be taking it down to a 2ch setup, because I am sick of having no room.

dudeinaroom

snow wrote:

P.S you will like this unit dude.
your 2 channel music will sound so much better it will be like your listening to diffrent cds.

You are totaly right. I will never be able to thank you enough.

westdr1

I own a pair of 2.3's and thought I had seen a thread on tweaking them. I have had them since 1989. I am curious as to wether the caps are still good over the years.

civilian

Absolutely bring back the SDA!
I will be starting my search for a pair near So-Cal before the end of 2007!

ben62670

8 MW6503's and 8 mw6511's =768
8 silk Tweets @75 =600
XO parts =300
2 Pr's =120
Real nice cabs can be made under =600
misc hardware =100

Grand total =2488
Thats all brand new drivers, silk tweets, better than sock XO's,
$600 is kinda high for the cabinet so you could go nuts, and
the pride that you built it yourself. Add another $200 for really nice XO's.

PS. I have been collecting used parts off of Ebay for about 9 months, and I have just purchased the last piece of the puzzle yesterday. My cabinets are going to be same dimension as stock. The tweets are going to be seas silk domes that I bought for $15 a piece NOS on Ebay. They are way better than the SL, sl2500, and sl3000 tweets i have. The PR's are going to be dual 10's because they fell in my lap(about 5% less area than a single 15). To all the nay sayers out there I will be posting pics and overall specs on these when done. I will have better than new SDA-SRS 1.2 when I am Done!

I'm Paul Harvey... Good Day

Dennis Gardner

No offense Ben, but unless you have a drastically better understanding of how all those random parts will work together with each other, (different tweets/PRs) starting with the same dimension cabinets is the wrong place to start.

Porsche may makes better pistons than GM, but they will no doubt fail to make a Chevy engine run better when simply thrown together.

The guys doing crossover upgrades on the forum here will spend upwards of 5 times your quoted $$$ amounts on crossover parts alone, so I don't see how you are going to get a better speaker when the smoke clears but by all means be sure to take a picture of you in your lab coat with your new creations.;)

nadams

Dennis Gardner wrote:

Porsche may makes better pistons than GM, but they will no doubt fail to make a Chevy engine run better when simply thrown together.

Excellent!

ben62670

electronically cross over the tweets, and if that doesn't work i can use stock tweets with the stock sda crossover :-) and as for the passives already tested and fine. Nothing simply thrown together here.

98thumpin

i would love it if polk audio brought back the sda series speakers they truely are one of a kind!

Reagan

I have been extremely sheltered I guess because I have listened only to my SDA 1A's and 1.2TL's for over 20 years. I have been reading a lot in Audioasylum lately and couldn't help but notice that there are quite a bit of Asylum "inmates" that claim that Polk's SDA technology has long since been supplanted by the newer technology speakers. Most members seem to be of the opinion that you can easily better the SDA speakers with speakers costing less than $2000 or so. So, with a complete open mind I have been auditioning speakers in the $2000 to $3000 range (new). I was really surprised to discover that even in the pristine listening environments of the dealer showrooms using top end components (amps, etc.) I was not able to find anything that matched my modest setup with the 1.2TL's. I was not trying to compare soundstages but only the range and clarity of the music. Speakers that I auditioned included Martin Logans, Magnepans, B&W and Vandersteens with the Vandersteens coming the closest. I have renewed my respect for the speakers that I already own and for now no longer have a real strong bug to buy new speakers. I am thinking of adding a high quality subwoofer to use with the 1.2TL's as my wife thinks that they lack bass (I personally don't think so).

heiney9

Reagan wrote:

I have been extremely sheltered I guess because I have listened only to my SDA 1A's and 1.2TL's for over 20 years. I have been reading a lot in Audioasylum lately and couldn't help but notice that there are quite a bit of Asylum "inmates" that claim that Polk's SDA technology has long since been supplanted by the newer technology speakers. Most members seem to be of the opinion that you can easily better the SDA speakers with speakers costing less than $2000 or so. So, with a complete open mind I have been auditioning speakers in the $2000 to $3000 range (new). I was really surprised to discover that even in the pristine listening environments of the dealer showrooms using top end components (amps, etc.) I was not able to find anything that matched my modest setup with the 1.2TL's. I was not trying to compare soundstages but only the range and clarity of the music. Speakers that I auditioned included Martin Logans, Magnepans, B&W and Vandersteens with the Vandersteens coming the closest. I have renewed my respect for the speakers that I already own and for now no longer have a real strong bug to buy new speakers. I am thinking of adding a high quality subwoofer to use with the 1.2TL's as my wife thinks that they lack bass (I personally don't think so).

Nothing like real world experience :cool: . Many who don't understand the following the SDA's have have simply never been exposed to them and are talking out of their asses. AA and AK have people who slam SDA's constantly and most if not all have either never listened to them or listened 20 years ago and have lost their audio memory. BTW, many times these are the same people that think Pioneer HPM speakers and Infinity speakers are the bomb. They wouldn't know good sound if it crawled into bed with them and wanted to make wooppee.

H9

98thumpin

lol i wish polk would bring them back why did polk discontinue the sda series

ben62670

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48188

Custom SDA's in progress

Deadof_knight

I wondered if you could do that, I mean really untill I bought a pair of 1.2tls recently I was working on the same thing. Except I was going to go the route using S8 drivers and piece together a cabinet off of the dimensions of the sda's taking into account the air space needed for the slightly larger drivers...Simply because I like to tinker on stuff. they look good takem down and have them covered in black formica or what ever your choice is the locals will think you have some exotic speaker. Set of nice grills and your golden. Keep up the building.....:D

rskarvan

Polk, please introduce a speaker with:

SDA Technology
3-way Speaker (no passive radiator)
No amplifier in the speaker
Vifa Tweeters
LSI-type Woofers
Nice wood-grain BIG cabinets

Eiderlon

That's a great idea!

C3 Audio

I'd certainly support the return of the SDA line. Pricing could get interesting, but I'd like to see and hear them.

candyliquor35m

I predict if Polk doesn't bring them back then someone else will. I assume that the patent has expired if there was one and the technology could even be improved on after all these years.

hearingimpared

You're are regular riot Alice.

heiney9

candyliquor35m wrote: »

I predict if Polk doesn't bring them back then someone else will. I assume that the patent has expired if there was one and the technology could even be improved on after all these years.

Never happen!!!!

The technology in it's day was pretty ridiculed by most other speaker manufacturer's. They have to be demo'd properly which there is no way to do that today, it was hard back when you had dedicated stores. Cost is a factor as well as size. If there was a solid market for the SDA's Polk would have continued them in one or another not just the Surround Bar.

No way, no how, the market conditions have completely changed and there is little to no desire beyond some hard core audiophiles for anyone to own them. The used market keeps the SDA's alive and for the most part anyone anywhere can get a pair to try.

Now if Polk wanted to offer kits to build at home, that might fill a very small niche w/o a whole lot of investment from Polk.

H9

dorokusai

candyliquor35m wrote: »

I predict if Polk doesn't bring them back then someone else will. I assume that the patent has expired if there was one and the technology could even be improved on after all these years.

The patent hasn't expired as SDA is still in use to this day, on the SurroundBar product line.

heiney9

candyliquor35m wrote: »

the technology could even be improved on after all these years.

I doubt any company knows more about SDA technology than Polk, and the amount of time an effort to duplicate all that knowledge and then further it by another company would be a pure waste of time and money.

I doubt Polk will ever let the SDA patent lapse; but who knows now that they are owed by a huge conglomerate. Keeping that patent intact forever might not be high on the list in the future.

H9

Face

I'm sure they could design something to fit in with more modern demands. The surround bar is one example of how it could be done.

How about a tower similar to the SDA2, but a few inches narrower, maybe cut down to 14-14.5". And if needed, two smaller passive radiators instead of one large one(À la RTA15). Cut down on cabinet overall size by curving the rear of the enclosure(À la RTiA), but without skimping on wall thickness.

A more universal SDA connection such as bananas would be nice, but then you'd have to worry about dingbats connecting their amp to the wrong set of posts.

No side mount woofers please!!!

fossy

BRING UM BACK ---- never have heard um - YET --

Why couldn't polk do a PAY FIRST - six week turn around kinda thing -- money upfront -- they wouldn't have to mass produce ---

Should I start saving my coins ??? GO GO SDA POLK BRING UM BACK

heiney9

Because the dimensional information is pretty much fixed at a specific width like in past SDA's; not too much can be done to make the baffle narrower and still get the effect. The surround bar gets away with it because it's a horizontal cabinet

dorokusai

The SurroundBar doesn't "get away" with it, as it follows the same SDA principle they all do.

ben62670

Again an LSI9 type of speaker on its side. Wow thart is tough:rolleyes:

hoosier21

if they come back, it will be using digital processing like the SRT system, and that will take some of the fun out of it.

MillerLiteScott

ben62670 wrote: »

Again an LSI9 type of speaker on its side. Wow thart is tough:rolleyes:

Like a CRS+? With dedicated (fillable) stands.

Put a set of 2B or CRS crossovers in a pair of LSi9's and sit them on their sides.
Over simplified, Yes. Would it work? Don't thinks so because of the impedance. But the basic theory, design and concept are right there.

Prototype pair by October.:D

dorokusai

hoosier21 wrote: »

if they come back, it will be using digital processing like the SRT system, and that will take some of the fun out of it.

The SurroundBar 360 uses DSP coupled with the SDA array.