RD 0194-1 Tweeter!

F1nut

The replacement for the SL2500/SL3000 is the RD0198-1. The replacement for the SL1000/SL2000 is the RD0194-1.

A number of years ago the replacement for the SL2000 was the SL2000T, which is not the same as the RD0194-1.

dbnh

Thanks to all for the posts in this thread describing their SDA tweeter preferences. That being said, I pulled the trigger today on the RD0194-1 tweeters for upgrading my SDA 1-Cs, and look forward to receiving, installing, and enjoying them. My understanding is that this tweeter is a drop-in replacement for the SDA 1-Cs original tweeter, and that installation is very easy. Any installation-related cautions/advice are appreciated.

Regards,

Dave B.

SCompRacer

You'll notice the replacements are not as heavily constructed as the SL2000's you are replacing, but they sure sound good.

You'll have to salvage the gaskets. They are not glued on but may stick to the tweeter so work carefully to remove them.

Don't let the tweeter wires fall inside the box. My SRS 2's had baffles/bracing up there and if the wires fell inside, I probably would have had to remove the passive radiator to retrieve them.

The red terminal is positive on the new tweeter.

Change them one at a time or at least note what color wires are connected to the upper and lower tweeters when you remove them.

Don't over tighten the screws.

Save the old boxes to store the old tweeters in. Or put them up for sale in the Flea Market.

Pull out a stack of your favorite music and break them in. Njoy.

dbnh

SCompRacer,

Much obliged for that compendium of advice.

dbnh

Received the new tweeters today and installed (talk about fast Polk shipping). SCompRacer's directions are excellent and made installation a breeze (doing one tweeter at a time seems to make it pretty easy), thanks very much!

I'd also add a couple things to consider when doing the install:

1) After removing the old tweeter, spray the female connecter on each tweeter wire with some Caig Deoxit or other contact cleaner, and either air- or wipe-dry. Make sure you're spraying away from the speaker.

2) Treat each male connector of the new tweeter with a very, very light coat of Walker SST on each side of the connector; go about 1/2 way down the prong (starting from the top).

Question: are all the drivers on the SDA 1-C connected via a male prong/female wire termination? If so, it looks like it would be easy to treat each driver/wire combo as outlined in steps 1 & 2 above.

Thanks again to all for their insights into this easy SDA upgrade. Happy listening!

dbnh

Answered my own question about the driver/wire connections after removing one driver, and decided to go the Deoxit / Walker SST route on all eight of my SDA 1-C drivers/wire connections. (I note I use SST extensively in my system.)

Early results are as follows (SST should continue to improve the audio for the next 8+ hours, then start to level off and stay at that level of improvment):

1) Higher volume at same volume setting.

2) SDA mids are much more detailed than before. For that matter, there seems to be more detail, period. I also note I installed the new tweeters today, so some (but no way all) of the increased detail should be due to the tweeter upgrade.

3) Soundstage is wider and deeper; SDA effect is astonishingly nice with something like The Chemical Brothers cd "Come With Us" - try cuts 2-3. I have not noted the soundstage getting closer to me, but rather deepening.

4) More precisely positioned instruments and voices, with seemingly more air around both.

Anyway, those are my first impressions. Gotta run, enjoy the improvements, and see where they'll finally culminate.

YYMV.

F1nut

I'd be curious to hear what you'd think with the old tweeters re-installed. My bet is that all the new found detail goes away.

dbnh

I respect your opinion, but politely disagree. I've been using SST on various connections/plugs for about 2 years (RCA posts and plugs, PC prongs, IEC prongs, speaker terminations, amp speaker posts, tube pins, phono cartridge pins, etc) and the the product delivers. The cartridge pin application is especially nice.

F1nut

I believe in tweaks, but the claims you're attributing to the SST seem over the top to me. Had you applied the SST at a different time than the new tweeter install your findings would have more weight, IMO and that's why I asked about re-installing the original tweeters. I know for a fact that the new tweeters have a profound effect, but I've used DeOxit and ProGold without any noticeable effect other than piece of mind. Having said that, I'll try the SST myself and report back.

McLoki

I currently have a pair of SDA 1b's The speakers are in ok shape, but the cabinets are not very good.

I remember reading that the replacement tweeter is supposed to timber match close (maybe not exact, but close) with the LSiC. Is this correct? The 1b's even with a rough cabinet would make a great upgrade from my LSi7's. If the upgrade only cost $200 for new tweeters all the better....

I have compared them with the original SL2000 tweeter and prefer the sound of the LSi7's more than the SDA. As I compare the SL2000 to the vifa tweeter in the LSi line, SL2000 does not hold a candle to it. How does the new tweeter compare to the one found in the LSi line?

Michael

madmax

The RDO tweeter mates so well with the SDA's you can't "hear" the midwoofers stop and the tweeters take over. The LSi series, although excellent, is not quite as smooth of a cross between the mids and highs. Both tweeters have the same character though. The SL-2000's were crap compared to the vifa tweeter. The RDO replacement is right along side the vifa.
madmax

dorokusai

F1nut wrote:

I believe in tweaks, but the claims you're attributing to the SST seem over the top to me. Had you applied the SST at a different time than the new tweeter install your findings would have more weight, IMO and that's why I asked about re-installing the original tweeters. I know for a fact that the new tweeters have a profound effect, but I've used DeOxit and ProGold without any noticeable effect other than piece of mind. Having said that, I'll try the SST myself and report back.

I agree. I use CAIG everywhere but mainly for piece of mind not increased performance.

dbnh

F1nut wrote:

I believe in tweaks, but the claims you're attributing to the SST seem over the top to me. Had you applied the SST at a different time than the new tweeter install your findings would have more weight, IMO and that's why I asked about re-installing the original tweeters. I know for a fact that the new tweeters have a profound effect, but I've used DeOxit and ProGold without any noticeable effect other than piece of mind. Having said that, I'll try the SST myself and report back.

F1nut,

I have no problems with differences of opinion, and my post was to inform on (not to necessarily convince others) what I heard in my system with my gear. I agree that adding the new tweeters at the same time could muddy the waters of discernment, an excellent point! Nor do I have any issue with healthy skepticism (I had tons of it prior to purchasing my own SST, it initally seemed like a large price for a smallish amount of goo and it took quite a bit of convincing to make me take the plunge. FYI - Mr. Walker is very amenable to correspondence, and he and his products seem to have his fans on 6moons, AudioCircles, AGon, and elsewhere.).

I note that after I installed the tweeters and subsequently resinstalled them (reinstall due to initially attaching the white wires to the + terminals, instead of the colored wires to the + terminals), I sat back and gave a listen for a while. Definite improvement with the new tweeters, even though I realized the tweeters were not burned in. I next did the right speaker drivers and gave a critical listen, which propelled me to do the left speaker drivers. I frankly admit to being floored with the results. I did try some discs / tunes that I knew well that would have a pretty full menu of lower frequencies (Morphine - song = Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer; most of the titles on Peter Gabriel's "Up" and Tony Levin's "Pieces of the Sun"), yet I understand the point that it may be a challenge to quantify exactly how much of what I heard was due to tweeter replacement, Deoxit terminal cleaning, SST application.

I also note that Deoxit undoubtedly helped things a bit just by itself, as my SDAs were purchased, I believe, in 1988 and there's had to be some oxidation with the wire terminations over time. (Re: Caig ProGold - I don't know how it would serve in place of Deoxit on the wire connectors/tweeter-driver terminals due to no gold plating/Caig information about ProGold that states, "Recommended for critical applications where only slight cleaning action is necessary...ProGold ® is designed to dissolve small amounts of oxidation. Apply ProGold ® after DeoxIT ® on plated metal surfaces...For reference, ProGold ® has approximately 0.5% cleaning action." IMHO, I feel a SilClear/SST comparison would be interesting, as SilClear is about 1/2 the price of the original SST formulation. I'm not sure that ProGold is formulated or intended to work in the same league as SST.)

Anyway, I'd like to consider similarly treating the wire terminations into the crossover network. However, I've never pulled out the crossovers, and am uninformed about how the wires are physically terminated to the crossover network in the SDA 1-Cs; thus, I have no idea if this is even feasible. Any information one would like to offer is appreciated, either via pm or this thread. While I visit this forum, I note I don't do much posting in it. That does not keep me from appreciating the compendium of knowledge present within the numerous informed posters at Club Polk. I look forward to reading about F1nut's findings in his system (be they dissimilar or the same), as well as that of others.

thehaens@cox.net

I replaced the Sl-2000's this weekend in the 1.2's, and I have to admit that they are a smoother sounding tweeter. Although I will admit, that I do like the 2k's as well, it is simply a different sound. We replaced the right channel first and did a comparison on some Elton John track. I could here some harshness coming from the 2k's side that wasn't coming out of the replacements during some upper octave piano passages. I replayed this passage over and over with my ear to the tweeters and the harshness wasn't in the RD's. I replaced the 2K's out of the left channel and listened to the same passage and all the harshness was gone.

Another note, I played the passage with my SDA-1A's w/ the 2k's in them and their was a slight harshness to them, but not as apparent as the 1.2's.

At the end of the day, I was convinced that the RD replacement did sound better, more natural. So I'll end up replacing the 2k's out of the 1A at a later time....

scott

PolkFreak

Burdette, I just thought I'd mention that I put both the SL2500 and SL2000 up to the same hole in a Monitor 10 cabinet and the SL2500 is bigger than the SL2000. PolkFreak

dbnh

F1nut wrote:

I believe in tweaks, but the claims you're attributing to the SST seem over the top to me. Had you applied the SST at a different time than the new tweeter install your findings would have more weight, IMO and that's why I asked about re-installing the original tweeters. I know for a fact that the new tweeters have a profound effect, but I've used DeOxit and ProGold without any noticeable effect other than piece of mind. Having said that, I'll try the SST myself and report back.

F1nut,

Was wondering if you had yet worked with the SST product and had different or similar results? Anyway, the link in this post will take you to some opinions of some other users as well as reviewers. FYI - SST was also given a Blue Moon by 6moons.

F1nut

dbnh,

No, I haven't had much free audio play time lately. Have you tried putting the old tweeters back in?

F1

dbnh

A good question, the answer to which is "no". The last couple weeks I've been working on assembling and tweeking a vintage bedroom system: moved my Fisher 800-B receiver (circa 1960) which I had been using as my tuner, paired it with a set of KLH Series 20 speakers (circa1970) given to me by a work colleague. Got a few sources to work with it including a dated Sony PST-33 turntable and Ortofon cartridge. Love those tubed mids, albeit the speakers certainly could be more revealing (also, no way that Fisher could supply the power the current-hungry SDAs seem to crave). Plus, a trip to Sicily in the offing a little over a week from today has drawn my time constaints a bit more constrictively. Furthermore, tonight I applied SST to the tube pins of the 22 tubes of the 800-B; the burning-in is currently ongoing - man, I needed the pair of eyes of a 22 year old when working with all those pins!

Now that you mention the old tweeters, I probably should put those up for sale here, seeing the new ones are so eminently satisfactory.

F1nut

Those round tuits are getting harder and harder to come by, aren't they!?!

dbnh wrote:

man, I needed the pair of eyes of a 22 year old when working with all those pins!

I heard that! It least my ears are still working well.

BobMcG

dorokusai wrote:

I agree. I use CAIG everywhere but mainly for piece of mind not increased performance.

This reminds me.... I use a product called TPC (The Perfect Connection) but I haven't seen it around. It was available in liquid and wipes. Does anyone know if it is still available? (My stash is depleted.)

Like Mark, I've used it more for piece of mind. It makes sense that contact treatments are a good idea for older connections... and not a bad idea for all connections.