My pictures from the Polk Audio Headquarters Tour

nadams
nadams Posts: 5,877
edited April 2024 in Clubhouse Archives
Yes, I know that there's going to be an official gallery up soon, but I figured I'd just throw all my pics up for you folks to look at. I didn't take any of them out, so you're seeing every pic I took.

100_0688.jpg
Welcome!

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The Model 9's

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Some SRT's set up in the conference room.

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Car audio gear lying about in the conference room.

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A poster I kinda liked, unfortunately I hadn't gotten the knack of standing slightly to the side to avoid flash reflection...

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LSIs in the conference room.

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I think they're trying to hide it....

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Big-daddy SDA's in the hallway outside the conference room.

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More of the hall-o-vintage polk.

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The first speaker with the polk name.

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Another Polk PA speaker.

More to come in a few mins.
Ludicrous gibs!
Post edited by RyanC_Masimo on

Comments

  • Mike682
    Mike682 Posts: 2,074
    edited September 2005
    Hey....there are the model 9s I helped with the handoff...cool :D

    I feel proud they made it back to the Polk and I was part of it :D
    Receiver: harmankardon AVR235
    Mains: polk R30
    Center: polk CSi3
    Rear Surrounds: polk R20
    Subwoofer: polk PSW404
    DVD: Panasonic DVD-S29
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    100_0701.jpg
    Minimonitors!

    100_0703.jpg
    Awards for the car-audio guys.

    100_0705.jpg
    Starting to gather in the conference room.

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    Explaining The Klippel machine

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    Example of a Klippel measurement

    100_0712.jpg
    I should make one of these for my bedroom door...

    100_0714.jpg
    Testing an in-wall speaker in the... floor... of the nearly anechoic chamber

    100_0715.jpg
    Still needs a few more wedges.

    100_0716.jpg
    From left to right- Danger Boy, ND13, Beardog. ND13 and Beardog appear to have seen something shocking, while Danger Boy remains oblivious.

    100_0718.jpg
    Ah, yes... the eeeevil SoundBar :P

    100_0722.jpg
    The car speaker testing board. All quick release baffles for easy swapping in and out of drivers.

    100_0725.jpg
    A few car audio drivers laying about...

    100_0726.jpg
    This board worked a bit better than your typical CC/BestBuy offering.

    100_0728.jpg
    Yes, #3 is the SR6500 system. They sounded better than the B&W's in the next pic, in my opinion.

    100_0729.jpg
    $5500 worth of speakers, nearly, if not totally bested by the $750 SR6500 car speakers.
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • ninerbj
    ninerbj Posts: 870
    edited September 2005
    Anything new in the Floorstanding line, or are they hiding that stuff?
    "she had the body of Venus, with arms."
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    100_0733.jpg
    Behind the scenes of the car audio switchboard.

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    GTI color matcher for making sure the standards are the correct colors.

    100_0740.jpg
    ND13 and Amulford in the Cheese Room, an anechoic chamber. I think amulford is about to take my camera from me...

    100_0741.jpg
    Crossovers, anyone?

    100_0742.jpg
    Having all the crossover components allows them to make changes, and retest it, without having to leave the room. This is where your crossovers get tweaked to perfection!

    100_0744.jpg
    More crossover components.

    100_0746.jpg
    A parting shot of the cheese room.

    100_0747.jpg
    The in-wall testing room. Home of the IP-Addressable speakers!

    100_0749.jpg
    Some of the unfinished inwall/infloor subs.

    100_0753.jpg
    A round inwall, IP addressable. Notice the USB port there? need to make a few adjustments???

    100_0751.jpg
    The back, with the built-in amp, network ports, and RCA ports.

    100_0756.jpg
    Another tweakable crossover board.

    100_0763.jpg
    A miniature set of SRTs... obviously a mock-up only. Take note of the speaker board behind them.... we dont' know the story on these...

    100_0764.jpg
    Matt's plaything?

    100_0765.jpg
    An interesting "design"

    100_0767.jpg
    3d modeling.

    100_0770.jpg
    Some prototypes for the inwall ip addressable speakers.

    100_0774.jpg
    Explaining the laser goo thingy.

    100_0775.jpg
    :D

    Still more to come...
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    100_0780.jpg
    The guts of the amp they designed to drive the inwall/infloor subs. each one can drive two subs. It's got a BASH amp, and you can plug in chips to change the tone of the amp to match which sub you buy.

    100_0782.jpg

    the Geeks Gecko!

    100_0785.jpg
    Amulford- can I go in? I wanna go in!

    100_0788.jpg
    Laser goo machine at work

    100_0790.jpg
    you can kinda see the profile of the object it's creating in this pic.

    100_0793.jpg
    The oven they bake the things in after they're done.

    100_0794.jpg
    Weather tester.

    100_0796.jpg
    Part of the original warehouse. This is where they built speakers in-house.

    100_0798.jpg
    The SRT room is tucked in a corner of the warehouse.

    100_0802.jpg
    Oh yes, we will be having fun!

    100_0805.jpg
    I can't really caption this, because I'm not certain what it is. ND13 was excited over it, so it must be cool. It's a Marantz something...

    100_0806.jpg
    Some drivers in the warehouse.

    100_0807.jpg
    More.

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    More of the original factory part, now turned warehouse.

    100_0811.jpg
    That's the guy!

    100_0812.jpg
    The speaker building bench.

    100_0813.jpg
    Another poster I liked.

    100_0814.jpg
    More of the driver building bench.

    100_0816.jpg
    A new room, built for testing inwalls.

    100_0818.jpg
    Umm... what are these here for?

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    Tahoe or something w/ 24" rims

    100_0821.jpg
    Very sweet WRX STI

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    Mmmm... plus it has the SR6500's!!!

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    From a rolled Polk show vehicle.

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    Starting lunch.

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    Catered and all!

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    Cake!

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    I think Russ got ahold of Matt...

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    The power of zoom tells me, yes, he did...

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    Polk's in-house band. Well, most of them.

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    Mr. Polk moving around to different groups of weird internet-people.

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    The longest dimension of the building.

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    Down the back...

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    Rejoining in the conference room to split up into our demo groups.

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    One of the new IP addressable in-walls, with no grill.

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    The two boards connected by a network patch cable are two of the mainboards out of the ipaddressable speakers, amps and all.

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    The back of the WRX STI. Set up for swapping gear in and out.

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    The back of one of Polks Honduh somethingorothers.

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    Preeety liiiights...

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    Momo Much?

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    W/ Flash

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    yeah, even surround sound!

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    Front

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    Being terribly impressed by the SoundBar.

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    Back of the SoundBar.

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    Some non-working prototypes of new Momo subs. The one on the right will have two Neodymium magnet structures, one on top, one on the bottom, for a possible THREE INCHES of sub travel, and a VERY flat power curve. They said they're having problems finding a spider that can hold up to the excursion.

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    Matt telling us tales of house-building and his going on 7 years "temporary house"

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    Got my sign signed!

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    Polk freebies. XRt12 XM tuner, shirt, and polk audio patch.

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    My rack, now with a Denon DCD-610 CD player (thanks Doro!), and a Polk XRt12 tuner.

    Thanks so much every one at Polk, for putting up with us traipseing through your office... thanks to Doro for putting this together, and EVERYONE who took part! It was fun!
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • Roy Munson
    Roy Munson Posts: 886
    edited September 2005
    Great pics!!!

    Looks like it was a good show.
    2 Channel:
    Amp/Parasound Halo A23
    Pre/Carver C-1
    Tuner/Carver TX-11a
    CDP/Jolida JD 100A
    Turntable/AR XB-Shure V15 III
  • Mike682
    Mike682 Posts: 2,074
    edited September 2005
    Wow....thanks for the pics.

    I would love to have one of those freebie packs!!
    Receiver: harmankardon AVR235
    Mains: polk R30
    Center: polk CSi3
    Rear Surrounds: polk R20
    Subwoofer: polk PSW404
    DVD: Panasonic DVD-S29
  • SCompRacer
    SCompRacer Posts: 8,511
    edited September 2005
    Thanks for sharing with pictures nadams! Great job!
    Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS * Roon * Gustard R26 DAC / Singxer SU-6 DDC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
  • Shizelbs
    Shizelbs Posts: 7,433
    edited September 2005
    Thanks a lot. I'm already having one great effing day at work at this just made it worse. Good work.
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    Sorry, ****... But I just _had_ to!

    Also, I just opened up my Polk shirt, and noticed that it doesn't just have the Polk audio logo! Lookie-

    [IMG][/img]100_0896l.jpg
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • polkatese
    polkatese Posts: 6,767
    edited September 2005
    cool pics, nadams! thanks for sharing...now, where's the annual doro humping russ pics? :)
    I am sorry, I have no opinion on the matter. I am sure you do. So, don't mind me, I just want to talk audio and pie.
  • PolknPepsi
    PolknPepsi Posts: 781
    edited September 2005
    The damaged center channel (?) looks like it had been stomped on but the nice looking mini monitors made up for it. The Gecko was odd and the cake under the lunch tent looked delicious. My two favorite pics were the Marantz player and Matthew Polk.

    Thanks for the pics...my computer should recover from the huge download.
    Denon #2900, Denon stereo receiver, Conrad Johnson Sonographe 120 amp, Blue Jeans cables, and Klipsch RF-7's
  • McLoki
    McLoki Posts: 5,231
    edited September 2005
    Glad to see even polk knows a great amp when they hear one. Cinepro Rocks.... :D

    Michael

    BTW - thanks for the pics, looks like you guys had a great time. I hope to be a part of the next one.....
    Mains.............Polk LSi15 (Cherry)
    Center............Polk LSiC (Crossover upgraded)
    Surrounds.......Polk LSi7 (Gloss Black - wood sides removed and crossovers upgraded)
    Subwoofers.....SVS 25-31 CS+ and PC+ (both 20hz tune)
    Pre\Pro...........NAD T163 (Modded with LM4562 opamps)
    Amplifier.........Cinepro 3k6 (6-channel, 500wpc@4ohms)
  • fireshoes
    fireshoes Posts: 3,167
    edited September 2005
    Thanks for all the pics, Noah!
  • jcaut
    jcaut Posts: 1,849
    edited September 2005
    That is just awesome!! Sure wish I could have been there!

    I've said this before, but what other company would pay that much attention to a group of internet forum guys? I mean, even if you put aside all the freebies and such..... that's just amazing. Thank you, Polk, for making it happen! I WILL make it to one of these in the future!

    Thanks nadams for all the pictures. They were just right: Didn't bog down my dial-up too bad.

    Jason
  • jet2001
    jet2001 Posts: 180
    edited September 2005
    Yes,thank you for the pics!
    RTi4-fronts
    CSi3-center
    R15-surrounds
    Cerwin Vega LW15-Sub
    Denon AVR 885
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    Polkatese- i would imagine those pics will surface from _todays_ activities. Doro and Russ were on their best behavior at Polk HQ :)

    Polknpepsi- The long thing with many drivers that looks like it was stomped on, is a Polk SurroundBar with the grill off.

    jcaut- The pics were resized to 1024x768 which reduced their size to a very manageable download. I used XP Image Resizer, which is a Microsoft Powertoy that can be found if you google it.

    If anyone wants any high-res versions of those pics, lemme know and I can get them to you. All were taken with a 5mp camera.
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • audiobliss
    audiobliss Posts: 12,518
    edited September 2005
    YOU MEAN YOU GOT A POLK XRT12 XM TUNER FREE?!?!?!?!

    :eek:




    Nice pics. Certainly looks like it'd be awesome to go one year.
    Jstas wrote: »
    Simple question. If you had a cool million bucks, what would you do with it?
    Wonder WTF happened to the rest of my money.
    In Use
    PS3, Yamaha CDR-HD1300, Plex, Amazon Fire TV Gen 2
    Pioneer Elite VSX-52, Parasound HCA-1000A
    Klipsch RF-82ii, RC-62ii, RS-42ii, RW-10d
    Epson 8700UB

    In Storage
    [Home Audio]
    Rotel RCD-02, Yamaha KX-W900U, Sony ST-S500ES, Denon DP-7F
    Pro-Ject Phono Box MKII, Parasound P/HP-850, ASL Wave 20 monoblocks
    Klipsch RF-35, RB-51ii

    [Car Audio]
    Pioneer Premier DEH-P860MP, Memphis 16-MCA3004, Boston Acoustic RC520
  • amulford
    amulford Posts: 5,020
    edited September 2005
    I wasn't gonna take the camera....
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    amulford wrote:
    I wasn't gonna take the camera....

    :p:D
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    BTW- where was the I-Sonic? It wasn't until the drive home that I realised I didn't see ANY of them...
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • amulford
    amulford Posts: 5,020
    edited September 2005
    Neither did I, now that you mention it. Maybe they read the thread....It was pretty brutal :D
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    So was the SoundBar thread, but pretty much everyone was impressed w/ that... even if it still looks cheap.
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • george daniel
    george daniel Posts: 12,096
    edited September 2005
    A big "TIP of the HAT" for the pictures, thanks !! :)
    JC approves....he told me so. (F-1 nut)
  • brettw22
    brettw22 Posts: 7,623
    edited September 2005
    nadams wrote:
    BTW- where was the I-Sonic? It wasn't until the drive home that I realised I didn't see ANY of them...
    There isn't a fully operational version of that item as of yet. They have several that do one of the functions (HDFM, DVD, XM, etc) but they have had some issues in getting them to all work in the same unit.

    The release date for that has been pushed to next year until they iron out the bugs.
    comment comment comment comment. bitchy.
  • dorokusai
    dorokusai Posts: 25,577
    edited September 2005
    Please see below....
    CTC BBQ Amplifier, Sonic Frontiers Line3 Pre-Amplifier and Wadia 581 SACD player. Speakers? Always changing but for now, Mission Argonauts I picked up for $50 bucks, mint.
  • dorokusai
    dorokusai Posts: 25,577
    edited September 2005
    Mike682 wrote:
    Wow....thanks for the pics.

    I would love to have one of those freebie packs!!

    Mike - I have a Large TShirt that I will send you for helping with the Model 9 transfer. Email me your addy....

    dorokusai@comcast.net
    CTC BBQ Amplifier, Sonic Frontiers Line3 Pre-Amplifier and Wadia 581 SACD player. Speakers? Always changing but for now, Mission Argonauts I picked up for $50 bucks, mint.
  • nadams
    nadams Posts: 5,877
    edited September 2005
    brettw22 wrote:
    There isn't a fully operational version of that item as of yet. They have several that do one of the functions (HDFM, DVD, XM, etc) but they have had some issues in getting them to all work in the same unit.

    The release date for that has been pushed to next year until they iron out the bugs.

    Yeah, I realise there isn't a FULLY operational one, but this being Polk HQ, I would've expected to see them in various stages of construction and destruction... maybe I just missed that room?
    Ludicrous gibs!
  • beardog03
    beardog03 Posts: 5,550
    edited September 2005
    I wonder if they intended for everything to be posted on the internet ? :eek:

    after all it is HQ.. ;)

    I`m sure they had to keep some company secrets
    Cary SLP-98L F1 DC Pre Amp (Jag Blue)
    Parasound HCA-3500
    Cary Audio V12 amp (Jag Red)
    Polk Audio Xm Reciever (Autographed by THE MAN Himself) :cool:
    Magnum Dynalab MD-102 Analog Tuna
    Jolida JD-100 CDP
    Polk Audio LSi9 Speaks (ebony)
    SVS PC-Ultra Sub
    AQ Bedrock Speaker Cables (Bi-Wired)
    MIT Shotgun S1 I/C`s
    AQ Black Thunder Sub Cables
    PS Audio Plus Power Cords
    Magnum Dynalab ST-2 FM Antenna
    Sanus Cherry wood Speak Stands
    Adona AV45CS3 / 3 Tier Rack (Black /Gold)


    :cool:
  • Mike682
    Mike682 Posts: 2,074
    edited September 2005
    dorokusai wrote:
    Mike - I have a Large TShirt that I will send you for helping with the Model 9 transfer. Email me your addy....

    dorokusai@comcast.net

    Mark,

    Thank you very much :)

    Email sent

    Mike
    Receiver: harmankardon AVR235
    Mains: polk R30
    Center: polk CSi3
    Rear Surrounds: polk R20
    Subwoofer: polk PSW404
    DVD: Panasonic DVD-S29