Hmmm... my speakers appear to have had a growth spurt

nadams

Yeah, so I go away for a few hours, and THIS happens...





My CD player got taller too

nadams

Before I left, my speakers looked like this, btw-

nadams

The two SDA mid drivers were locked up solid (not from transport, they were that way when I picked them up), so I swapped those two MW 6501's for two of the MW6503's out of my monitor 10's. Is that going to be a bad thing? I want to find two 6501's anyway, but they may be hard to come across. Also, I need to replace the tweeters, I know, but they do function fine, they're just SL2000's .

Since it's so late, I can't really get my listen on, but tomorrow I will

ESavinon

Speaker pimples.........
btw nice equipment rack.

nadams

Thanks for the comment on the equipment rack. While the equipment it contains isn't always that fancy, the rack itself always looks nice. My dad and I built it out of finished pine boards. Wasn't too hard to build

BTW- This pickup wasn't all roses... Drove 2 1/2 hours down into Hanover, then my dad's car started overheating. Kept going 'til I got to Philpfeif's house, demo'ed and loaded the speakers, then on the way out the car buried the temp gauge again. A Subaru dealer I passed couldn't help, neither could a Sears auto center or some jiffy lube-type place. All I wanted them to do was remove the thermostat and cut the guts out so I could continue on my way (figured it was the thermostat, because I couldn't get any heat to come out the vents). Sooo, with no tools, I had to park it and wait for my dad to drive my truck down to hanover from home w/ tools and water, then play escort vehicle back home.

BUT.... I HAVE SDA's!!!

ohskigod

the adventure, I'm sure. will be worth it in the long run. I wouldnt be too worried about that driver swap issue either. I dont think its much of a difference, especially in the short run. just swap the tweets down the road in my humble opinion. congrats on finally getting SDA's. welcome to the club

ND13

Congrats Noah. Polk sends out 6503s as replacements for 6500s and 6501s, I believe, so I wouldn't think it would make a difference

F1nut

Yeah Noah, congrats!!!

ND13

F1nut wrote:

Yeah Noah, congrats!!!

Now we need to help him find sum mo powa

SCompRacer

nadams wrote:

Yeah, so I go away for a few hours, and THIS happens...

Wow....I gotta try that with my speakers! Congrats! One memorable day you won't soon forget.

Nice knotty pine rack. Our first apartment had a knotty pine porch. Brings back memories....didn't think I could reach back that far. LOL

SCompRacer

ND13 wrote:

Now we need to help him find sum mo powa

I wonder if the leavin' thing works with amps too.

danger boy

Nice Noah, congrats on your new larger speakers. Did they come with the SDA cable?

which model are those?

I'm not gonna rag on you about your pine audio rack.. BUT a little stain goes a long ways to improve the color.

tugboat

I'm guessing the shock of coming home and finding speakers a bit bigger than what was there when you left was registerable. Imagine my surprise when my RT800s were transformed into 1.2TLs! Hahahaha

I also like your rack (equipment, geez!). I saw your post about building it with your dad and that it was easy. I am sure it was easy for you, but if I had been building it, it would probably look like you were viewing it in a funhouse mirror! I know the rule about measuring twice and cutting once. Well I measure about 5 times and...disaster! Should have seen the time I measured a shower panel for the holes needed by the valves and outlet. I thought I did really well and made all the cuts, etc. Went to install the panel and realized I got the measurements right, but marked and cut the wrong side. Would have fit perfectly if installed backwards! I'm in the market for a new rack now. I saw a beauty yesterday. It was a black staggered backbone with glass shelves. I wanted it so bad, but when I looked at the specs, it wasn't able to handle the weight of my Denon receiver! I'm still on the hunt.

Anyway, I babble.

nadams

Thanks for all the congratulations, and comments on the rack. I am thinking about amps and such now, but my receiver will work for a while at least. With so many things to spend money on (new tweeters, two new drivers, amps), I need to decide what my priority is going to be. I think my first priority will be getting the two replacement drivers, because I need to be able to sell the Monitor 10's to recoup my costs on the SDAs. And it's kinda hard to sell the 10's when they're missing two drivers

I just finished listening through Dark Side of the Moon (my first SDA test), and it left me w/ a big on my face... Now I just need to pick out some more audition material, with the help of the SDA playlist. I don't have much of what's on the list, but I'll go through my own CDs and pick out a few.

The Wagner isolation blocks under my CD player were a gift from RuSsMaN.. he rocks .

As for the other comments on the rack. It really, honestly, wasn't that hard to build. Yes, you measure a billion times, cut once, and always have enough material to fix mistakes! We used 1x2's as the shelf supports. I measured so that the smaller shelves were bigger than my biggest components, and that the top shelf was almost half again as big as it needed to be for my receiver. For airspace as well as room for upgrades to the equipment. Always make things a little bigger than you think they need to be. The supports in the upper two corners are made out of thin plywood... they're just simple triangles to keep the thing from wanting to fall over. The shelves are glued to the runners ,and also have small nails in them.

I've moved it twice and it's still stable and sturdy. It might be nice to stain it, but I kinda like the natural pine. All told , the thing set me back maybe $20. I could make it look a little nicer, for not that much more money, but it certainly beat shelling out upwards of $200 for a decent equip rack...

nadams

Oh, and these are the straight SDA 2's. They were the only revision of the SDA2 to have 3 mids and two tweeters. The A's and b's only had two mids and one tweeter.

I've found that the annoying HISSSSSSSSSS that my receiver has always had, is infinitely more annoying with twice as many tweeters! It's just the result of a $140 receiver... The only time it goes away is if you turn the volume to 0, hit mute, or turn the speakers off. None of which are very acceptable!

danger boy

I know you got other priorities right now.. but if you're looking at only using your SDA's in a 2 channel rig.. you may want to look for used stereo gear on like Ebay when the time comes.

That's how i (and many others) listen to our SDA's. You may be able to put together a nice seperates unit with all used gear for not much $ down the road. It would sound much better than your current configuration. A nice used pre amp and amp is all you'd need.. you already have a nice CDP. Just a thought.

Here is a pic of my rig, all used gear. No hissing that i can hear.

madmax

Cool! I could tell it wouldn't be long after seeing you audition the SRT system.

BTW, you know that side wall is really messing with you, right? You could always hang a rug or something there (at least while listening) to eliminate the reflections.


Congrats!!!
madmax

nadams

By the way, I'm told by Philpfeif that these SDAs have the crossover upgrades done to them. Not sure what caps or whatever were used, but they sound like they're put together right

scottnbnj

a quick and dirty treatment that you can hear right now would be a broom leaning against the wall (bristle side up) with fleece jackets hanging over it. sure, it looks and feels nutty, but it works.

if the image is unstable at lower mid frequencies, go thicker/denser. if a wall or reflective objects are close behind listening position, try there too after the sidewall close to speak. if lf is muddy, go 1 1/2-2' thick in whatever wall-wall wall-floor corners you can get to, try for speaker side of room first.

)

ND13

Noah,

Let's get to hoppin, now.......update that sig

nadams

Yeah, yeah...

ND13

Allrighty now, balance is back in the audio universe and all is well....

nadams

Just ordered the two replacement drivers, and the CS rep said they were sending the mw6503's. It'll be nice to get them, and unload the Monitor 10's.

schwarcw

Congrat Noah!

I have the SDA-2s. Great speaker. I'm in the process of updating my crossovers. I have a pdf of the crossover schematic and a parts list if you want it. PM me your email ID and I'll send them to you. Good luck!