Anyone remember Polk's original Mini Monitor?

Stew

I bought my first pair of Polks in 1981, the original (I think) mini monitors. They had 4 or 4-1/2" mid-woofers and passive radiators, a 1" soft dome tweeter, and came with optional mounting brackets. Anyone remember these?

I put mine in the rear window area of a 73 Nova hatchback. Smooth and sweet sounding! Open the hatchback, turn the speakers around, instant outdoor music. That stereo was famous for miles around. Just wondered if anyone else has fond memories of these.

nadams

Polk's got a pair on display at their headquarters in Baltimore-



I, personally, have never heard them, but I'd expect them to sound a lot like my old monitor 5's, just toned down a bit. I love how the tweeter is the entire width of the cabinet

mhardy6647

yup... but those in the photo aren't the very original version. The originals had uncoated drivers, and a trapezoidal box.

Stew

Those are the ones. I didn't realize there was a previous version. They made a sweet sounding car stereo!

mhardy6647

The ultimate speakers for one's mid-1970's Chevy van :-)

"I gave a girl a ride in my wagon..."

DracoAmericanus

I just found a set of these at a thrift store and mine have the coated mid driver and the optional
mounts, the only bad thing is i need to replace the foam as i doubt they still make the driver, mw6500?

DracoAmericanus

i don't know why they say mw6500 on the woofer as i know it's not, 5 inch woofer, maybe with the mw6500 magnet, it's a 5 inch driver, any one where i can find foam?

westmassguy

The original mini monitor used 4.5" drivers made by Rola & CTS back in the day. These were the same drivers Bose used in their original 901s from 1968 -1973. Rola & CTS sold those drivers to everyone

westmassguy

DracoAmericanus wrote: »

i don't know why they say mw6500 on the woofer as i know it's not, 5 inch woofer, maybe with the mw6500 magnet, it's a 5 inch driver, any one where i can find foam?

The surrounds shouldn't be foam, they originally came with treated cloth surrounds.

DracoAmericanus

the passive radiator is treated cloth and i have no idea why the mains have foam but it all looks factory in construction and with the stickers, it's odd

westmassguy

DracoAmericanus wrote: »

the passive radiator is treated cloth and i have no idea why the mains have foam but it all looks factory in construction and with the stickers, it's odd

Does sound odd. If they were mine, I'd pick up a couple 901 Series I drivers as replacements. You can purchase the original style polyvinyl coating or put a couple coats of high gloss, brush-on lacquer on the cones, and they'll last forever.

Stew

FWIW, The pair I had from 1981 had treated cloth surrounds on the passive radiators and foam surrounds on the mids.

westmassguy

Stew wrote: »

FWIW, The pair I had from 1981 had treated cloth surrounds on the passive radiators and foam surrounds on the mids.

Strange that they would mix foam, and treated cloth. One lasts for generations while the other not so much.

Face

They used foam for higher efficiency...something not important on a passive radiator. By changing the surround from foam to cloth would be bastardizing the speaker.

westmassguy

Face wrote: »

They used foam for higher efficiency...something not important on a passive radiator. By changing the surround from foam to cloth would be bastardizing the speaker.

I'm well aware of that. As I stated earlier I've seen the very early mini-monitors with cloth surrounds on the driver and PR. Whether Polk originally produced them with cloth on both, and changed the design to foam and cloth, or someone changed them from foam to treated cloth on their own I don't know.

Face

Do you know if there are other differences between the two other than the surround? Crossover, etc...?

DracoAmericanus

the crossover in mine are similar to other polk monitor series crossovers i.e the huge choke and bad capacitors lol. I found a vendor for some foam that should fit and sound the same "hopefully"

Malbec

The original, first iteration mini monitor had a foam surround mid, peerless tweeter (no hole in dome) mounted in the middle and a cone style PR. The cabinet was a six sided box like a stage monitor firing up at about a 45 degree angle. The crossover differed with the schematic in the sticky which shows a 34uf cap and the original having a 33uf cap being the only difference.

Here's a low quality phone pic of one in pieces.

Attachment not found.

dorokusai

One of the biggest complaints to Polk CS back in the day when it was one person, was that when used as suggested by Polk as perfect rear speakers for your automobile.....upon returning to your car on a hot day you'd find that your speakers had looked like they exploded. The first few thousand models used an adhesive called DAP which had the amazing ability to return back into a liquid. When subjected to high heat and the speaker would literally fall apart.

Between Russman, myself and a couple other Polkies, over half of the speakers in that hallway were donated by us.
Mark

ftoddw

Listening to mine right now. Sweet and smooth

xschop

ftoddw wrote: »

Listening to mine right now. Sweet and smooth

They really came with SL1000's?

boston1450

Nm

boston1450

Now I understand somewhat I've seen the mini monitor in the past here on forum/ebay. These pics have the Peerless.

boston1450

xschop

The MWs look different too.

boston1450

I dug a little & stated somewhere about Bose replacement woofers. Clothe surrounds on PR & foam surrounds. Interesting speakers

boston1450

ftoodw is powering those with a fair size receiver

mhardy6647

The woofer in the minimonitor was a version of the CTS "fullrange" (extended range, realistically speaking) 4-1/2 inch driver used in the Model Nine (and the earliest version of the Bose 901). A nice sounding driver, actually, and FWIW.