Vintage Polk speakers for home theater Vs. vintage JBL?

jpchleapas

Hello gang. I am a newbie to Polk but have fond memories of listening to them in the 1980's. I am in the end stages of cobbling my home theater together. My amplifier is a ADA PTM-8150 8 channel 150 wpc in 8 ohms and over 200 wpc with 4 ohm speaker loads. My preamplifier is a fosgate fap-v1 vacuum tube dolby prologic processor/preamplifier that does either 5.1, or 7.1. I will be running 5.1 due to smaller room size with front L-R, center channel speaker, rear L-R and a dedicated subwoofer. Right now I have jbl L300 for my front and L100T3 for my rear. My center channel is temporary but is close to the same efficiency as my front mains at 92dB Vs my 93dB L300. I am wodering how SDA- 2B for front L-R, RTA 12B for rear L-R, and a CS 350LS for my front center would compare with my JBL set up? I would be keeping my JBL PB-12 subwoofer to run right off my ADA amplifier bypassing the built in plate amplifier. Any comments on this as a possible set up for me for now? I am trying to determine if a vintage Polk HT speaker set up would be a step up from my current JBL speakers?

My main critical listening stereo is in another room and consists of 45, 300b, and el34 SET and PP mono block amplifiers. I use vacuum tube preamplifers also. That is about the best sounding set up I have ever heard with my 2-way 6' tall horn speakers. Thanks for reading this! John

schwarcw

Welcome to the Forum John! The SDA-2B's are great speakers. They have SL2000's for tweeters. Most of the SDA owners replace these tweeters with the RD-0194 silk tweeters for a softer HF sound. The SL200's have a 5 dB spike around 13K (ouch). Some (a minority) like the very detailed but bright or harsh sound. I'm not sure what tweeter the RTA's have, I think it's a SL2000 (check the Polk site for specs). Anyways, it's important to have a timbre match for all your HT speakers, If your are going to use the SL2000's, this will be a good match, but you may not like the sound. I don't know what tweeter your center has. Again check the Polk site specs. The tubes shouls soften the SL2000's a little bit hook them up and give them a listen. Tell us what you think. You have some nice equipment and it should give you lot's of enjoyment. Again, welcome to Club Polk forums. Please feel free to post with any question you may have. There are a lot of ideas and opinions out here. Glad to have you!!!:)

Dennis Gardner

Nice vintage JBL rig, John!

Upgrade? I would call it a push as the vintage lines go, since i've owned both.
As you can see in my signature, I currently run a similar setup to those you are considering.

The Polks you are considering will sound tighter in the midbass due to the passive radiator design chosen over JBLs ported design. Polks as a rule are known to be softer than the vintage JBL offerings, but those that you are considering do have the SL-2000 tweeters that Carl mentioned that are closer to what you are getting from the JBLs.

I am an old JBL fan owning L100s as my first "serious" speaker investment in the mid '70s and like both vintage models, but really prefer Polks newer offering much more than what JBL is making today.


On another note, if your Fosgate DPL processor doesn't allow true Dolby Digital decoding, you are missing alot of full range info in the surrounds and overall better bass management the newer digital format offers.

ND13

That Fosgate is one of the prettiest pieces of audio gear ever produced. Congrats on having one. I'd have to bet that they are becoming scarce.

jpchleapas

ND13 wrote:

That Fosgate is one of the prettiest pieces of audio gear ever produced. Congrats on having one. I'd have to bet that they are becoming scarce.

Thanks. Here is a link to a review. They only made 50 of them and I have chassis number 19 of the run of only 50 units. When Jim Fosgate left RF the last 12 or 13 of these were bought out by a audio shop in CA. I did not pay a lot considering around 38 people paid $13K for theirs. I saved 10K on my unit brand new in the crate. I wanted one when they first came out. It is the only tube true dolby prologic ll surround sound processor made to date by the man himself Jim Fosgate who invented Dolby. He has to wait a little longer for the one year non-compete part of his contract to expire but before he is done he will be back involved with home audio. He is a huge vacuum tube lover and only his bass bins are driven with SS amps I have read in his own amazing home theater set up. The pics of the unit shown in the review do not even come close showing to how really beautiful this large beast is in real life. With the flip of a switch I can go from 7.1 (5.1 with my set up) to only 2 speaker stereo using my front main speakers. I actually tried to buy a 2nd one as an investment to keep sealed in the crate but he sold the last one. Still with only 50 made I feel lucky to be one of the owners. John C.

http://www.hedmag.com/Product-Reviews/Audio-Electronics/Tube-Romance.asp

ohskigod

wow, thats a hell of a deal. you arent gonna be selling that any time soon I'm sure :-)