A little help with Polk wiring on 5b's

heiney9

Ok so no one answered my x-over thread pertaining to the 5b's I just got. Now I have another question. Ever since I got them they have sound thin in the bass and just haven't sounded right. No extension whatsoever, kind of like a boom box. I know when dkg999 owned them he replaced both blown mw6502's and I thought perhaps they might have been wired out of phase. So I pulled the drivers and switched the connections.

When I FIRST checked it was:

BLACK wire to terminal with RED dot
WHITE wire to unmarked terminal

I switched them so that:

WHITE wire to terminal with RED dot
BLACK wire to unmarked terminal

Now the speakers sound like I remember them. Good solid bass and extension no more bass sounding like the rapping of knuckles on a wood counter.

I just want someone (Jesse or Raife or anyone.....) to confirm this is correct.

Thanks

H9

ben62670

Black does go to the red dot. I also have monitor 5's, 4.6's, SDA2's, SDA2a's, SDA-SRS, RTA15TL, And now SDA1.3TL's. I'm not trying to brag here, but to let you know I am speaking from experience. Polk uses black and white like house wiring. AC the black wire is Hot and the white is neutral. I assume that Polk did it this way because amps actually put out AC not DC. It is also possible that someone may have play with the crossover post connections. When you look at the big inductor it should be wired to the + side of the woofer.
Good luck
Ben

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

Black does go to the red dot. I also have monitor 5's, 4.6's, SDA2's, SDA2a's, SDA-SRS, RTA15TL, And now SDA1.3TL's. I'm not trying to brag here, but to let you know I am speaking from experience. Polk uses black and white like house wiring. AC the black wire is Hot and the white is neutral. I assume that Polk did it this way because amps actually put out AC not DC. It is also possible that someone may have play with the crossover post connections. When you look at the big inductor it should be wired to the + side of the woofer.
Good luck
Ben

Thanks Ben. I'll be rebuilding the x-overs soon so I may need some advice in the next couple weeks. They sound much better wired with the White wire to the red dot, so perhaps the x-over was mis-wired at some point. When I start working on the x-overs I'll report back.

H9

ben62670

Do you have the link for the crossovers?
If not here it is
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38755

I wish they color coded the wiring but it is easy to figure out

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

Do you have the link for the crossovers?
If not here it is
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38755

I wish they color coded the wiring but it is easy to figure out

Yes, I already have a hard copy of the schematics. I'm going to rewire the whole speaker as well, using red and black colored wire. Starting the wiring from scratch is the best way to go since I don't the history beyond when dkg999 had them.

H9

ben62670

I wish Polk used red and black. It can be confusing when the speaker terminal is black, but the black wire goes on the red terminal To me black + red = bad things :eek:

Enjoy
Ben

heiney9

These do sound better with the White on red so I can only assume (for now) that someone crossed wires somewhere. It's going to be a couple weeks before I can jump into re-capping and re-wiring them since I just don't have time these next 2 weekends. So until then I may leave these as they are.

Thanks
H9

ben62670

It certainly isn't going to hurt anything, and I'm not going to tell you what sounds better through your ears when I can't hear or see them LOL

dkg999

H9 - the x-overs are as they came with the cabinets. I don't think I even had them out of the cabinets. I just vacumed out the inside of the cabinets and replaced the tweeters with a pair of SL-2000's from my SDA-2A's and a pair of mid/woofs I had from a pair of Monitor 7's and they matched the numbers on the ones in the 5's. Someone may have messed with the x-overs, they looked untouched if I remember correctly, but I don't have the history either. Doug.

heiney9

dkg999 wrote:

H9 - the x-overs are as they came with the cabinets. I don't think I even had them out of the cabinets. I just vacumed out the inside of the cabinets and replaced the tweeters with a pair of SL-2000's from my SDA-2A's and a pair of mid/woofs I had from a pair of Monitor 7's and they matched the numbers on the ones in the 5's. Someone may have messed with the x-overs, they looked untouched if I remember correctly, but I don't have the history either. Doug.

I'm sure these were this way when you got them. Again no complaints considering you practically gave them to me . Someone, other than you, at some time has messed with these (I'm guessing). Remember how I was a bit miffed at why there was no bass when you first brought them over? That question has plagued me for a week so I thought I'd just try swapping the connections and they sound so much fuller on the bottom end, more like I remember them. So they will get overhauled in the next 2-3 weeks. I'm going to e-mail you about another topic in a bit.

H9