New silk dome tweeter too loud?

LifeNMusic

Bought a pair of SDA 1C in decent shape recently and I am now a new member of this wonderful board.

I could not resist the temptation so I did the upgrade to new silk dome tweeters as lots of the folks recommended here. (4 BD0194s, which are same as RD0194s as I was told). No crossover mod yet.

After the new tweeters were installed, i noticed that although the top end does seem to be smooth, they also seem to be louder than the old sl2000 tweeters. So now they seem to sound 'brighter'...

Could it be they need more break-in time? (Only 8 hours so far I think). Or the new tweeters are just more efficient somehow?

Thanks.

ben62670

report back in a week of good listening;)
Welcome to Club Polk

Ben

SLOCOOKN

Give'em another week. You will be much happier.

I had the same thoughts when I first installed my silks.

LifeNMusic

Thanks for the quick replies, Ben and SLOCOOKN. That's relieving information, - I was going to put the old tweeters back! Glad that I saw your posts right before I picked up my screwdriver :-)

I will report back in a week then.

Happy holidays!

zingo

The quote for tweeter break-in on this site seems to be 50 hours. Try that.

dorokusai

You're simply used to that horrible SL2000....chill out, and let them draw you in like a vampire to its prey.

F1nut

I'm offended.....talking about vampires like that....geez.


Burn in for those tweeters is 50 hours minimum.

Akhenaten818

I put new tweeters in my 11t, the RD 0194. They sounded different--not denying that. I think I prefer the old tweeters though. I gave it 6 months without any mods to the crossovers. How do you feel about the upgrade now? Curious. You are the first I've heard about haveing second thoughts about the upgrade.

Neskahi

Had SL2000's in my SDA SRS's and they were ear piercing and exhausting. The cat wouldn't even stay in the same room. Changed out to RDO's and me and the cat are both very satisfied after about ten hours of use. I find the SL3000's used in 2.3TL's to be fine.
Polk's and cats usually don't mix well but she is trained not to get within two feet of them.

bikezappa

Turn the treble down a bit.

heiney9

Break in is the key. Wait until you have about 60-75 hours on them, then make you observations. Most like them better than the original sl2000, but only you can decide, but give them some time before you decide.

The original sl2000 had a +5 dB peak at around 15kHz which made them sound "loud" within that freq range, the RD0's don't have that peak so I can't understand why they would sound "louder" to you.

Good luck

H9

jakelm

RDO's louder than the sl2000?? That seems alittle bass ackwards to me. The sl2000's , no matter how old they were, always seemed louder and not as smooth as new RDO's and Peerless.

This might seem like a stupid question , but are you sure you bought the right tweeters?

danger boy

my cat sits right in front of the left SDA 2B in my room. she never did that when I had SL2000's in there.

Smart kitty !

madmax

jakelm wrote: »

RDO's louder than the sl2000?? That seems alittle bass ackwards to me. The sl2000's , no matter how old they were, always seemed louder and not as smooth as new RDO's and Peerless.

Yea, that is what I was thinking too. I noticed less output with all of mine. Could you have them wired out of phase possibly?
madmax

LifeNMusic

I have been running them for about 60-70 hours so far.
When first installed, the silk dome tweeters (i got the BD's,BTW) sound smooth already just somehow louder to me and hence 'bright'.

After the break-in period, the result is now more acceptable. I am not sure that's because my ears are now more used to them or it's the break-in effect. Have not put the old tweeters back yet, as I now can live with the new tweeters.


I know the original tweeters have the +5db spike at 15k or so (read a review somewhere before), did not bother me too much though. That being said, I don't have the chart for the new tweeters (anyone has info on this?). To my knowledge, every speaker has its own characteristics and without precise measurement, it's difficult to say whether the old crossovers will now work 100% the way they supposed to with new tweeters. I wish i have an ideal room to check the freq response and see if they did get better...

So this is what I feel about the new and old tweeters:

Silk domes do sound smooth on the top
Sl2000 however, has been measured and tested to be pretty good and consistent except for the 15k spike.
More testing will have to been done to see if the new silk dome does work well with old crossover.
I feel the mid-range is slightly weaker than I'd like to hear, maybe some crossover work further down the road... But I can live with the silk domes now.

To me it's more like a personal taste thing between the SL2000s and silk domes. If you like your SL2000s, keeping them is not really that bad a choice.



ps.
jakelm, yes, i got the right tweeters.

madmax, I did write down everything and made sure I connect the 'red dot' to the positive

Akhenaten818, if you like the SL2000, just keep them! It's what you like that counts not what everyone else says.

bikezappa, I don't like any EQ change at all. To me any extra thing in the signal path will only degrade the sound quality. Just my opinion.

ben62670

With Polk's the black wire is the positive. Just double checking with ya.

LifeNMusic

ben62670,
Yep. I think on mine the white wire is negative.

ben62670

Ok I had to ask. Black has always meant negative to me in the audio world even though black is hot in terms of AC.

heiney9

LifeNMusic wrote: »

I have been running them for about 60-70 hours so far.
When first installed, the silk dome tweeters (i got the BD's,BTW) sound smooth already just somehow louder to me and hence 'bright'.

After the break-in period, the result is now more acceptable. I am not sure that's because my ears are now more used to them or it's the break-in effect. Have not put the old tweeters back yet, as I now can live with the new tweeters.


I know the original tweeters have the +5db spike at 15k or so (read a review somewhere before), did not bother me too much though. That being said, I don't have the chart for the new tweeters (anyone has info on this?). To my knowledge, every speaker has its own characteristics and without precise measurement, it's difficult to say whether the old crossovers will now work 100% the way they supposed to with new tweeters. I wish i have an ideal room to check the freq response and see if they did get better...

So this is what I feel about the new and old tweeters:

Silk domes do sound smooth on the top
Sl2000 however, has been measured and tested to be pretty good and consistent except for the 15k spike.
More testing will have to been done to see if the new silk dome does work well with old crossover.
I feel the mid-range is slightly weaker than I'd like to hear, maybe some crossover work further down the road... But I can live with the silk domes now.

To me it's more like a personal taste thing between the SL2000s and silk domes. If you like your SL2000s, keeping them is not really that bad a choice.



ps.
jakelm, yes, i got the right tweeters.

madmax, I did write down everything and made sure I connect the 'red dot' to the positive

Akhenaten818, you may want to give them some break-in time and see how they work for you. The SL2000 though, are decent tweeters to keep if you don't feel they are annoying...

bikezappa, I don't like any EQ change at all. To me any extra thing in the signal path will only degrade the sound quality. Just my opinion.

Also keep in mind when the material for the sl3000 and sl2500 series tweeters (Tri-laminate and replaced the sl2000) were no longer available Polks engineers put together a spec sheet and went in search of a new manufacturer to make replacement tweeters for them. Several were extensively tested and the RD0194-1 and RD0198-1 were the ones chosen by the engineering department as replacements. So this wasn't a "willy-nilly grab the first thing that comes along and is close" type senario. The RD0 replacements are better in almost every aspect and addressed some of the shortcomings of the sl2000 tweeter.

If it wasn't for the fact the process and material for the "TL" series tweeters was discontinued we'd probably still be using those today. So rest assured that Polk was heavily involved with sourcing a top notch replacement tweeter and didn't just get it off another manufacturer's shelf.

H9

LifeNMusic

ben62670 wrote: »

Ok I had to ask. Black has always meant negative to me in the audio world even though black is hot in terms of AC.

There should be ( I think there actually IS) one convention that says Red means + and Black means -. But apparently everyone has their own idea how the world will be better off with more colors! :-)

danger boy

black wire is pos in the Polk speakers. don't even ask why.. no one knows for sure why... maybe someone was color blind back then.

jakelm

danger boy wrote: »

black wire is pos in the Polk speakers. don't even ask why.. no one knows for sure why... maybe someone was color blind back then.

Builder must have been an electrician. Black pos and white neutral.

F1nut

The 5dB spike is at 13kHz and it's nasty. Some people seem to confuse it with detail, although I never thought bleeding ear drums did much good for detail. The RD0's are a far superior tweeter in every aspect.

heiney9

F1nut wrote: »

The 5dB spike is at 13kHz and it's nasty.

It also has a very unnatural resonance at around that same freq. spike which is very nasty on a great deal of music.

RD0's are certainly superior

merrylander

Well that answered a question for me, my 10Bs have the SL2000 and one has a very small tear in the diaphram, so I guess I will be ordering some RDO194-1s. One of my Monitor 5s has Peerless, the other has a Polk with a silvery face have not pulled one to see what model.

F1nut

Rob, nice to see you here. The silver faced tweeter is called the SL1000.

Kapacitor

LifeNMusic wrote: »

Bought a pair of SDA 1C in decent shape recently and I am now a new member of this wonderful board.

I could not resist the temptation so I did the upgrade to new silk dome tweeters as lots of the folks recommended here. (4 BD0194s, which are same as RD0194s as I was told). No crossover mod yet.

After the new tweeters were installed, i noticed that although the top end does seem to be smooth, they also seem to be louder than the old sl2000 tweeters. So now they seem to sound 'brighter'...

Could it be they need more break-in time? (Only 8 hours so far I think). Or the new tweeters are just more efficient somehow?

Thanks.

You are NOT hearing things.
I feel the same way, well over 200 hours later!
The RDO 194 will not become less bright.
My experience is exactly the opposite, the more it breaks in, the more efficient it becomes.
The SLIGHTLY increased output of it compared to SL 2000 makes the speaker a BIT edgy.
My problems may be in the aging crossover components, we will see ?

heiney9

I have to say in my SDA 1C's and the Monitor 5B's both with refreshed x-overs I didn't experience what either one you hear. It took awhile for the caps, resistors and RD0194-1 to break in on my 5B's but after about a month they sounded fantastic.

To me all the Polk's I've owned with the sl2000 that tweeter has always sounded very forward, had a certain resonance with female vocals, and tended to "ramp" up as the volume was increased. It was/is a very fatiguing tweeter.

I find nothing about the RD0's in either speaker that are problematic. It's a very open tweeter, smooth, extended and not a hint of coloration to female vocals. Not fatiguing at all.

I will say both sets of speakers do give a different presentation. The 1C's are extremely laid back but detailed while the 5B's are more "upfront" and energetic but never harsh or edgy. Still smooth but perhaps a bit more forward sounding than the 1C's. To be fair the 1C's use Sonic Caps and the 5B's use Solens so that may account for the difference's.

LifeNMusic, give them plenty of break in time because as most have found they need it. It is remarkable the difference of the same tweeter in 2 different designs of speakers.

H9

P.s. You could never in a million years get me to ever listen to the sl2000 tweeter again.

sl2000= harsh and shouty: RD0194-1= soft and detailed

Disc Jockey

I had the exact opposite experience also on my SDA 2A's. The RDO was much nicer and easier to listen to than the SL2000, especially at higher volumes.

Though to me, the RDO 194 still had a bit of an edge to it compared to the RDO 198 with and without the crossover refresh in my 11TL's. Of course, these are on two different sets of speaks so that may have contributed as well.

Once I did the high pass crossover refresh (haven't gotten to the low pass yet) the SDA's lost any hint of edginess they had and the tweet sounds marvelous.

heiney9

Disc Jockey wrote: »

I had the exact opposite experience also on my SDA 2A's. The RDO was much nicer and easier to listen to than the SL2000, especially at higher volumes. Though to me, the RDO 194 still had a bit of an edge to it compared to the RDO 198 with and without the crossover refresh in my 11TL's. Once I did the high pass crossover refresh (haven't gotten to the low pass yet) the SDA's lost any hint of edginess they had and the tweet sounds marvelous.

That's an excellent point, which I also made in another post. To get the maximum benefit out of the new tweeter the x-over components need to be refreshed. Caps and resistors in most of the "classic" Polks are at or beyond their intended life cycle and soldering in some new non-electrolytic caps and a wire wound (Mills) resistor makes a substantial improvement.

H9

LifeNMusic

Thanks for everyone's input on this one. After hundreds of hours of listening, I am now ready to post some more thoughts:
1. Silk domes DO sound smooth and more accurate. I'd like to point out that I never said the RDOs (BDOs) are inferior compared to SL2000. Violin on Vivaldi's four seasons CD tells the truth, - simply sound more like real life violin to me.

2. However, my observation about the Silk Domes may be more efficient still remains. While the silk domes do sound better, they also seem to sound slightly louder. Because of this, the mid-range now sounds like a little weak. While Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La still sounds warm and wonderful. Quite a few of my vocal CDs now show slightly weaker human voices. I also compare my 1Cs to a few other sets of speakers and the result shows the same.

I still love my 1Cs as they cover almost the whole range of sound spectrum with ease and are very easy to listen to. I don't have to turn my volume knob all the way up to appreciate nuances of the music ( and scare away all family members at the same time). I guess I may eventually try to tweak the crossover a little down the road, whenever I get time and energy to do so...


p.s. Anyone know what happened to this Kapacitor ( who seemed to be banned)?