Fixing an SL2000

Marty913

MarcLazarek78 wrote: »

I need help on my SL2000 also.

I left the room for 2 min and come back in to see one of the cats clawing the dome off.

all thats left is a severd single thread wire from top to bottom and a detached dome. is this fixable?

MarcLazarek78 wrote: »

so in my SDA 2's (2 tweets each cab) I'd need one or two pair, and are the new crossovers needed?

My god I do not want to start anything but IF you are in a pinch tweeter-wise on SDA2's (1 stereo tweeter, 1 SDA tweeter each cabinet), there are some members that have "unplugged" the SDA tweeter. Polk eventually did away with it and some claim it's presence actually muddies the upper-end.

I have done listening both ways and prefer it connected but I use mine for surrounds. It certainly sounds good either way. It's just another option if limited tweeters on hand are preventing you from enjoying you Polk's.

Of course member testing has not yet revealed whether cats like SL2000's or RDO-194's better. A study, however, is planned.

barakus

This is exactly why I have a dog. She has absolutely no interest in scratching tweeters, only herself and occasionally me or my wife as a strange form of greeting.

Talk about stirring things up - let the "cats vs. dogs and their relationship to high fidelity components" argument begin!

MarcLazarek78

which would be the SDA tweet, upper or lower?

Marty913

MarcLazarek78 wrote: »

which would be the SDA tweet, upper or lower?

For the SDA2 there are two horizontal tweeters & the outside on is SDA. Vertical tweeter arrays like the ones on the SDA SRS 2's & the 1C's are not SDA tweeters.

MarcLazarek78

Sorry, they are SDA SRS 2's.

.....?

heiney9

MarcLazarek78 wrote: »

which would be the SDA tweet, upper or lower?

Can you describe the driver configuration in your SDA's. SDA 2's and SDA 2A's have (3) drivers and and (2) tweeters which are side by side. SDA 2B's have (2) drivers and (1) tweeter.

heiney9

MarcLazarek78 wrote: »

Sorry, they are SDA SRS 2's.

.....?

Ah, ok, very nice speakers. You can't disconnect the bad tweeter on those without sacrificing the sound. Those are absolutely worth the investment to get new RD0 tweeters all around if you can spend the money.

H9

MarcLazarek78

4 mids (in a square configuration) 2 tweeters in the center of the square stacked vertical,and one 15'' flat sub driver.

Systems

I have 4 sl2000's...who wants em?

MarcLazarek78

Sir,me. I only need one,but will take a pair if thats how you want to do it.

I think Barakas is set on upgrading.

barakus

Marc,

You might want to get stereo_luver's tweeter(s). I was listening to Abbey Road tonight at pretty high volume while putting together some furniture, and I definitely heard some cracking noises from my good SL2000. I'd be glad to ship mine to you once I get my upgrades, but you should know that it might not be ideal.

I hope it's not my midrange driver making the noise, but I doubt it. It could also be the source material, but I've never noticed any such thing on that album before.

dorokusai

The going rate for used SL2000's on this forum, is $20 shipped.

MarcLazarek78

I think I heard some cracking in one of my good ones too.

nms

Same here. After diagnosing a bad Xover in one of my M10s, I just assumed it was the Xover, not the tweeter. The crackling is only evident on certain types of music though.

barakus

Well, my tweeter that is definitely bad makes the same crackling noise, but constantly and much more loudly. I'm 99% sure that the sound is being caused by the voice coil crashing into the pole piece.

I'll probably do the crossover upgrade eventually but it's going to be a while, so I hope it's not my crossovers causing the Rice Crispies simulation.

Disc Jockey

heiney9 wrote: »

Can you describe the driver configuration in your SDA's. SDA 2's and SDA 2A's have (3) drivers and and (2) tweeters which are side by side. SDA 2B's have (2) drivers and (1) tweeter.

The SDA 2A has the same configuration as the 2B, 2 mid drivers and 1 tweet.

DJ

nms

I'll probably do the crossover upgrade eventually but it's going to be a while, so I hope it's not my crossovers causing the Rice Crispies simulation.

My M10s would make a noise kind of like you are describing here. It was very noticeable with piano and classical music (but it wasn't constantly like you are describing). For me, it turned out to be the Xover. You can test this by swapping the tweeters and seeing if the crackling follows the tweeter or stays in the same place.

nms

I just fixed an SL2000 that suddenly went dead on me a while ago. Today I wanted to put the SL2000s in both my M10s and my SDAs, and since I only had 3 working SLs I decided to try to repair it.

Using an ohmmeter I discovered that the fault was simply one of the very thin wires from the plugs had come off the post it was soldered to. The voice coil and everything else was fine, so this is a different case than the starter of this thread had.

I cut away the rubber compound over the wire (which is thinner than my hair, BTW) to expose enough to work with. My original plan was to simply re-solder it to the post, but my soldering iron melted the wire!

Eventually I found some other thin wire I had and soldered that to the post, then wrapped the original thin wire around my new wire. I couldn't solder them because the thin wire would melt again, so I just kept trying different ways of physically connecting them until I got something that held. I verified a good/bad connection with the ohmmeter again, one probe on each post.

After getting the wires wrapped around each other I put some "goop" over the area to replace the caulk or whatever it is. So far it is holding.

Please don't attempt this if you don't want to spend more than an hour staring at things that approach invisible. I still have a headache from doing this. BUT, it IS possible to repair a SL2000 tweeter.

And yes, I realize I'm losing a lot of fidelity by doing this, but a poorly working tweeter is better than a broken one in my book!

muncybob

After lurking around these forums for a few months I'm finally convinced to replace the SL2000 tweets in my 2B's....probably call Polk up today and if anybody is interested in my old tweets(in very good condition....we have cats but the dogs keep them in their place!) just let me know. Probably just be looking for the previously mentioned $20/per price quote(unless there is some reason I should hang onto them?). One is original and the other was a replacement from around 8-10 years or so ago.
With all this talk of tweeter and xover upgrades(which I never would have even thought of if I had never read these posts!) has anybody ever "upgraded" the mids in their SDA speakers? Is it even worth looking into?

candyliquor35m

Hold on to them so you can do a side by side comparison with the sl2000 in the right speaker and the replacement in the left speaker or vice versa

Also try this on the positive lead of the sl2000 before you sell them: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=31246

heiney9

muncybob wrote: »

and xover upgrades(which I never would have even thought of if I had never read these posts!) has anybody ever "upgraded" the mids in their SDA speakers? Is it even worth looking into?

X-over upgrades are well worth it!! I don't know what you mean "upgrade the mids" Polk used several different model MWxxx over the years and they all had different electrical parameters and they probably sounded different. The later SDA's like the 1C's used the same type of wire wound voice coil that the big daddy SRS's did of the day.

I suppose it would be an interesting project but without knowing what the specs were for each driver compared to what type of x-over it was used with I don't know how one could go about it other pure trial and error. Polk's info on the drivers is proprietary and I doubt they would give it out willy nilly.

If you mean to upgrade by using other manufacturer's drivers, that would be just as much trial and error as again no published/available specs for Polk drivers.

Both would be an expensive trial and error especially if you have the bigger SDA's with all those drivers.

The tweeter's were R & D'd by Polk and they are "approved" and known to work as intended in each application.

H9

P.s. There must be a good reason the later multi driver SDA's used different drivers for the Stereo portion and the SDA portion.

dorokusai

muncybob wrote: »

With all this talk of tweeter and xover upgrades(which I never would have even thought of if I had never read these posts!) has anybody ever "upgraded" the mids in their SDA speakers? Is it even worth looking into?

No, not worth it.

heiney9

I will say I was going to experiment with my Monitor 5B's since they are a single driver speaker. I was trying to see if I could better bass at lower listening levels. I almost pulled the trigger and a pr. each of the Passive Radiators form an RTA11. Plus I was going to try and get a few used late MW6510's or MW6511's to try in them.

This would be much easier using a single driver speaker than a multiple driver SDA which has a stereo portion and a dimensional portion. I sort of let the idea pass because of cost and the hassle of sourcing quality used parts off e-bay.

I often wonder what a later model MW would sound like in an earlier Monitor like I have. Actually the different PR is what I was really interested in. My M5's have great bass but the volume has to be quite high to notice it. Since it's an office system and the speakers are only about 3.5 feet away there's no need to really crank them.

H9

muncybob

I will do a side by side comparison of the old and new tweeters. I have long felt that the SL2000's were harsh at higher volume levels and am hoping the silks will correct that since I love to crank up certain music when the wife isn't home. I'm not an "electrical type person" but can hardly believe Polk would have gone through all the trouble to develope the RDO tweeter if a simple cap add on would have done the trick?? But then I guess I would not know the benefit unless I try it...which I probably will since it looks fairly easy and cheap to do and lets face it, it all depends on the listener's ears doesn't it?

barakus

I just received my new tweeters and have a question. There are no labels on the terminals for the RDOs, so I don't know how to connect them. One terminal has a bronze-colored coating; I assume that's positive. I think the black wire is also positive. Anybody know if this is right?

candyliquor35m

Yes the black wire is positive and my rd0's had some kind of coating on the positive terminal. Try installing them in only one speaker first so you can do a side by side comparison of your old tweeters vs the new ones.

barakus

Thanks. I couldn't wait any more, so I connected them that way. Glad it's correct. I might compare them against the old one, but I have to let them break in first. It's just good not to hear that infernal crackling noise!

I'll report back.

mescko

I just picked up a pair of SDA 1s, and there are different tweets all over the place. I'm lost without knowing which one looks like what. Which one is the early SDA brushed-metal face tweet? There's only one of these on the pair. The other three are the 'Silver-Coil' with the horizontal caulking. They also came with 2 NIB SL2500's. So, what's next?

Scott