why all the changes?

ben62670

cfrizz wrote: »

LOL! Welcome to Club Polk.

Some upgrades are done because of the age of the speakers. The MAJORITY of it is simply tweekers who just can't leave well enough alone, have decided that they are better speakers designers than the people who actually do it for a living.

I have just learned to ignore those threads and let them be happy tweeking away.

For the record, I have a 19 year old pair of Polk RTA-8T's WITH the original tweeters that so many on here think are horrible. I love them to death, and when something finally goes on them due to age I will simply get new speakers.

Just like everything else with this hobby, 99% is subjective & people are in it for different reasons.

VIVA LA DIFFERENCE!:D

Wow where to begin.

The MAJORITY of it is simply tweakers who just can't leave well enough alone, have decided that they are better speakers designers than the people who actually do it for a living.

A:) The shear ignorance of this statement is mind blowing. In actuality if one were to contact Polk they would recommend most of the upgrades that are mentioned here. Polk is the ones that gave up the diagrams so that we could tweak their speakers;)
B:) Who is redesigning the speakers? Please tell me that you are not that ignorant after spending this much time at CP It is not redesigning when you are upgrading the same valued components with better pieces

I have just learned to ignore those threads and let them be happy tweaking away.

That's cool if it works for you. Maybe you should think outside of the box and broaden your horizons. Improvements in speaker technology have come a long way in the last 25 years(the SL2000 is a 25 year old design, and the material it is made out of is plastic that may be 25 years old;)).
Rock on. There is a whole world out there. Check it out:)

heiney9

The thing is Cathy something has gone out and you don;t even know it it's so gradual. What you mean is if it stops functioning completely .

For the record I don;t think I'm a better designer, it's that components have changed in 20+ years or so and even Matt and Stu agree using new parts at this point is beneficial.

No one should chide others for wanting to refresh some of the best speakers and designs just as one shouldn't chide those that have no desire to replace old worn parts.

The avg. useful life expectancy of the grade of caps and reisistors used in speakers of thas era and price point is 6-8 years. Better grade caps of today (which weren't available in large quantities 20 years ago let alone financially feasible) have a life expectancy of about 15-20 years.

All those naysayers do the math. In my experience the move to adding the same value parts to refresh a x-over and the newer better sounding tweeters are well worth the time effort and money.

YMMV

H9

Face

In my experience, the importance of a good crossover design and quality of components used in it are more important than the quality of the drivers.

ben62670

People really shouldn't give advice where they don't have experience. I did the fan boy thing when I first started, gave props, or dismissed ideas without ever having any personal experience:o

fredv

I have only done upgrade to Polk Monitor 5 and 7 (they actually have the ame xover).
My opinion is my own and limited to my experience with these 2 models.
Crossover tweak to these low cost Polk speakers won't make a night and day difference, at least, to my downhill hearing-sensitivity. For the sake of curiosity, I did most of others did to these monitors speakers including the SL2000 to RDO194 upgrades. I listened to them under tube and sand gears for a rather extensive period, and I had a spare set of xover's to swap easily. The difference was .....well different, and never struck me as something I regret I didn't do earlier. I am one of those rare beast that don't hate the SL2000.

At the end, I found the cost of the upgrade wasn't worth because I could spend the same amount of money to buy another pair of speakers that sounded better to me. I ended up putting back the old parts, sold the new tweeters, and used the money plus a little more to buy a pair of GRresearch that came with Sonicap and silk dome tweeter. The original total that I spent on the upgrade was virtually the same as the GRresearch. So, there are alternatives.

ben62670

I agree that the SL2000 can get a bad rep. They age more like milk than wine. Depending on where they are used/stored they can sound very nice. The 6db peak is at 12k and most of us over 30 can barely hear 12k so that is a mute point with many of us. What most people are hearing is the plastic getting "brittle" over the years. For monitors I can't see investing much in the way of high end caps unless you are planing on keeping them for a 2 channel tube rig, or they just have sentimental value to you. You can get all the parts to bring monitors up to better than new condition for around $40. Not a huge hit in the dollar department. On something like the SDA's I feel it is definitely worth it to spend a few dollars on the tweeter section for good caps. There is no other speaker out there that does what SDA does.

fredv

ben62670 wrote: »

....
The 6db peak is at 12k and most of us over 30 can barely hear 12k so that is a mute point with many of us.
....

30's can only be in my second life, and can say the same for 40's in the not too far away future

BTW, the M5's are very good bench speakers and have reasonably good resolution to tell me something isn't right. They are tough and have survived all my abuse In the next few days it will meet my 10W Aleph. I just need to stock up some more fuse before the first power on, LOL.

Systems

cfrizz wrote: »

The MAJORITY of it is simply tweekers who just can't leave well enough alone, have decided that they are better speakers designers than the people who actually do it for a living.

Not quite, it's a matter of trying to squeeze the last drop of potential from an already well designed product.

Face wrote: »

In my experience, the importance of a good crossover design and quality of components used in it are more important than the quality of the drivers.

Yep,both of our expieriences bare this out.Inexpensive but decent drivers with a well engineered xover can sound very good and will in all probability outperform a design using SEAS Excel's mated with a non optimum xover.

fredv wrote: »

In the next few days it will meet my 10W Aleph.

The Mini?

fredv

GV#27 wrote: »

The Mini?

Yup, yup, my junk heat sinks are not up to the task to dissipate no more than 50W of heat from the FETS. Otherwise, I would go for the Aleph 30. I will start out at 1A bias and push it up until the sinks reach NP's magic temp - 55C :-) Besides the Peter Daniel boards, most of other parts were from my parts bin, imagine the bottom "plate" is a 3/8" MDF that I savaged from a dismantled audio rack. Talking about cheapie, here is one example

Systems

fredv wrote: »

Yup, yup, my junk heat sinks are not up to the task to dissipate no more than 50W of heat from the FETS. Otherwise, I would go for the Aleph 30. I will start out at 1A bias and push it up until the sinks reach NP's magic temp - 55C :-) Besides the Peter Daniel boards, most of other parts were from my parts bin, imagine the bottom "plate" is a 3/8" MDF that I savaged from a dismantled audio rack. Talking about cheapie, here is one example

Nice,If it sounds anything like the Zen it will be a treat.I was tempted to try a Mini but my expierience with a Zen proved 10w was not going to suit my needs.

gdb

I've got some SL2000 tweeters whose domes resemble the sun beaten plastic rear widow in a convertible top on a car.....one of which actually cracked while being played at a less than prudent SPL !! If you do order new tweeters, ask for the CP discount.;)