Mystery sealed bookshelf speakers
daninoregon79
Posts: 10
Newbie here... first post, sorry if it's in the wrong place.
I just last week purchased a pair of seemingly small and very cheap Polk Audio speakers. Wow was I surprised when I got them home and they cleaned the clock of my largish floorstanding Lancers. The mystery to me is what exactly I purchased since someone removed the labels from the back of the cabinets. I pulled the drivers from one and the woof = MW7101 while the tweet is a SL4000. Could someone please help me figure out what the specs on these might be (model num, rms power, freq. range... original price)?
Thanks in advance!
I just last week purchased a pair of seemingly small and very cheap Polk Audio speakers. Wow was I surprised when I got them home and they cleaned the clock of my largish floorstanding Lancers. The mystery to me is what exactly I purchased since someone removed the labels from the back of the cabinets. I pulled the drivers from one and the woof = MW7101 while the tweet is a SL4000. Could someone please help me figure out what the specs on these might be (model num, rms power, freq. range... original price)?
Thanks in advance!
Post edited by daninoregon79 on
Comments
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Should add that they were made in 1994, are absent of any form of batting and have a tiny crossover mounted to the inside of the spring-clip terminal cup. Sound EXCELLENT!! Bass, detail, amazing imaging... all the best I've heard yet. I am now a Polk Audio fan.
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Could it be an R series maybe? Those tweeters were mostly in the CS series center channels if I do recall, like the CS200...try looking at speakers from the same period (around the early-mid 90's).Home:
Onkyo TX-6500MKII/Polk LSI 9's (A)Polk TSi 100(B)/Polk PSW 10/Onkyo C-S5VL/Technics SL-QD33
Home 2 (Playback):
Dynaudio BM5A MKII/Dynaudio SUB 250MC/Audigy 2 ZS
College:
JBL LSR 2325P/JBL 2310SP/MOTU UltraLite MKIII -
Where would I find this information? Google doesn't have much to offer for "Polk MW7101" "Polk SL4000" or even Polk sealed bookshelf... and it doesn't look like any on the Polk website listing of vintage models.
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pics?
Check this site too, http://www.polksda.com/list.shtml
Click on each clickable link adn see if any of them look like what you have.____________________
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HT:Onkyo 805, Emotiva XPA-5, Mitsu 52" 1080p DLP / polkaudio RTi12, CSIa6, FXi3, uPro4K
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Pool: Atrium 60's/45's -
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Not the R series.
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That looks like a Polk Monitor. One of the semi-rarities, in that it doesn't have a number connotation after the name. It's simply the Polk Monitor.
I've got a pair of their baby brothers...the Polk Mini Monitors...they're some pretty impressive sounding speakers for their size. Basically the same, but with a 5.25 inch MW in a ported enclosure. Yours have a 6.5" MW's, correct?The nirvana inducer-
APC H10 Power Conditioner
Marantz UD5005 universal player
Parasound Halo P5 preamp
Parasound HCA-1200II power amp
PolkAudio LSi9's/PolkAudio SDA 2A's/PolkAudio Monitor 7A's
Audioquest Speaker Cables and IC's -
S4? Maybe?I like speakers that are bigger than a small refrigerator but smaller than a big refrigerator:D
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You decide to part with those JBL Lancer jobs and you can buy a whole bunch of small Polk speakers.
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delete me please
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MillerLiteScott wrote: »S4? Maybe?
That was one of my first thoughts too...but the S4's used the SL-5000 tweeter IIRC.
I'm sticking with Monitor.The nirvana inducer-
APC H10 Power Conditioner
Marantz UD5005 universal player
Parasound Halo P5 preamp
Parasound HCA-1200II power amp
PolkAudio LSi9's/PolkAudio SDA 2A's/PolkAudio Monitor 7A's
Audioquest Speaker Cables and IC's -
daninoregon79 wrote: »Should add that they were made in 1994, are absent of any form of batting and have a tiny crossover mounted to the inside of the spring-clip terminal cup. Sound EXCELLENT!! Bass, detail, amazing imaging... all the best I've heard yet. I am now a Polk Au"
"any form of batting" what do you mean by this? -
no fiberglass or cotton or any kind of damping material (stuffing) - hollow wooden box. Should I add some?
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daninoregon79 wrote: »no fiberglass or cotton or any kind of damping material (stuffing) - hollow wooden box. Should I add some?
If it sounds fine, you don't need to ( no rattling, etc), dampening is really more for ported designs rather than sealed speakers. Here's a question, does the crossover have any labeling on it?Home:
Onkyo TX-6500MKII/Polk LSI 9's (A)Polk TSi 100(B)/Polk PSW 10/Onkyo C-S5VL/Technics SL-QD33
Home 2 (Playback):
Dynaudio BM5A MKII/Dynaudio SUB 250MC/Audigy 2 ZS
College:
JBL LSR 2325P/JBL 2310SP/MOTU UltraLite MKIII -
# RE 0404-1 XOVER
RESISTOR 5W0.5OhmJ
small cap, can't see value, 85deg C -
daninoregon79 wrote: »# RE 0404-1 XOVER
RESISTOR 5W0.5OhmJ
small cap, can't see value, 85deg C
That seems like awfully few parts for a crossover ( I think so at least) I mean even white wan speakers have a resistor....but the crossover has no other labeling huh...interesting....I still don't know about the model....the tweeter throws me off. I mean here are Polk Mini Monitors, but I don't think they look similar at all....you are sure they're Polk speakers? If anything, I still think they look like R20's (come closest)....but they might be Polk Monitors, I don't know for sure...
Polk Mini Monitors
Polk R20
Polk S4
Home:
Onkyo TX-6500MKII/Polk LSI 9's (A)Polk TSi 100(B)/Polk PSW 10/Onkyo C-S5VL/Technics SL-QD33
Home 2 (Playback):
Dynaudio BM5A MKII/Dynaudio SUB 250MC/Audigy 2 ZS
College:
JBL LSR 2325P/JBL 2310SP/MOTU UltraLite MKIII -
They're definitely not S4's or R20's...not Mini Monitors either.
They have the SL-4000 tweeters...correct? Do they look like the ones on this speaker?
edit-I just looked back and saw that you posted a picture already...Yes, those are definitely SL-4000's
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76668
That's a pair of Polk Mini Monitors(that I now own actually). They are the baby brothers to the Polk Monitors...which used the same tweeters, but had a 6.5" MW instead of a 5.25" MW(on the Mini-Monitor).
edit-
Here's a copy of the schematic for the Polk Monitors...from the vintage speakers section. Seems to match up with all the info so far. It lists it as having an SL-4000 tweeter, and an MW7001 midwoofer. You said that yours was a 7101...are you sure you got it right? Even if it is a 7101, Polk is infamous for using different drivers in the same speakers at different points in their production runs. I'd guess that's the case here.
The crossover specs it lists are...
3.3 uf capacitor
.5 ohm 5w resistor
Here's the schematic...
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18787&d=1155784925
So do I win?:pThe nirvana inducer-
APC H10 Power Conditioner
Marantz UD5005 universal player
Parasound Halo P5 preamp
Parasound HCA-1200II power amp
PolkAudio LSi9's/PolkAudio SDA 2A's/PolkAudio Monitor 7A's
Audioquest Speaker Cables and IC's -
comfortablycurt wrote: »So do I win?:p
Yes, you win!
Give that man a cupie doll!
These are currently pulling main duty in my living room, with a h/k avr335. Sub duty is handled by a Crown CE1000 pushing a dual 12 car sub I built about 5 years back. Center is an Acoustic Research plastic box that I forgot the name of... no surrounds yet. -
If it sounds fine, you don't need to ( no rattling, etc), dampening is really more for ported designs rather than sealed speakers. Here's a question, does the crossover have any labeling on it?
Nope, damping (not dampening, that's getting wet!) is for sealed boxes too :-) It will increase the apparent size of the box to the woofer. An acoustic suspension woofer in a too-small box will be underdamped (i.e., Qtc > 1), with a peak in the midbass, rolling off below. This might sound pleasant, but won't be the "ultimate" performance the driver's capable of. Note that I don't know whether the box in the current case is undersized for the woofer's T/S parameters, but it is a not-uncommon design choice made by (yes) even quite reputable manufacturers.
Stuffing the box in the present case with some polyester fill has probably about a 50:50 chance of improving/extending the LF performance. It's easy and cheap to try, and 100% reversible if one doesn't like the outcome. -
Would you advise stuffing it or just lining the panels with 1 to 1.5" sheets as I would do with a ported box? This has always been a question to me about sealed boxes.
Thank you everyone for welcoming the clueless newb! -
Were they mine (and if I had any diminished satisfaction with them as is) I would pull the woofers, loosely fill the boxes with polyfill, reinstall the woofers (being careful to make sure the gaskets are OK and the box remains reasonably well sealed after the operation) and try 'em out. See if you like what you hear. If not, reverse the procedure.
:-)