New here, need help with first polks

saabracer23

Hello everyone, this is my first post here as I now own my first pair of Polks. I have owned quite a bit of nice vintage gear thanks to my dad. I havve just received a pair of sda II's. I have done a bit research and have not found much on this particular pair. The have 2 SL2000 tweeters, 3 midbasses and a 12 inch passive radiator. Most of the sda II's I have seen have one tweeter and two woofers. How does my pair compare to the other models in the sda II lineup?

I read that they removed the one tweeter because they found it pretty much useless, why did they remove the third woofer?

What can I do to improve the quality of the speaker? Replace parts, recap crossovers? Any tutorials or the like?

I must say I do like them alot, these replaced a pair of dcm timeframe 600's that my cats were using as a scratching post. Anyways any answers to my questions would be great.

Thanks
Dan

JohnLocke88

Those are the SDA2 "original." A's were SL2000s, 2 woofers, 1 passive in a "studio styled cabinet" with wood veneer. B's were SL2000s, 2 woofers, 1 passive in a studio styled BLACK cabinet, or a cabinet with wood end caps and cloth grille paneled sides.

The SDA-2s were good speakers. The extra tweeter was removed because of phasing issues with the stereo tweeter (or so I've been told.)

The third woofer was removed simply because it was no longer needed (IIRC, in the original SDA-2, the bottom woofer did bass stuff, were the two groups of one tweeter and one woofer, were the stereo array and dimensional array respectively. (SOMEONE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EXPAND / DEBUNK.)

As to what to do to improve: replace the SL2000s with the RDO-194s, recap the crossovers, mortite the inside of the cabinets to decrease air leakage, etc etc.

ben62670

You nailed it John.

JohnLocke88

ben62670 wrote: »

You nailed it John.

See you stick around long enough in the vintage section and you learn a thing or two. I only wish I came here (EDIT: thought we were in the vintage section) BEFORE visiting the regular "speakers" section, I might never have left.

BTW, thanks for the offer on the woofers, I've decided after reading a bunch of reviews to save the money on buying spares and instead doing preventive maintenance to my current drivers... oh, and build myself some DIY acoustic panels.

EDIT: Oh wait, we are in the regular speakers section....

cfrizz

Welcome to Club Polk.

Tony M

Welcome to the club.Great speakers you have there.

Did you get the interconnecting cable too?

hearingimpared

Welcome to Club Polk saabracer23!

saabracer23

Thanks a bunch for the welcome guys! Thank you for the suggestions on the improvements to make, I didn't get the interconnect cables, but it seems pretty straight forward. Large blade to large, small to small, I just used some 16 awg wire I had. The SDA's seem hard to come by, but I would like to get my hands on a larger pair. I really like the way they sound although it would be nice if they had a bit more bass, my sub takes care of that though. Also not a big fan of the cheap looking cabinet finish. It in no way effects the sound though, which is all that matters.

Dan

saabracer23

Here they are in their new home.

Tony M

I heard a pr. just like yours and with the subs ,your not missing too much at all. I can't speak for the bigger 8 mw SDA's but my friends' system with a sub turned on sounded close to my SDA-SRS2's almost to a tee.;)

You really should try and get a real interconnect cable. I had distortion at times with my homemade one vibrating. Afterward, distortion minimised to other faults..

Congrats on the purchase again. I realy like those.

saabracer23

Thanks, I guess I'll look into getting an authentic cable, I figured it wouldn't make a big dif. I plan on taking out the passives and getting a look at the crossover, would anyone suggest replacing anything but the capacitors? I'll also seal the corners while I'm in there. Next stop is peerless tweeters...

Thanks again,
Dan

JohnLocke88

saabracer23 wrote: »

Thanks, I guess I'll look into getting an authentic cable, I figured it wouldn't make a big dif. I plan on taking out the passives and getting a look at the crossover, would anyone suggest replacing anything but the capacitors? I'll also seal the corners while I'm in there. Next stop is peerless tweeters...

Thanks again,
Dan

You mean RDO-194's? You might need to do some cut out modification as I don't think the peerless tweeter is a direct "drop-in" replacement.

Also, there's a guy selling aftermarket blade/blade SDA cables on ebay right now for $35. Not the greatest deal, but hey, they look decent.

ben62670

The peerless will not drop in in place of the SL2000's. Not only is it physically different, but the XO is very different. The resistors should also be changed with the caps. SB23 if you post your location you can get more help here;)
Ben

cnh

saabracer23 wrote: »

Here they are in their new home.

Nice picks! They look like they are very happy in their new home!

cnh

chandler9a

I bought that cable off ebay for my SDA 2A's and it works fine from what I can tell.

Welcome to the Club, listen to these guys... they know what they are talking about:)

ScudDawg

yeah sweet looking speakers