Monitor 5B's given a refurb & upgrade w/pics

ANWKLO

geoff727 wrote: »

The 5B's getting the run-through and new components broken in. Sure is nice to listen to music through these again. Everything else is pushed off to the side for the time being.

Very nice works. Can you list your machines?

geoff727

kcoc321 wrote: »

Hey, like your new rack and are those new subs too

Ya, I've had those subs for a few months now. I decided to ditch the Infinity SSW-210's. One developed an amplifier problem, and no one seemed to be able to fix it. Lots of -210 owners have experienced this. Anyway, these are Rythmik Audio F12SE's. I find them very musical. They were definitely the right buy for me; they're a perfect match with the Maggie's. I could never get the -210's to integrate well with the Maggie's. These, within minutes it was one seamless sound top-to-bottom. A piece of cake.

geoff727

ANWKLO wrote: »

Very nice works. Can you list your machines?

Sure. I's a fun system, but not nearly finished yet.
Integrated amp: McIntosh MA6900
CD player: Cambridge Audio Azur 840C
Power conditioner: APC H15
Turntable: VPI Scout Signature
Phono catrridge: Lyra Dorian
Phono pre-amp: Audio Research PH5
Interconnects Audioquest King Cobra's
Power cords: Pangea Audio AC-14's and AC-9's.
Speaker cables: Audioquest Rocket 88 (bi-wire)
Speakers: Magnepan 1.6's (modified, w/ lots more mods on the way)
Subs: Rythmik Audio F12SE's, one per channel

Upcoming mods in the next few months: Vertically bi-amp the Maggie's with Odyssey Audio Khartago Stereo Extreme amplifiers (one amp per speaker), actively crossed with a pair of Bryston 10B-LR crossovers. Frame and wiring upgrades to the Maggies. After that, who knows.

Again, thanks for the compliments on the Monitor 5's. Their new owner took delivery of them that night, and seems happy with the way they look and sound.

KC, 7C's very soon? What do you think?

Face

Nice job!

kcoc321

geoff727 wrote: »

KC, 7C's very soon? What do you think?

Sure, maybe this weekend...I wanna hear those subs....
Let's touch base Thursday...email me.....
Course once you redo the 7c's, I know I'll be jealous

ANWKLO

geoff727 wrote: »

Sure. I's a fun system, but not nearly finished yet.
Integrated amp: McIntosh MA6900
CD player: Cambridge Audio Azur 840C
Power conditioner: APC H15
Turntable: VPI Scout Signature
Phono catrridge: Lyra Dorian
Phono pre-amp: Audio Research PH5
Interconnects Audioquest King Cobra's
Power cords: Pangea Audio AC-14's and AC-9's.
Speaker cables: Audioquest Rocket 88 (bi-wire)
Speakers: Magnepan 1.6's (modified, w/ lots more mods on the way)
Subs: Rythmik Audio F12SE's, one per channel

Upcoming mods in the next few months: Vertically bi-amp the Maggie's with Odyssey Audio Khartago Stereo Extreme amplifiers (one amp per speaker), actively crossed with a pair of Bryston 10B-LR crossovers. Frame and wiring upgrades to the Maggies. After that, who knows.

Again, thanks for the compliments on the Monitor 5's. Their new owner took delivery of them that night, and seems happy with the way they look and sound.

KC, 7C's very soon? What do you think?

Very nice machines.:) I am jealous of the new owner:D Oh, can you read Chinese?

bikerboy

Hi Geoff,
Beautiful work on speakers for a friend. I wish I could do that well on gear for myself. Are you still waiting for the new amps? I would like to hear what those Maggies sound like. I'll have to have you over to hear the new dac and preamp. I'll call you. One of the Jeffs

geoff727

ANWKLO wrote: »

Very nice machines.:) I am jealous of the new owner:D Oh, can you read Chinese?

Thanks! I've really enjoyed all of it so far. It'll be good to do the amplification upgrade, though. The Maggie's need a serious kick in the you-know-what as far as power is concerned.

I don't read Chinese, but I CAN read Greek. As least, that's what my friends tell me it is every time I have my nose into some speaker design book.

geoff727

bikerboy wrote: »

Hi Geoff,
Beautiful work on speakers for a friend. I wish I could do that well on gear for myself. Are you still waiting for the new amps? I would like to hear what those Maggies sound like. I'll have to have you over to hear the new dac and preamp. I'll call you. One of the Jeffs

Well, I thought your transport was pretty d&^% kool!

Give me a holler. The new amps should be here pretty soon; Klaus said third week in March, which is right now. It'll take me a while to get it all put together, though. Need another rack, need to re-terminate several cables with XLR ends as the crossovers only use those- no RCA's. I'm going to do some initial adjusting of the crossover points with a dbx 234XL (frequency adjustable from the front panel) before I use the Bryston's (which use plug-in boards to select the xover frequency).

The stock Maggie xover is at 600Hz from the low panel to the high panel, with a first-order high-pass. These active crossovers employ LR4 slopes, so I may be able to bump that xover frequency down to 500Hz or so and gain a hair of coherency through the lower mid's. And, I want to subtract all the frequencies below 50Hz or so away from the Maggies' bass panels and just let the subs do what they were made for. With dipole cancellation, you don't get much out the Maggie's below 40Hz anyway, so I figure I might as well save the bass panels (and the amps) from having to reproduce the signal in the first place. Obviously, I'll have to slightly change the position of the speakers, as any horizontal lobing is going to change, moving from the stock 1st-order HP/2nd-order LP to 4th-order slopes on both. Lots of work to do yet!

I'm getting off my own topic here. Glad you like the 5's!

Ricardo

Beautiful Job!!!!!!! You've got some skills there.

jena

nice job! keep it up buddy:)

Bobsama

Extremely nice Monitor 5's. I'm jealous, actually!

geoff727

Thanks again for the compliments.

Bobsama

Only curious thing. I just took a look at my own Monitor 5's (Series 2); is there any trick to "extend" the veneer? I don't see any big faults at all but with the bottom corner veneers; there's a small (more than hairline, less than a millimeter) gap. Oh well I guess. Are you upgrading the tweeters to RDO-194s?

geoff727

Bobsama wrote: »

Only curious thing. I just took a look at my own Monitor 5's (Series 2); is there any trick to "extend" the veneer? I don't see any big faults at all but with the bottom corner veneers; there's a small (more than hairline, less than a millimeter) gap. Oh well I guess. Are you upgrading the tweeters to RDO-194s?

The vinyl veneer....it is what it is. Any attempt to do anything (besides cleaning) usually makes it worse, not better.

The original tweeters on these were kept. I did them for a friend, so I had to remain within his $ limits and decide on what he wanted most.

GTB

So very impressive! I'm start'n to get the bug my self.

camp21178

Wow! Those are some of the nicest looking speakers I've ever seen. You have inspired me to refurbish my 1984 DCM Time Windows. The tops are solid oak so they won't be too tough but the grilles are sagging and torn a little bit. I think I'll start a new post and ask if anybody thinks it would be worthwhile.

geoff727

camp21178 wrote: »

I think I'll start a new post and ask if anybody thinks it would be worthwhile.

My problem is, I think they're ALL worthwhile!:p I want to work on everything I can get my hands on.

Since these have gotten a great response, I think I'll throw these out there, the ones that I did 2 years ago but never got a whole lot of views it seems.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73205&highlight=geoff727

Conradicles

Bump for some Vintage Polk swag...

vstarkwell

Thanks for the Bump, Man am I impressed!!!!!!!, That's great work. I would love to have my 10A's redone like that.

geoff727

Thanks, guys!

macrosoma

Just a quick question. How many watt an amplifier would you recommend for the Monitor 5s? Great job!

sbolt

Great looking resto. I am going to do the same to mine and this thread really helps.

What guage of monster cable did you use? How were the connectors able to accomodate that huge wire - I see the blue shrink wrap on the ends.

thanks

engtaz

Wow Beautiful

geoff727

sbolt wrote: »

What guage of monster cable did you use? How were the connectors able to accomodate that huge wire - I see the blue shrink wrap on the ends.

It's just the standard Monster XP, available all over the place. 14 gauge or thereabouts.

The blue pieces are just the 'pant' for the new quick-disconnects. It's hard plastic, not shrinkable.

G~

DON73

Those are some very beautiful speakers. They actually look like a new model that just came out. Polk could learn from your work. Back in the 80s I had a pair of 10s that had real light oak veneer but they were special order. I would like to have my 7s done the same way.
I notice you kept the 2000 tweeter. Did the upgraded crossover improve the tweeter sound? I assume you used a router to flush trim the veneer on the straight edges that were large enough to set the router on but I'm curious how you did the short bevel edge. Did you run into any problems removing the vinyl or did it come off easily with the heat gun?
I don't know much about the crossovers but it looks as if you my have used 2 caps to replace one. I'm planning to upgrade 2 crossovers and I'm interested in how this is done.
Again a beautiful job. Thanks for taking the time to post!

geoff727

DON73 wrote: »

Those are some very beautiful speakers. They actually look like a new model that just came out. Polk could learn from your work.

Now THAT's a compliment! Actually, I've learned a few things from them!

DON73 wrote: »

I notice you kept the 2000 tweeter. Did the upgraded crossover improve the tweeter sound?

The primary reason that the original tweeters were kept is that I did these to someone else's budget and priorities. If they were mine, I would have used the 194's.

DON73 wrote: »

I assume you used a router to flush trim the veneer on the straight edges that were large enough to set the router on but I'm curious how you did the short bevel edge.

Actually, I sanded all the edges by hand, front bevel included. That's me....always doing things the HARD WAY!

DON73 wrote: »

Did you run into any problems removing the vinyl or did it come off easily with the heat gun?

Usually it's pretty easy. Heat gun and a scraper of some type.

DON73 wrote: »

I don't know much about the crossovers but it looks as if you my have used 2 caps to replace one. I'm planning to upgrade 2 crossovers and I'm interested in how this is done.

There are 2 caps on their to begin with, the tweeter high pass and mid-bass shunt that helps form the 2nd order low-pass. I think I replaced them straight across with the same values. The mid-bass one might be off by 1uf or so. If memory serves, the original is 34uf, and the SOLEN standard value available is 33uf. I think that's what it was. Anyway, that value is still easily within tolerance for that position.

You can use more than one capacitor to acheive the value you need. Try a search for "capacitors in parallel" and "capacitors in series", something like that. It will quickly become apparent.

G~

DON73

Geof I took another look at the crossover and I could see where there are just two caps. At first it looked as if one was stacked on another but it's the huge cap that made it look that way. Is the new Monster wire necessary for good performance. Is the copper plate under the board easy to damage when soldering. Do you do these crossovers for other people? Lots of questions I know. Thanks for your time.
I have extra crossovers in case I try it myself and ruin one.

geoff727

DON73 wrote: »

Is the new Monster wire necessary for good performance.

No, it's more of a 'feel good' factor than anything. Now, if you're talking about a speaker with the resolving power of, say, a Magico M5, then yes the wire will begin to make a difference.

DON73 wrote: »

Is the copper plate under the board easy to damage when soldering.

No, not really. They can take a bit of abuse. But, the copper trace itself can start to separate form the board. So try not to mistreat them TOO much!

DON73 wrote: »

Do you do these crossovers for other people?

Yes, I do.

G~

DON73

What do you charge to do a Monitor 7 crossover. I have Monitor 7s no suffix with the crossovers still installed and 2 crossovers that are supposed to be from Monitor 7Bs. Are these the same? The ones for the 7Bs came with a Peerless tweeter. I will be replacing the tweeters with RDOs. Confusing?
Then ignore all but your charge for 2 crossovers. Thanks.