Newbie looking for small to medium vintage speakers. Polk 5jr II vs. Infinity RS-325

I agree with the above. 5jr+

If the space lends itself to it properly, I'd even consider regular Monitor 5s.

They show up for around $100 or less at times, depending your location.
Your office is large enough that they could fill it *nicely*.

Ignore the temporary placement, but these are my babies!

I’m quite familiar with the Dahlquist monitors and if it were me I’d keep my eyes open for a pair of Dahlquist DQM-9’s or 9C’s which are the “compact” 9’s. The DQM-5’s you have are 2-ways, the 9’s are 3-ways and will smoke the speakers you are considering. The thing about the 5’s and the 9’s is that the crossovers need to be re-done as those caps are now WAY out of spec. Dahlquist itself says it is necessary after this much time. I just did a pair of 9C’s and did top shelf caps and resistors and it was pretty pricey but you don’t have to go that top shelf route but even decent caps will be expensive. Dahlquists fly under the radar other than 10’s and 9’s that are already rebuilt are out there. If you have room for floorstanders the DQ-20’s and DQ-30’s are killer.

I have a buddy who purchased Dahlquist DQM-5's brand new. He later re-capped with Solen capacitors he purchased from Dahlquist/Regnar. I am not a fan of the Solen caps and you can purchase the caps you need from a vendor yourself, plenty of advice around this forum on cap brands. I don't think the DQM-5's have too many caps to replace, and if you are going to re-cap your DQM-5's you should do the resistors right away too. I have some Polk Monitor 7's that the previous owner re-capped with budget-friendly Clarity Cap Px and Mundorf Mox resistors and they sound pretty darn good. As Mr. Hardy says, the Polk monitors of that era are good and the 7's are my favorite of the lot, very nice all-around speakers, but I have the 5jr. and 5 jr.+ and I also have the Dahlquist monitors and in my opinion the Dahlquist monitors are superior, the DQM-9 and DQM-9C are very fine speakers indeed. So I definitely would think carefully before I thought of replacing those DQM-5's with other than another pair of Dahlquists further up the chain. But there are lots of options. My buddy with the DQM-5's patiently waited and eventually a real nice pair of DQM-9C's became available. He said there was a startling improvement, but the 5's are no slouch for purposes such as you mention like an office or smaller room. I also have DQ-30i floorstanders and I have yet to have a speaker come through my place that images better - and huge soundstage. Right now I've rotated in a pair of Infinity Kappa 8's which have better low end for sure and are really impressive all-around but not the sound stage or imaging of the DQ-30i's. But those are floorstanders and a different sound than the monitors. The Dahlquist monitors are true monitors, they do not add anything or color the sound, in true monitor fashion. Good luck with your shopping - if you are proficient with a soldering iron, you may try to pop off a woofer and just take a look at the crossover. Also, there are good sales on caps from time to time from certain vendors so I'd wait for a big sale.

Yeah, if you're using the new speakers for an even smaller office then even the DQM-9C's will probably be a bit large. In that case, the smaller Polks are good. Too bad you weren't around a few weeks ago, I sold a pair of very nice DALI Zensors cheap and those were VERY impressive to me for near field. Also, good bang for the buck can be had in Polk LSi-7's, which IIRC are supposedly 4 or 6 ohm speakers but I've never had any problem driving them with a receiver and I think they are really nice speakers also. LSi-9's are sweet too but a bit harder to drive. If you could find a pair of LSi-7's in good shape I think you'd be quite impressed for the low price they command these days. They may be twice what you mentioned for budget but for a couple hundy those and the DALI's are no-brainers in my opinion.

Not real familiar with the 905’s still two-way but 8” woofer IIRC. Depends on price and whether woofer surrounds in good shape. Not sure if Dahlquist recommends upgrading caps in The 905’s. Typically 905’s are not commanding much price at all so should VERY negotiable. Not sure how much better SQ you’d experience over 5’s but that’s mostly because I’ve never personally heard the 905’s and the fact that they’re still 2-ways. If the price was right and in real nice shape overall may be a nice pickup if you’re going there anyway.

pkquat wrote: »

@sunvalleylaw As has been mentioned the 5jr+ is a sweet spot in size vs. range for a small speaker. In the small space at the lower volumes you are describing, I would not pass up a great deal on some regular monitor 5jrs or M4's. Like under $50. The ports whistle is only really noticeable for very low frequencies at higher volumes.

@Jimbo18 I would aim to replace the tweeters with RD0-198's sooner than later. I have some 5jr+ and M5's with the SL2500 tweeter. IMO I like the SL2000 better for overall detail. They can be fatiguing but I felt I was missing a lot with the SL2500's. They just sounded muffled. The RD0-198's made a big difference.

I had planned to do the tweeter upgrade, but keep thinking rather than put money into them, I might want to get a pair from the Signature line next time there's a deal from Adorama. I would love to compare the S20's to the M5jr+ after the tweeter upgrade though, just not sure I want to spend the extra money for both.

Of the older vintage Polks always thought the 5jr+ was the smallest model that sounded fairly good.
All the smaller ones, tended to sound a bit boxy and lack any true deep bass (obviously due to just too small a box) and often had that square tweeter that was just not up to par with their other stuff.

Think the signature series does a better job with those size and smaller speakers honestly.
The older vintage polks the 6.5" woofer simply needed a good bit of box volume to produce bass well.

Would like to get my ears on that series sometime, I bet the 903's are a pretty good sounding bookie. Also, it appears Dahlquist does not recommend a capacitor upgrade as they do for some of their earlier models. Enjoy!