Picked up a mint pair of SDA CRS +'s...I'd like to bring them back to their former glory, or better.
Comments
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91rtstealth wrote: »Diana Krall-The Look of Love
the main piano riff on the intro is: E flat, D, C, and back to D....and that particular D is the one just above middle C..so it's around 588hz. THAT note really cuts on Polk SDA's.
I just played that track on my SDA 1C's. What I'm hearing is the nature of a piano recording not a speaker flaw. Go sit down at a piano and press down on that key. Sounds normal right? Now really bang down on it like your angry. You will hear that obnoxious resonance. I gave away my piano to an aspiring young musician some years ago but traditionally my family has always had pianos in the living rooms so I'm familiar with this anomoly.Gustard X26 Pro DAC
Belles 21A Pre Upgraded with Mundorf Supremes
B&K M200 Sonata monoblocks refreshed and upgraded
Polk SDA 1C's modded / 1000Va Dreadnaught
Wireworld Silver Eclipse IC's and speaker cables
Harman Kardon T65C w/Grado Gold. (Don't laugh. It sounds great!)
There is about a 5% genetic difference between apes and men …but that difference is the difference between throwing your own poo when you are annoyed …and Einstein, Shakespeare and Miss January. by Dr. Sardonicus -
I'd be more focused on that 500hz resonance issue.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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91rtstealth wrote: »got it..thanks..but "better" is a subjective concept..the only way to find out if you like something more or think it's better is to find out for yourself...everyone perceives sound, and life in general, differently....
That escalated quickly! 😝
Brian -
Sheffield Sound Lab records in the 80s were recorded directly to disc, no mixing boards involved.
I don’t know if that’s still the case. My stuff is old! -
91rtstealth wrote: »got it..thanks..but "better" is a subjective concept..the only way to find out if you like something more or think it's better is to find out for yourself...everyone perceives sound, and life in general, differently....
That escalated quickly! 😝
I'm not sure if that came off as hostile or not..but I certainly didn't mean it to. I'm simply trying to state that the idea of something sounding "better" to someone is a matter of taste...it's like me trying convince someone that Pizza is better than Sushi when they can't stand the taste of cheese or tomato sauce..haha...
some people love the sound of bright, in-your-face sound signatures...I do not....and we're both right..haha..for the record, i'm not saying these SDA's are bright and in-your-face..it's just an example...Sheffield Sound Lab records in the 80s were recorded directly to disc, no mixing boards involved.
I don’t know if that’s still the case. My stuff is old!
I have one of those CD's..it's a great metric for testing audio systems. I used to use it when installing sound systems in cars back when I did that for a living. I still use it to check PA systems to tune a room. However, they still had to use mics and therefor, mic preamps, and often times those have EQ....one of the most revered mic-pre's of all time is the Neve 1073...and it has a parametric EQ built into it. You almost always need at least a high pass for most instruments and vocals..and drums almost always sound like absolute dog diarrhea if you don't remove 300-500hz from them....and this is mainly because they are close mic'd....no one listens to drums with their ear at the edge of the rim, but that's how they are usually recorded....so you usually have to remove that boxy sounding 300-500hz range from them in order for them to record well...and trust me, those drums on the Sheffield Labs recordings sound AWESOME....and I am particularly anal when it comes to drum sounds..that's what i've been mainly playing for 36 years, professionally for 15 years now.....drums sound gross without 300-500hz cut. So in summary, musicians and audio engineer's love EQ and compression. They are our best friends. haha. And when I say compression, I don't mean file or data compression..that sounds horrible. I mean signal or wave compression...that's how you squeeze all of the goodness out of a great vocal performance. -
Sheffield info
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I said that (mostly) in jest and I get what you're saying. On the other hand, the OGs here, of which @pitdogg2 is one, have steered me 100% in the correct direction every time with their recommendations. I haven't taken every suggestion from everyone, but those that I have I've been more than happy with.
I'm not one for swapping tweeters, tubes or capacitors in a quest to find the ultimate if I can lean on someone's experience that I trust. But, I know there are those out there who enjoy doing that and would rather find out for themselves what they think works.
Brian -
It didn't come off as hostile to me, no worries. Polk spent huge money in R&D developing those two tweeters, years after those speakers had stopped being made. Something they absolutely didn't have to do. Polk deserves high marks for that!91rtstealth wrote: »I'm not sure if that came off as hostile or not..but I certainly didn't mean it to. I'm simply trying to state that the idea of something sounding "better" to someone is a matter of taste...it's like me trying convince someone that Pizza is better than Sushi when they can't stand the taste of cheese or tomato sauce..haha...
some people love the sound of bright, in-your-face sound signatures...I do not....and we're both right..haha..for the record, i'm not saying these SDA's are bright and in-your-face..it's just an example...
To my ears neither are harsh, built to two different speaker lines in the beginning. The RD-0198-1 was the top of the line to replace the sl2500/3000 neither of which was anywhere as harsh as the sl2000. The RD-0194-1 to replace the horrible sl2000 which if I remember correctly was the catalyst to create the 198 as well.
Personally I think the nailed it, well with the exception of the flimsy plastic for the bezel...🙂
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They were designed by John Crisco, the current head of engineering for Harmon International, very talented guy.
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Sheffield info
this is fascinating..I didn't realize there was this much info out there about this recording..I just got home from a long early morning/afternoon gig and I have the rest of the evening off...I just grabbed a 6 pack and 2 white owls and I plan to go down a rabbit hole about this recording..thanks for the info...i'm also gonna put some more hours on these speakers until I fall asleep and then let the pink noise roll overnight....I'm really liking them with my tube amp....I still have my rack of vintage 70's receivers to try them on...but I have to confirm that they are all common ground...pretty sure they are, but I want to be positive.I said that (mostly) in jest and I get what you're saying. On the other hand, the OGs here, of which @pitdogg2 is one, have steered me 100% in the correct direction every time with their recommendations. I haven't taken every suggestion from everyone, but those that I have I've been more than happy with.
I'm not one for swapping tweeters, tubes or capacitors in a quest to find the ultimate if I can lean on someone's experience that I trust. But, I know there are those out there who enjoy doing that and would rather find out for themselves what they think works.
yes I'm kind of an obsessive nerd who likes to try different things out..I wish I wasn't....haha...I just remember really liking my rdo194's back when I had them and I haven't really fallen in love with the 198's, yet..but maybe once the caps, the tweeters themselves, and my brain break in, I'll love them. Oftentimes, I find myself falling in love with things that I didn't like when I first experienced them.
It didn't come off as hostile to me, no worries. Polk spent huge money in R&D developing those two tweeters, years after those speakers had stopped being made. Something they absolutely didn't have to do. Polk deserves high marks for that!
To my ears neither are harsh, built to two different speaker lines in the beginning. The RD-0198-1 was the top of the line to replace the sl2500/3000 neither of which was anywhere as harsh as the sl2000. The RD-0194-1 to replace the horrible sl2000 which if I remember correctly was the catalyst to create the 198 as well.
Personally I think the nailed it, well with the exception of the flimsy plastic for the bezel...🙂
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ok cool...I never know how people interpret things in text, especially in this highly negative toxic environment that is known as "the internet"....there really is so much negativity and gate-keeping out there online and it's exhausting to me...I come across it in my other hobbies too...the only exception being Mixed Martial Arts....people like that get their asses kicked immediately at an MMA gym..that's why I love martial arts...it often weeds out dickheads fairly quickly..haha...
but anyways, they might just need to grow on me, or break in.....i'm so used to my Mofi's right now and they are super smooth and the most natural and flat speakers i've ever listened to...they have a similar sound signature to my stage monitors (Shure SE846's) and my Sennheiser HD650 head phones....in fact, I find myself adding some top end to the Mofi's, and I NEVER do that with any other speakers....I'm so used to the world of vintage JBL, which is honestly not very flat..it's V or U shaped. I love bass and a little bit of sparkle on the top end..too much and I can't stand it. And excessive 7k is the bane of my existence. It's nails on a chalkboard to me.
So if I understand this correctly, the 5.8uf cap is basically an EQ curve or slope tailored for that rdo198? When I hear the word "contour" I think of Q factor on an eq curve. I might be interpreting this completely wrong.
Lastly..just because I want to fully understand what I did to these crossovers for the sake of learning something new:
what exactly did that polyswitch do before? and what did I do by removing it?
I'm totally guessing here..but was that poly cap activated by a certain voltage/wattage/load and then routing the tweeter signal to a cap that impedes the volume level of the tweeter? back when I had my big SDA1's I remember blasting the crap out of them to show off to some friends, and I remember the volume of the tweeters dissipating to a dramatically lower level for a brief period.....then they returned...this is why I'm guessing that's what that switch did? But I suspect I'm totally wrong here...haha... -
SeleniumFalcon wrote: »They were designed by John Crisco, the current head of engineering for Harmon International, very talented guy.
I shook his hand and thanked him profusely.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
The polyswitch always shut my tweeters off completely on my 2A's
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The polyswitch always shut my tweeters off completely on my 2A's
it might have done the same on my SDA1's...i'm talking 2018 or so at this point....it's been a while...
i've been listening to these things for the last 4 hours...loud too...haha....loud to me, anyways....80-90db..I try to avoid going over 90 because I don't want to lose my hearing....I think they are starting to come around...I keep AB'ing them with my Mofi's and the tweeters seem to be mellowing out a bit....I've been going back and forth between my McIntosh MC7270 and Dynaco ST70....both sound great...the Dynaco ST70 being a bit more mellow on the top end...and the natural compression of the tubes is just great...the MC7270 is a little more articulate and crispy.....I'll try my Sansui G9000 and Marantz 2325 next time around....
