SDA help needed

mhw58 · July 2002

I bought a pair of SDA2's and the guy did not have the
cable. I ordered the cable from Polk and received it today. I hooked it up and was expecting to hear the incredible SDA
experience. Instead, I heard good imaging but not great
imaging. I have my speakers 9 feet apart and 8 inches from
the wall. I tried sitting anywhere from 7 to 10 feet in front
of the speakers. I played various cd's and dvd's like 'Kind
of Blue', 'Two against nature', 'Abbey Road', 'and Fantasia 2000'.
I'm getting a great sound from the speakers and the vocals sound like I'm using a center channel. The imaging is great from speaker to speaker but I'm not getting any of the type of imaging outside of the speakers, behind me or from the ceiling like I have read about others getting. Perhaps I don't have them set up exactly right or am not playing the right discs. Any help and info will be appreciated to increase the SDA imaging.
Thanks, Mike

mhw58@yahoo.com

hoosier21 · July 2002

First of all, WHAT, Polk sold you a new interconnect cable, they have always told me they could not, that they did not have the parts, they must have found some.

Are you getting sounf out of the SDA drivers?

Do you have the manual? are they set up correctly?

from the Polk manual
Do NOT angle them inward or outward.
You should be sitting equal distance from each speaker (in the middle).
Place them at least 3' from the side walls.
Place them a min. of 4' between the the speakers, 6'-8' is optimum.
Listening distance should be equal or greater than the distance between the speakers, then later it states 10' is optimum.
Do not have anything between them (like an entertainment center? or at least place them 2 inches forword of anything.

The SDA will not work with any mono material.

Be sure you are connected properly to the amp, and that you don't have a speaker wired out of phase. You can take that a step further and confirm somebody has not messed with any of the drivers at any time and connected one of them out of phase.

Polk listed in the back of the manual some recommended material:
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of the Moon
Dire Straights - Brother in arms
Alan Parson Project - I robot
Paul Simon - Graceland

Clean your ears real good.

If all this does not help, call Ken Swauger at Polk and he can fax you a way to test your SDA speakers and confirm the SDA is working.

Good luck

jrausch · July 2002

Equipment check. What are you using to power them? I noticed when I used a receiver of 110/per side. I had bad stereo separation, due to the major stereo crosstalk of the Yamaha. SDA's will shine with separates and Hundreds of watts per side if available. Also, a very good channel separation throughout the system will help the cancellation circuit do its job better and give a cleaner and more defined separation. I'm using a Parasound setup that's pushing 275/per and they are just warming up. You may also need to test your tweeters for age damage; unbalanced tweeters will kill the effect. All of Hoosier's audio recommendations are right on for testing. Trouble shooting SDA's can take some tweaking, but well worth the effort. If you don't have a **** eating grin on your face, keep trying.

mhw58 · July 2002

Polk still sells the twin blade connecting cable, they are out
of the pin/blade cable. My listening area is 25 ' by 15'. I'm
going to try to move the speakers closer, 6 to 8 feet and
I'll play Floyds DSOTM. I am using an Onkyo595 receiver which
is 75 watts per channel. The speakers sound great and the
receiver seems to have plenty of power for these speakers.
The guy I bought the speakers from did not use the cable
for the past 5 years or more so the SDA speakers have
not had any use for a long time. When I first hooked up the
cable the left speakers SDA drivers played fine but I didn't
hear anything out of the right SDA drivers. I unhooked the cable
and blew on the speaker connection which was a little dusty
and then the right SDA drivers played but the right SDA tweeter
doesn't seem to play very loud. I'll play around with the
space between the speakers and play some of your suggested
cd's and get back to you. I do have the manual and have the
speakers hooked up per the manual.
Thanks for the info and any other suggestions,
Mike

jdavy · August 2002

Dumb question but check to make sure you do not have the speakers reversed.

deq15 · August 2002

Hey guys - just so you know the blade/blade connectors are available at RADIO SHACK (cat no. 274-201) but be careful ... I think the SDA cable has 2 wires but both connect to only one of the blades - the narrower I think.

And - How far from the back wall are these supposed to be according ti the book?

F1nut · August 2002

How far from the back wall are these supposed to be according ti the book?

Quote, "Your speakers will generally sound best when placed close to the back wall. Also, the front baffles should be at least 2 inches forward of any obstructing objects, such as cabinets."

TroyD · August 2002

You could always try a Carver Hologram Generator.

BDT

har_navalta · August 2002

Also make sure that the polarity are correct from the amp to the
speakers, I'd experienced before that I made a mistake because the positive and negative are in the wrong polarities, so the other side of the drivers of the speakers didn't make any sound. The other speakers worked properly though. When i fixed the problem with the Polarities the SDA soundstage was then working properly.

Har

SDA help needed

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