Vetts and Horns Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Hi, I just saw this quote on an EBAY item... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dllViewItem&item=3035047804&category=14993 POLKS SIGNITURE REFERENCE SERIES WITH STEREO DEMENTIONAL ARAY THE BEST POLKS EVER MADE ALL ORIGINAL CABINETS ARE MINT ALL DRIVERS ARE MINT GRILLS ARE MINT THESE SOUND AWSOME I HAVE A PAIR OF KLIPSCHORNS AND THESE POLKS BLOW THEM AWAY IN ALL RESPECTS. Has anyone heard these before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reel 2 reel Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 funny ...he has k-horns, and he's sellin' the polks.....I think he's tryin to pull sombodys leg here...blow them away.....right Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marksdad Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 guess i should have kept my polks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 The Polk SDA was an interesting speaker. The idea was similar to Bob Carver's Sonic Holography setup - you add a signal to the left speaker that cancels the sound from the right speaker that "leaks" into your left ear, and add a signal to the right speaker that cancels the signal from the left speaker that "leaks" into your right ear. Supposedly enhances soundstage and imaging. Carver implemented this electronically, Polk did it mechanically by having two arrays of midrange drivers arrayed in vertical rows next to each other, with a cable connecting the left and right speakers, signal from right speaker driving inner array of left speaker midrange, and signal from left speaker driving inner array of right speaker midrange. In a perfect setup, with the listener situated in exactly the right spot, and the speakers positioned exactly correctly, with the right kind of source material, this could do some incredible things (in a positive sense). Sweet spot was about a millimeter wide. Positioning in room had very demanding requirements that rendered room difficult to use for anything but listening to system and resulted in very poor spousal acceptance factor. Multimiked and other "artificial" recordings could sound a bit odd. Listening off axis or with less than optimal setup could cause all sorts of weird phasey effects that made the system sound worse than a "normal" setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flason Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I would never consider getting rid of any of my Klipsch Heritage speakers and I will never sell my Polk SDA1C's either. The SDA series do have a lot of interesting characteristics. Placement is critical, but soundstage is wider than 1mm. They are also a power hungry speaker and my Carver m1.5 @ 350 wpc is small potato's trying to drive the speakers to concert levels. When driven, the SDA's produce a huge soundstage. There are recordings that actuall sound like effects are coming from a different room. When listening to classical, you can actually point to where the horn sections are.(Be careful with this though. It is often mistaken for psychosis!) They tend to sound more laid back than my LaScalas, but the 4 6.5" drivers produce a lot more bass. If I had never heard Klipsch KLF30's, the Polk's would still be my mains. I replaced a pair of Martin Logans with the Polks and the Logans were no slouch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Flason, How big is the room you have the SDA's set up in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 ---------------- On 7/11/2003 9:03:57 AM Ray Garrison wrote: Sweet spot was about a millimeter wide. ---------------- So, they'd work perfectly for, say, an ant. Who stays still. Do ants have two ears? I know they absolutely hate Mancini. And the color pink. fini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flason Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Ray, They were in a room about 10' apart with the sitting position about 14' back and I was using the Carver amp with an older Yamaha (RXV890) receiver as the pre. The ones in that auction are much larger than mine. I have 4 6.5" drivers, 2 tweeters and 1 15" passive radiator. The SDA series do have a loyal following. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCturboT Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 V&H, Way back in 1987 at the tender age of 19 I purchased my first "real" audio system,about $6000.00 worth of components. My Yamaha M series components (which I still own) and a pair of polk SDA SRS 2s which reatailed for 1k each.These "true stereo" speakers were truely stunning to look at with their oiled oak finish and their sheer size. I can remember the audio salesman helping me set them up in my second story apartment-not an easy task.One of the things I remember was a huge guage wire running between them for the "true stereo" effect. I had several friends over that day for their maiden voyage and fired 'em up.First thing I remember was that they truely sounded different than anything I have heard up to that time,very wide depth and soundstage and a clean "open"sound. Got out one of my favorite cds and proceeded to really test 'em out-hmm,not much bass output and not much volume either-I'll turn it up a bit... Next thing I know my Yamaha M-85 is in protection mode-looks like something is wrong with my Amplifier.A quick call to Fitchburg Music and a new amp and salesman are on their way up.Hook the new amp up and...same thing protection mode again.Thats weird,260 watts a channel and these things don't even begin to fill my room with any type of volume. My salesman tells me these Polks aren't really made for my taste of music (would have been nice to tell me that before I got them home and dished out 2 grand!) and that if I wanted to really make them sing I would have to biamp them. So, these SDA lasted about 2 hours in my house before I returned them and was on a quest for new speakers. I went through several brands over the years Yamaha,Cerwin Vegas, to my Cornwalls and finally my Klipschorns. Unless you listen at very low volumes or listen to something in the order of Classical the SDAs don't hold a candle to the Klipschorns.The Klipschorns are just a totally different animal-just more alive and real in their presentation.They may not have the 'true stereo" sound of the SDAs but they don'y need 400 watts to come alive either. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 ---------------- On 7/11/2003 9:30:54 AM Flason wrote: When driven, the SDA's produce a huge soundstage. There are recordings that actuall sound like effects are coming from a different room. When listening to classical, you can actually point to where the horn sections are. ---------------- Big deal. Properly setup Khorns (or any reasonably good speaker for that matter) can easily accomplish this too provided the room's acoustics are tuned to minimize near term reflections back to the ear. And you don't have to be in the 'sweet spot' to hear this. In fact, I would go so far as to say that given the proper recording, on my setup you can not only point to where the horn section (or whatever)is at, but also count the horns in the horn section, or point to individual voices in a 50 person chorale, or have sounds coming from a full 90 degrees or more to each side of the listening position. Sounds can seem to come from in front of the speakers to way beyond the room walls. There are even instances where the sound distinctly comes from behind you. (no rear or rear side speakers). So I was never "sold" on Polk's SDA systems. If you have to put up with all those 'requirements' to get them to sound right you might as well go to a low distortion speaker like Klipsch and do your room right. You'll get better results with a lot more flexibility in listening (more people can enjoy). It still boils down to the recording & the room being correct in the first place. The SDA's are another attempt in (modern) speaker design that tries to 'couple the speaker to the listener's ear' while it ignores the interrelationship bewteen the speaker and its acoustical environment. Just another expensive compromise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flason Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Artto, I have read many of your posts and feel you have a lot of knowledge and have very positive contributions to this board. You could have started your post off with your second sentence and it would be taken very positively. You started it however, being condescending. Not real cool. I know you probably don't care what others think and I know we don't all have to get along, but we can at least be civil. I'm not doubting your Khorns will do what you say but there is/was a science to the SDA series. You may not believe in it, but I have heard the difference with the SDA cable on and off. (SDA's used a speaker cable between the speakers to cancel crosstalk) The death of the SDA's came about because of the satellite speakers craze and the huge amount of power required to drive them. Yes my favorite 2 channel system is my LaScala's/Scott 299C, but the bedroom SDA system is good too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Yeah, well when it comes to crap like Bose & Polk I draw the line. I've heard those SDA speakers (the large ones) on several occassions, one of which where Matthew Polk himself was present. It was a decent sized room. And I'm quite sure, that with him there, those speakers were set up as good as they could be. Now I will get arrogant. Those things sounded like **** compared to what I'm used to. And for what? More money? For the speakers? For the megawatt amps too? For screwing around with speaker placement only to have a very limited good listening area and sound system that never quite sounds 'alive'? That kind of compromise is called 'BULL****'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg928gts Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I have a pair of Polk SDA 1's among the twenty or so pairs of speakers that I have, and they are not anywhere near as nice as my Khorns. They do require a lot of power, but so do a lot of speakers. When you do put a lot of power in, you get a reasonably good quality sound from them, and they're loud and punchy. The biggest drawback in my opinion is that they had plastic wood-grained shelf paper on them. Yuck! I took that off and re-veneered them with teak and an oil finish. Some new grill cloth and a little detailing, and they make a nice pair of speakers. I'll be selling them soon, not nice enough to be taking up the limited speaker space in my home. I enjoyed them while I had them though. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 "among the twenty or so pairs of speakers that I have" Jesus - if you were married to my wife you wouldnt be married to my wife - she'd leave you flat. I have a war going on because I have 3 pairs of mains in the house at the moment (not counting the Aiwa in the bedroom - they arent mains they are moulded plastic in the shape of a speaker). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBusa Posted July 13, 2003 Share Posted July 13, 2003 I've owned and briefly used the top of the line Polk SDA SRS speakers. I was NOT impressed. I loved the look but they didn't sound 1/2 as good as they look. Sold em on ebay for a tidy profit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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