Polk RT5 Rattlefest

ScooterMcTav

I know less than I think
Hello All,

Recently stumbled into a set of Polk RT5. Nice medium bookshelves, and the folks over at Stereophile were suitably impressed by them:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/polk-audio-rt5-loudspeaker

Anyways, I hooked them up to my tube setup, and I noticed they sounded "rattly" and distorted when the volume was turned up a bit. Best I can describe, they sounded like a speaker sounds when it is being overdriven.

A quick removal of the woofers and a 180* turn to see it it was sag/coil rub, and still had the same problem.

A visual inspection of the drivers gives zero indication anything is wrong with them.

What would all suggest I check next?
 
I had a set of those years ago. They sounded great with tubes but one of the woofers developed similar problems. It turned out that Polk had many problems with the woofers going bad. I order replacements fro Polk. They were expensive. I only replaced the one bad woofer which solved the oroblem. Sold them shortly after that. Still have the nos woofer in its shipping box in the closet.
 
Crud, thanks for the reply. I have repaired a number of speakers over the years, but never heard a set that sounded like this.

I guess this is a typical "blown" speaker sound.

Though maybe tonight I'll disassemble them again and check the spiders. One thing I did forget to check when I rotated the woofers.
 
Though maybe tonight I'll disassemble them again and check the spiders. One thing I did forget to check when I rotated the woofers.

That's what I would suggest doing. I just fixed a similar issue on a woofer from a Yamaha NS-670. It had developed a bad buzz/rattle at moderate to high volumes. It turned out the cone must have partially separated from the voice coil where it attaches to the spider. It really wasn’t a visible defect at all, but a little glue around the perimeter where the spider meets the coil and cone fixed the problem. Good luck.
 
Last edited:
Problem found - spider had come unglued from the basket. Used weldbond to glue it - hopefully it is adhesive enough.
 
Back
Top Bottom