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Amp for Polk Monitor 5a

TwiX

TwiX

New Member
I snagged a pair of Polk Monitor 5a's(with peerless) in really good condition at a thrift store for $60. I tested them on a friend of mines cheap 75W yamaha reciever and they worked perfectly and sounded pretty good.:banana:

I don't have an amp/reciever of my own and I was wondering what would be the best possible power amp/reciever I could get for these for under $100.

The 5a's need around 125W @ 6ohm I'm pretty sure.



Thanks in advance.
 
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They don't need 125 watts.
If you want to go vintage; the Polk Monitor Series has always paired well with Yamaha amps and receivers of the same vintage.

For a monitor 5A, try a Yamaha CR-620, CR-820, CR-640, or CR-840 receiver, or a CA-600, CA-800, CA-1000, CA-610II, CA-810, or even CA-1010 integrated amp.

Another very reasonable choice would be the harman/kardon hk430 receiver of similar vintage (or the hk A401 or A402 integrated amp).

whatmore.jpg


(The Monitor 5 was not yet available when this catalog was printed; the 7 is its big brother - and arguably the best of the Monitor Series from Polk)
 
terra1 said:
Works great with my Sansui 4000 which is 45 watts.
Click to expand...

They were entry level in their time (the Monitor 4 came a bit later) and as such they were typically paired with receivers or amps in the range of 15 to 50 wpc. Forty-five wpc should be dandy.
 
Marantz 2238B is pushing a pair of 5Jr+ Series 2 I own and sounds quite good. I like the Sansui (biased), suggestion too.

There's a lotta love for Yamaha & H/K, never listened to one but if I would take mhardy6647's suggestion. If your lucky enough a Luxman R-10xx. Congrats on your new to you Polks, enjoy those bad boys.
 
Luxman would be a fine choice as well; very nice stuff (out of the price range of a typical Monitor 5A buyer when they were all new!).
 
mhardy6647 said:
They were entry level in their time (the Monitor 4 came a bit later) and as such they were typically paired with receivers or amps in the range of 15 to 50 wpc. Forty-five wpc should be dandy.
Click to expand...

My Monitor 10's very much love my NAD 7240, conservatively rated at 40 watts.

I'd use a subwoofer with the 5's to deal with everything under 60 or 70 Hz.
 
mhardy6647 said:
Another very reasonable choice would be the harman/kardon hk430 receiver
Click to expand...

Yes, this! I used an HK430 with Polk Monitor 5's in my office and loved the combo! They also sounded good with my Yamaha CA-400. They are fairly efficient and don't need a lot of juice to sound good.

Enjoy!

- Woody
 
Driving my 7Bs with modest power, a Sony integrated amplifer TA-F4A (40wpc) & they really sing.

You really don't need big power & they are not intended to bring the roof in on ya! :D
I would start with 20 wpc as that should be a good rating. Hope you enjoy that Polk sound!

Rome
 
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Dswankey said:
Marantz 2238B is pushing a pair of 5Jr+ Series 2 I own and sounds quite good. I like the Sansui (biased), suggestion too.

There's a lotta love for Yamaha & H/K, never listened to one but if I would take mhardy6647's suggestion. If your lucky enough a Luxman R-10xx. Congrats on your new to you Polks, enjoy those bad boys.
Click to expand...

Marantz 2238B and Polks Monitor 5's :thmbsp:
 
Hopefully the responses in this thread are based on combinations that have actually been tried. Here are mine.



Hafler DH-200/DH-101 sounded fantastic with my 5As.

Luxman L-30 was NOT a good match. It was acceptable only with loudness ON and BASS and TREBLE turned down - presumably to get rid of a midrange hump.

Luxman L-430 NOT a match.

Luxman L-450 terrible. No amount of tweaking made it sound right.

NAD 3155 was a good match.

Cambridge Audio Azur 540b also a good match - now driving Polk 7Cs

Denon HT receiver - terrible.

Pioneer HT receiver - terrible.
 
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Looks like NAD is a popular choice. I run a NAD 1020 (Pre-AMP) and 2150 (Power Amp) with my Monitor 5's at the office. As this is not a home office I need to keep the volume waaaaay down. Sounds great!!
 
Just picked up a pair of 10's and they match up very nicely with my Technics SA616 @ 85 wpc...These 10's are amazing, not sure if they are better than my 7's but I am now on a quest to get some 5a's.
 
willyrover said:
Hopefully the responses in this thread are based on combinations that have actually been tried. Here are mine.



Hafler DH-200/DH-101 sounded fantastic with my 5As.

Luxman L-30 was NOT a good match. It was acceptable only with loudness ON and BASS and TREBLE turned down - presumably to get rid of a midrange hump.

Luxman L-430 NOT a match.

Luxman L-450 terrible. No amount of tweaking made it sound right.

NAD 3155 was a good match.

Cambridge Audio Azur 540b also a good match - now driving Polk 7Cs

Denon HT receiver - terrible.

Pioneer HT receiver - terrible.
Click to expand...

I don't recall any of those Luxman models; I am thinking of the R-1050 receiver, ca. 1977 or 78, or the slightly later R-1030. Yes, all of my suggestions were very familiar to me.

Couldn't guess about the HT receivers; wouldn't expect 'em to be great, though.
 
Wow thanks for all of the helpful responses!

I'm on a pretty tight budget so I'm going to be checking out ebay for the Yamaha cr-620,640,ca-600, and the Sansui 4000 to see which one I can get a good deal on because the other amps/recievers people suggested were a bit too much:D

If you guys wouldn't mind I have a few more questions regarding this setup.

1. When I heard the 5a's buy my friends I noticed they were lacking in upper midbass and didn't have any real sub bass to speak of. Could anyone recommend a good sub that has the quality of extending into the midbass to help fill the hole?

2. This is going to be a computer audio setup, so I'm going to connect the reciever to a dac. I was wondering how these old amps connect to a source(I'd assume rca).

3. Could anyone recomend any modest speaker cable that will do the job?

4. Possible sub $100 dac recommendations?

I understand if this is maybe asking too much, but thanks anyways.
 
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