Polk "lawsuit" speakers?

[imglocked]

I found these on Craigslist and I have had this pair of Polk tower speakers for some time now, prob going on 10 plus years. The prev owner had owned them since new and told me that Polk was sued by Bose over them for cribbing the "direct/reflect" aspect, whether it was technology or just marketing he didn't know, but said they sounded fine to his ears.
Anyway, they have front-firing speakers and at least one rear-firing iirc (full-Rangers?) and indeed they sounded fine to me when I hooked them up at home; they were in the prev owner's car when I got them. I will post pics if requested but if you have any info or recollections, lmk- I never found any info on them myself and in truth, I shelved 'em and kinda forgot about em.

 

[goodolpg]

No model number?

 

[wmgwizard]

Not sure about the whole lawsuit aspect of the story as many speakers have rear facing driver's in an attempt to improve soundstaging/imaging.

Let's not forget the whole dipole genre including Magnepan, Acoustat and Martin Logan to name a few.

Dr Bose didn't invent the idea of reflected sound, he just was the first to market the concept.

 

[avguytx]

@F1nut

 

[IPADave]

Peter Snell also used a rear firing tweeter in some of his designs.

-Dave

 

[F1nut]

Polk was going to build a speaker similar to the 901, but got a cease and desist letter from Bose. There never was a lawsuit. Rumor has it Polk was going to call it the Bozo. Anyway, Polk had a bunch of 4 inch drivers they were going to use in it, so they came up with the Model 9 as the OP describes. It's a horrible speaker, best burned and forgotten.

 

[mhardy6647]

Polk was going to build a speaker similar to the 901, but got a cease and desist letter from Bose. There never was a lawsuit. Rumor has it Polk was going to call it the Bozo. Anyway, Polk had a bunch of 4 inch drivers they were going to use in it, so they came up with the Model 9 as the OP describes. It's a horrible speaker, best burned and forgotten.

All true according to the account I heard from John Dorsey @ Soundscape (Polk's first dealer, AFAIK) way back when... but I will add one slight, umm, amplification.
Eventually, Polk 'upgraded' the original Model Nine, substituting the good Peerless silk dome tweeter for the awful Motorola piezo tweeter. The resulting Model 9A ain't half bad... and the CTS 4-inch 'fullrange' drivers used in the Nine (and in early Bose 901s) is a nice little driver.

modelnine by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

My alma mater (which was also Matt Polk's) had -- and not coincidentally -- a pair of them, in white, in their student pub (The Rathskeller) BITD -- when the legal age for drinking beer & wine was 18

I b'lieve that the Polk Mini-Monitor of those long ago days used the same 4 inch drivers as their woofers, too (FWIW)

 

[imglocked]

In the great RSD feeding frenzy, totally forgot about this post.
Yes, Model 9!
Thanks to f1nut for the clarification re: lawsuits & Bose; tho not sure I wanna burn 'em as he suggests! I don't recall recoiling in horror at first listen, but I'm an easy date, so....
Anyway, there doing no harm sitting on the shelf and maybe for Christmas I'll hook 'em up and post a video!

 

[IPADave]

If you like them enjoy them!

-Dave

 

[GD70]

Great history lesson gents! I'm always amazed at the knowledge here!

 

[imglocked]

I just did a bit of internet sleuthing;

The above pic is a first gen with the nailed-on grilles, iirc, mine have velcro for the grilles., Model 9 (Monitor 9)

1976 – 1981 $330

4 4.5” drivers, 2lb magnet structure each 1 8” low-resonance bass radiator
1 Piezoelectric high frequency unit Later changed to a soft dome

Freq Response: +/-2 dB from 48Hz to 27KHz, (-4dB, 41Hz and 35KHz) Max Output Level: 108dB @ 1 meter, any frequency above 100Hz

Sensitivity: 92dB @ 1 meter with 1 watt RMS @ 1KHz
Power Requirements: 5 watts RMS / channel min., 100 watts RMS / channel max. Impedance: Normal 8 ohms, Minimum 9.5 ohms at 70Hz

Dimensions: 33.5” H x 9” D, 10.5” W Shipping Weight: 40 lbs

From Mathew Polk:

"I definitely don't remember the precise dates. We're talking generally 1974-1976. There were three tweeters used and two types of drivers. The first versions used the piezoelectric cone type tweeter. Some of these had a ring shaped masonite disk covering the outer edge of the tweeter with some fiberglass stuffed underneath it to suppress resonances in the cone. This was replaced by the black plastic piezo "Superhorn" tweeter which was ultimately replaced by the Peerless KO10DT dome tweeter. I can't recall if the 9a indicated the change to the suprehorn or the peerless dome. If there was a 9b, that would have been the dome tweeter.

Most of the drivers were a 4.5" CTS-made driver. However, a few were made with a Phillips 4.5" with a whizzer cone. The Phillips driver was a good deal better sounding than the CTS but not nearly as robust. I believe all of the Model 9's with Phillips drivers used one or the other of the Piezo tweeters."

And I DO have an extra set of those Peerless dome tweeters, so mebbe a winter project is on the horizon; can't be too complex a x-over, right?!?

 

[toxcrusadr]

I was going to suggest replacing the tweeter! I wonder if that was accompanied by crossover changes?

 

[baco99]

what's the front and what's the back?

an interesting experiment would be to move all the 4" woofers to one side and place a dome tweeter in the middle like a d'Appolito alignment. Move the 10" PR to the back. That might be a nice little speaker.

 

[RickeyM]

All true according to the account I heard from John Dorsey @ Soundscape (Polk's first dealer, AFAIK) way back when... but I will add one slight, umm, amplification.
Eventually, Polk 'upgraded' the original Model Nine, substituting the good Peerless silk dome tweeter for the awful Motorola piezo tweeter. The resulting Model 9A ain't half bad... and the CTS 4-inch 'fullrange' drivers used in the Nine (and in early Bose 901s) is a nice little driver.

Soundscape eh', you must be a local Bose probably had a fit because Polk's speaker would likely have moped the floor with it.

 

[mhardy6647]

Soundscape eh', you must be a local Bose probably had a fit because Polk's speaker would likely have moped the floor with it.

Born and raised Baltimoron, JHU alum (two degrees), and long-time, dedicated Soundscape customer.
Left Charm City in the late 1980s, though.

 

[Nat]

Good to see Mark is still here - haven't seen him posting enough recently. Just the occasional Radio Shack catalogue citation, which is helpful, but I've missed his opinions.

 

[57fuelie]

I found these on Craigslist and I have had this pair of Polk tower speakers for some time now, prob going on 10 plus years. The prev owner had owned them since new and told me that Polk was sued by Bose over them for cribbing the "direct/reflect" aspect, whether it was technology or just marketing he didn't know, but said they sounded fine to his ears.
Anyway, they have front-firing speakers and at least one rear-firing iirc (full-Rangers?) and indeed they sounded fine to me when I hooked them up at home; they were in the prev owner's car when I got them. I will post pics if requested but if you have any info or recollections, lmk- I never found any info on them myself and in truth, I shelved 'em and kinda forgot about em.

I used to sell the model 9 at Wes audio in State College Pa. Bought a pair and used them with a dyna pas st 70 rig. The only way they sounded good was placed in corners. They played loud and were hard to hurt. So much so that I sold 4 pair of them to a local bar,The Scorpion. Years later they finally died after MUCH abuse and the bar replaced them with JBL's I think. Any how when the model 7 came out it was a lot better and I sold my 9's and bought the first pair of 7's that came in.... wish I still had them. Wes also sold the wonderful sounding Hegeman model 1. My friend bought them and WOW were they good! Would'nt play loud enough though. Impossible to find now.

 

[imglocked]

Hey ‘fuelie!
Yeah, I think the 9’s sounded good, or at least not bad, when I auditioned them in the basement with no thought of placement other than 6-7 feet apart and about 2-3 feet in front of my “wall of sound”, but I will look into trying them corner loaded. Don’t have a room to do that at present, tho.

So, Vette or Bel Air? Me, ‘66 Mustang?