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Polk SDA-SRS 1.2tl Initial Impressions

xoaphexox

xoaphexox

Supernatural Anesthetist
Well after listening to them for about two days I have my initial impressions. I will preface this by saying that I expected these speakers to sound the best of any speaker I had heard personally based on all the reviews and forums I have read. I will compare them to the speakers they replaced: Vandersteen 2C. They sound very forward in the mid-range and muddy, as if someone is holding a thick cloth in front of the speakers. The treble is not very airy and delicate. It is kind of "hissy". I quadruple checked all polarity on both ends of the speaker wires and interconnect cable. There is plenty of bass, and they get plenty loud - they just don't sound very detailed! I hate to say it but I am leaning towards disappointed with them. Using Genesis "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" to compare, with the Vandersteens I felt as if Peter Gabriel was standing right in front of me singing. With the Polks the sound stage is dispersed and I cannot pinpoint the location of a clear voice as well.

My room is carpeted and relatively small (see previous post) and I am driving them with a restored 85 WPC Sansui AU-9500 (damping factor of 50).

I am wondering one of two things, since I can't really change the room they are in unless I buy a new home. If changing out my amplifier or changing out the crossovers would help most (a soniccap/mills upgrade)...

I will not give up until I hear the magic everyone speaks about these speakers!!!

Rob

p.s. If I pull the tweeters can I check to see if they work individually by ohming them out? Same with the 6.5" drivers? The reason I ask is that the treble seems to be predominantly coming from one or two of the four tweeters in each speaker. I do not know if this is normal or if they should all be producing the same SPL at any given volume.
 
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I just recently heard a pair of these and they were rather stunning, well balanced and relatively laid back with a huge soundstage. Opened up progressively as power was increased.

As you say, check all the drivers for impedance and sound quality. Even though your Sansui is nice it is rather old and probably underpowering.....plus these speakers need a bit of space to work. Have fun they are great speakers.
 
Thanks, after reading the manual and testing them out a bit more I am convinced there is an issue with the left speaker.

When I move the balance the whole way right I hear only slightly the surround effect in the left channel. With the same volume level on the amplifier and the balance now moved to the left, I hear the surround effect in the right speaker MUCH louder.

I think the imbalance of the surround effect is what is screwing up the sound for me! I wonder if the issue is the drivers or the xover... guess I will need to find that hex key...
 
BTW I tried a 3/32" and a 3mm hex key and they are both too small to remove the drivers. I went one step up on my key set and they are too big. So now I need to find out how big the key must be to remove the drivers. If it isn't one thing it's another! :)
 
Totally random thoughts from a guy who needs sleep:

1. I have a set of 1.2TL in a too-small and too-acoustically-live room. Before anyone jumps on me, I bought the speakers to keep for years and not for this temporary living situation. Call it "active storage."

2. My impressions currently are of overly bright treble and cold bass. I think the detail is exceptional, but then again I didn't move from Vandersteens. I attribute the sound quality issues I'm having more to the room and listening distance than anything else. The variable loudness control on my C712 fixes it right up.

3. The size and weird shape of the room played hell with the SDA function. For the moment I'm running them without the cable--you don't lose any active drivers, just the mirror signal. Of course the imaging isn't great without using the speakers as designed.

4. These speakers were built for big, big rooms. The guy I bought them from had them set up pretty well and I had no complaints during the demo. Seemed like you could walk all over the room without the shape of the sound changing. By the way, make sure they are properly set up. Flat, close to the wall, and as far apart as you listen to them from. And keep left from right sorted outl

5. The tweeters are progressive. 3rd from the top does most of the work.

6. It's not a "surround" feature, it's the opposite. Designed to keep you from hearing sounds in the wrong ear.

7. According to some audio engineer types, the 1.2TL's tweeter design supposedly does lead to issues with clarity and interfering soundwaves. Dunno, that's out of my league.

8. Try them with a real amp and preamp. Your Sansui is OK at low listening levels, but you can easily push a metered amp well past 100+ watts on these things, even at moderate levels. The 1.2TLs are not nearfield monitors--they're designed to really breathe and you're not going to get that without some power behind them. On the flipside, don't pay too much attention to the guys who will say you can't use anything less than two biamped 500WPC Levinsons.

9. I'm gonna get killed for this, but the huge Polks are overrated loudspeakers. I don't mean this in a negative way--just a statement. They are excellent speakers. There's no doubt about that. The problem is that you get a lot of "BEST SPEAKER EVER MADE ON EARTH DAMNIT!" when looking around. There are plenty of speakers that will do certain things better, and there are speakers that will do it all better. As a buyer, it's also easy to put them on a pedestal since you're dealing with such an impressive device. Many Polk users prefer the next few sizes of SRS down for basic sound quality. The big boys are about the size/range of the sound.

10. Despite that, the way I see it they're an excellent compromise. They were for me, at least. It's hard to find something that has the full combination of frequency range, detail, small floor footprint, imaging (with the SDA at least,) parts support, and cost. Most of what's available either is lacking in a category or two or costs as much as a good car. Oh yeah, this shouldn't factor into buying speakers but they have serious curb/sex appeal. Now if only I could convince a woman to share that opinion.
 
I estimate I get 10% more clarity from my non-tl SRS which have the previous generation tweeter in them (SL2000) but most prefer your SL3000 tweeter over the SL2000. I also notice I get better clarity and definition when I use solid core speaker wire (10 ga romex) instead of stranded. I'm using a 100 wpc tube amp and tube pre and tube cdp so I get plenty of airyness and silky tube warmth. Mine are 10' apart inside edge to inside edge in a room that is 16' deep.
 
Don't give up on your big polks yet. I was also somewhat dissapointed in the sound of mine at first. The midrange wasn't good at all and I also had a big gap in the imaging. A recap last winter cured those problems and more and now they're hands down my favorite speaker.
Like others have mentioned your 9500 is a fine integrated but it's not a good match for your polks. I also used a 9500 on mine in the beginning but I didn't find it to be a good match up. The more power you send to them the happier they seem to be from my experience. Good luck and nice acquistion.
 
Thanks a lot for all the very poignant remarks!

My "biggest" amps are a Sansui CA/BA-3000 combo and a Nakamichi PA-7II. I know I can use the former with the Polks but I will have to check the Nak to make sure it's common ground so I don't fry it or the speakers. I will see if more current/headroom helps.

I too am going the "active storage" route as my listening room does not meet the recommended minimum 3ft distance from sidewalls on both sides. I realize this can effect the (thanks for the correction) "effect" but the left speaker puts out a lot less volume of the effect than the right. It sounds to me like I may have a loose cable or bad component on the xover or (and I really hope it's not this) an issue with the surround array of drivers.

I need to find that hex key at Lowes so I can pull out the drivers and xover and physically inspect/test them. That is my next move.

In the meantime they do sound nice without the interconnect cable connected but not nice enough to warrant the 6x difference in cost from the Vandersteens.

Luckily for the Polks their sheer size and weight prevents me from moving them out of the family room for quite some time :) this should give me enough time to figure out what the heck is really going on with this left channel.

Thinking out loud, if there was something wrong with the homemade interconnect cable itself wouldn't the effect be diminished in both channels as opposed to only the left? The right channel's effect is definitely noticible as described in the instruction manual.

Once I get this effect issue ironed out the recap is my next step. I thought maybe a "shotgun" approach to the xovers might fix this issue but others have suggested I not jump the gun.

Thanks for your time I really enjoy hearing your suggestions and impressions.

PS The sticker on the back of them says 1.2, but they have the SL3000 tweeters in them. I bought them from the son of the deceased owner who recalled in 1989 they were fitted with the 1.2tl parts at the factory before being delivered. I guess they are a 'bridge' model between the 1.2 and 1.2tl...
 
I agree with motorstereo you need more power to make those Polk's come alive. You've got a lot of speaker there.
Imagine trying to drive a '60's Cadillac with a 100 hp 4 cyl. engine.
 
xoaphexox said:
PS The sticker on the back of them says 1.2, but they have the SL3000 tweeters in them. I bought them from the son of the deceased owner who recalled in 1989 they were fitted with the 1.2tl parts at the factory before being delivered. I guess they are a 'bridge' model between the 1.2 and 1.2tl...
Click to expand...

Polk played pretty loose with the labeling over the years, especially using tags from previous years' models. A lot of the 1.2TLs out there are marked like that. Mine are. Actually, the original owner of mine ordered 1.2s but by the time the paperwork went through Polk was shipping 1.2TLs. He didn't know what he had until I looked it up after buying them.
 
I don't think you have a power issue as much as positioning and early reflection problems. My understanding is that these use physical cross-talk cancellation and must be positioned just so for this to work correctly -- the distance to the listening position and the listening angles must be right. Also, early reflections from the floor, ceiling and especially the side walls can really mess up the cancellation designed into them. When everything is dialed in properly, a solid image should be well outside the speakers when the balance control is at the extremes.

Good luck with them,
Eurasian
 
Thanks Eurasian. I am standing with my ears right in front of the driver though, practically putting my ear against the cone. I think at this point I would be intercepting the sound waves before they had a chance to bounce off of the floor or walls. To be sure though I can temporarily move them out from their current position such that they are equally away from side walls. The WAF will greatly decrease during this testing period :)
 
eurasian said:
This might be useful, esp. page 4: http://www.polksda.com/pdfs/SDASRS1-2.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks, this is the manual that I used to test the surround function. In the troubleshooting appendix it says to check polarity of speakers and interconnect cable, which I did a few times. I made sure everything was the correct polarity from the amp to the speakers. I even reversed polarity intentionally to see if the issue would correct itself, it did not.
 
While not as big as your Polks, the SDA-2s that I had gave me the same impression. Muddy and lacking detail from the lower mids down.
 
Okay, tonight I pulled all four surround array drivers in the left channel and they all tested OK with 3.2 ohms resistance out of circuit. I also pulled the crossover and it physically looked great - no cooked parts. So I guess I will see about trying a different amp next.
 
My suggestion is similar to others; use a better amp. A solid 100W amp can do it for smaller/narrower rooms. You may well be suffering from poor placement. Measure everything out. The surround "effect" will be distorted in rooms that are too small. What's typically suggested is 3' from side walls, 4'+ apart, 6" or so from the wall, and with the listener about 8-10' away. For small rooms, you're MUCH better off without the speaker-to-speaker cable. Even in rooms that are big enough for the speakers, you'll run into funny little problems with sound when you have too much junk or furniture. The name of the SDA game is to have a big, clean room with optimal placement. But it's very important that they stay parallel to and the same distance from the back wall.

Oh, and I prefer the SDA-CRS series. The SRS's are awesome, but most living rooms are too small to get them working properly. That, and it's much easier to amp CRS's. A review of the original SDA-SRS's had the speakers able to draw well north of a kilowatt. And remember that it's much more dangerous to speakers to underpower them; the clipping kills.
 
Thanks, I have an adequate amount of space in each direction from the speakers with the exception of the distance from the sidewall to the right speaker. This one is about 1.5 feet short because I have a bookshelf there.

I will continue testing things until I find out what's happening :)
 
One other thing to watch for is that the semiconductor tweeter protection device tends to degrade with age and can kick in prematurely, which will make the speaker sound dull. Replacing this can restore the original sound.
 
SDA SRS 1.2 said:
One other thing to watch for is that the semiconductor tweeter protection device tends to degrade with age and can kick in prematurely, which will make the speaker sound dull. Replacing this can restore the original sound.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that tip, I may just do that. In the Polk forums it was mentioned you could replace this with a .5 ohm resistor to keep the original resistance of the circuit if you do not ever overdrive the speakers.

This would work great for me if I planned to keep them forever, but I would need to warn any future owners of this (and most likely keep the polyswitches in a bag in case they need to be put back in).

Excellent info.
 
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