I definitely have after pics, let me check if I have any from before.
I have to work in-office today, so I will check and post this evening.
Today's scroe
- Thread starter Zolton
- Start date
I have to work in-office today, so I will check and post this evening.
@Ben LaVigna Taught me this cleaning hack, and once you try it you will never ever go back. This is not a joke, this works really well!
If you want to make that face plate look brand new do this:
1. Find a nice stiff brush, tooth brush or plastic brush
2. Use a baking soda toothpaste. The A&H Advanced Whiting or the Proxicare work really well
3. Scrub the face plate and the knobs with the tooth past and tooth brush with a little water. You want to make small circles as if you were brushing your teeth. You will see how fast it removes grime off the metal face plates.
4. Scrub hard. The toothpaste and brush are not abrasive enough to damage the silk screen but will remove old tabaco smoke and old gunk that soap and water usually wont.
5. After scrubbing rinse the face off with clean water and apply some Dawn soap and wash clean. The soap is to be sure you get rid of any of the toothpaste as when it dries it can dry white. This step just ensures your left with a nice clean face plate.
Again this is not a joke, and I have used it for a number of years.
Let me know if you try it!
You can also just use a plane white toothpaste, it will do the trick.
Those Polks were worth the drive by themselves.
Here are before and after rebuild pics of my crossovers. Mine have labels dating them to 1985 and 1986. I think your 10s might be older so they likely look different.
I replaced the two electrolytics (blue), and the film cap (yellow) with new film capacitors. I replaced the big resistors too.
You'll need to use a big soldering gun, like a hardware-store Weller to get this done. The traces and capacitor leads are huge, and my little Hakko did not provide enough heat.
Mine are the 10B model, that I picked up last year from a guy in the next town over. They were really dirty, but otherwise in near mint condition. I'm certain I paid above market value for the pair, but they cleaned up very nicely.
The grilles were super dirty, so I skipped using those.
These didn't come with stands either, so I built some using some oak shorts I've had sitting in my shed for about 20 years.
I am extremely happy with the sound quality from these.
malden
Lunatic Member
very nice, thanks for the photos
Zolton
Well-Known Member
I'd be nervous that the silk screen would vanish
It won’t
was going to say this very thing. They're sticky, anyway. I tried wiping some mild mildew off mine, took that coating off. Whoops.
This is a good find, sir. Sit down with paper towels, some windex or vinegar, and get to scrubbing. That could be a very nice sounding, ready to rock setup.
Zolton
Well-Known Member
I read a post on rebuilding the crossovers on these 10s recently. I mentioned reusing the mylar cap. Would it be necessary to replace the resistors also? Did you perform the epoxy trick on the 6.5 inch mid woofer magnets as well?
Ok Joe, I'm going to trust you on this. You can just mail me a faceplate for my HK330B if it goes wrong
Try it on something you don’t care about 1st and just use a toothbrush. If it works out for you can try other gear. If you don’t feel confident don’t do it.
I'm going to start with the knobs. I didn't know how filthy they were until I saw some that were all nice and shiny.
Bone Yard
Super Member
The two small driver's in the Polks are different and they tend to separate from the magnet, especially after moving or shipping. Hopefully yours survived but there is a somewhat easy way to make a jig and reglue the magnets.
Maybe it's the photos but outside of the sticky dirt, the rest of the speakers look like they'll clean up nicely.
Maybe it's the photos but outside of the sticky dirt, the rest of the speakers look like they'll clean up nicely.
Zolton
Well-Known Member
I read that if you press in on the cone and you don't feel any rubbing then they haven't shifted. I cannot feel any rubbing on these. I transported them home on their faces with the terminals shorted to be on the safe side.
The corrosion on the Peerless tweeters has me a bit concerned. I've not tried to play music through them as a test yet, but I did put my multimeter on them. Got around 4.4 Ohms per speaker.
The corrosion on the Peerless tweeters has me a bit concerned. I've not tried to play music through them as a test yet, but I did put my multimeter on them. Got around 4.4 Ohms per speaker.
When I first rebuilt the crossovers, I kept the yellow mylar caps. Someone on the Polk site forums mentioned that the factory mylar cap is an inexpensive part, and they noticed an improvement by replacing it with that purple Clarity cap.
My results: There was a noticeable improvement replacing the electrolytics with film caps, and using new resistors. The cost of the new resistors was minimal, so that was an easy choice.
I can't say that the Clarity cap was as noticeable, but maybe that's getting into more incremental gains? If I had to do over, I might just use an Audyn cap there, or leave the original. As always, YMMV.
I didn't do anything with the woofers, as they sound fantastic and don't exhibit any signs of misalignment. I have a pair of 7Bs that I've owned since the late 80s which don't have any issues either.
I'm not planning on shipping these, or hauling them around, so I don't see the need.
A set of stands for the Monitor 10s are a fun little project if you have some basic woodworking tools. Mine are not dimensioned exactly to the plans floating around the web, but are plenty sturdy. I added the aluminum lip on the back, which is nice to prevent the speaker sliding off should it get bumped by humans, dogs, etc.
