Polk SDA SRS Inspired or just crazy?

[bungelow_ed]

Couple of comments....

As the owner of a pristine pair of SDA 1C's I can vouch for their sound stage and bass capabilities, very wide and deep. I also must comment on their box resonance in the mid-range. This is bad enough that I won't listen to mine. They have sat for 3-4 yrs while I listened to Dahlquits DQ10's, Vandersteen 3A Sig's and Statement monitors.

Statements, Listened to Pink Floyd's "Meddle" last night and was very impressed with how wide and deep the sound stage was with my Statement Monitors. In my 16' x 24'ish x 8' room the bass has impact, mids are uncolored and highs have clarity and brilliance.

IMHO, most people would be very happy with Statement monitors. I am building a pair of full size Statements now, but have a nagging feeling I'm building a howitzer to hunt small game. Maybe I need to build a larger room......

[utahsaint]

Thanks I will check out the Statements for sure! From what I see so far they look impressive. I don't want others to get the wrong idea. I love the idea of DIY and learning things. Not sure I would ever be able to put the money and time into learning everything right away. The DIY stuff I see on Parts Express that I can buy looks good but not what I really want. As stated I already have some Infinity Crescendo speakers that are quite nice. Just wanted to see what all my options are out there. From what I have learned DIY seems like the route to go. Others have stated that they can build better sounding than a B&W, and as much imaging as a Polk SDA. Seems very impressive to me what people are doing here.

Here is the website with all the design specifications for the Statements: http://speakerdesignworks.com/Statements.html

What a great find. I am curious why he choose a open back mid range. From my understanding he choose that for imaging. Seems like you would sacrifice some smoothness in the mid-range for better imaging. Also the enclosure seems like you would have more air pressure on the top woofer than the bottom. Almost like it would be better to place the port in a more neutral location. Seems like a logical position for a port in a sense that he could get away from port noise and speaker location somewhat. The reviews are stellar.

I am going to try my hand at a simple two way and some cabinet building. If all turns out well then maybe I will go for a big build.

[Face]

Couple of comments....

As the owner of a pristine pair of SDA 1C's I can vouch for their sound stage and bass capabilities, very wide and deep. I also must comment on their box resonance in the mid-range. This is bad enough that I won't listen to mine. They have sat for 3-4 yrs while I listened to Dahlquits DQ10's, Vandersteen 3A Sig's and Statement monitors.

Use some Sonic Barrier on the back wall between the midwoofers, it will help.

[utahsaint]

Does anyone have much experience with the morel line on here? They seem to make a great 9" woofer that would hit 20 hrz but it requires a huge box. Looking at Morel's website they make an amazing loud speaker. Of course they are using inner baffled speakers that I wouldn't want to use, but they have amazing loudspeaker speakers and drivers. Also by chance they guy that founded them used to work for B&W.

[ReissM]

...In my 16' x 24'ish x 8' room the bass has impact, mids are uncolored and highs have clarity and brilliance.

Do you experience hot-spots and dead-spots within your room? The axial mode distribution would seem to generate a nightmare due to room dimensions being multiples of each other. 8', 16', 24'. Yikes!

I've always wondered if this would be a real acoustical problem or more of a theoretical problem that doesn't truly present as big of an issue as people think. What does your personal experience in this room tell you?

Thanks.

[utahsaint]

So its taken me a while but this next week I am going to order. My decision was for a system that on paper will reach 19Hz to 25 khz. Of course the reality might be something different. The sad news is that zero of the speakers will be coming from parts express. I will be order some software and other things through here. So this is what I am getting:

SB Acoustics 1" textile dome tweeter 2000 Hz - 25 Khz
SEAS Prestige 5.5" mid range 100 Hz - 2000 Hz
2 ScanSpeak Classic 8" woofer 19 Hz - 3000 Hz

I figure if a box takes me ten tries so be it. Also if it takes a ton of tries with cross overs oh well. At least the potential of what the system will be able to do should be great. Every one of the speakers even off access is very flat. I have the Dayton Audio DATS Dayton Audio Test System coming next week. Very excited as this is a 20 year dream. Of course I have built sub woofer boxes for my car when I was younger. That of course was cheaper drivers and didn't always have great results. This time I can take things slower and have software. Also I found that LEAP has a demo for the cross over design software here: http://www.linearx.com/products/soft...5/LEAP5_01.htm. I think that the cross over design is the scariest part of this whole process.

[carlspeak]

Not to discourage you, but here is a pic of the SDA SRS xo partially disassembled.

[clydethecat]

Not to discourage you, but here is a pic of the SDA SRS xo partially disassembled.

Now just zoom in a little closer on that schematic in the background...

[Face]

Now just zoom in a little closer on that schematic in the background...

Here's the TOTL, SRS 1.2TL's schematic: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/atta...7&d=1186346402

[utahsaint]

Its my understanding that the surround sound bar for a tv uses a lot of the same design concepts. http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/surroundbar/ To me this makes a lot of sense because its not a 5.1 theater setup. This is the only time it makes sense however. If you are using stereo or just one speaker for a tv. Other than that a 5.1 or 7.1 could not use any of the stereo dimensional array.

[Face]

Its my understanding that the surround sound bar for a tv uses a lot of the same design concepts. http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/surroundbar/ To me this makes a lot of sense because its not a 5.1 theater setup. This is the only time it makes sense however. If you are using stereo or just one speaker for a tv. Other than that a 5.1 or 7.1 could not use any of the stereo dimensional array.

Their upper level sound bars can be very convincing in most rooms.