Why were SDA's discontinued? by Matthew Polk

[kharp1]

I agree with Technokid, this is so much a part of Polk that it begs for a rebirth. If they would sell kits for the old models I'd build my own. I also agree with "in home auditioning" as another great option. I've owned, and still own, many nice speakers and pieces of equipment, however, I've yet to reproduce that wonderful sound the SRS's gave me.

Back to looking for a pair.

[auTTiman]

What does "SDA" stand for?

[byfthalone]

Stereo Dimensional Array

[BrianMarasca]

Hello, SDA Lovers.

I've been an audiophile since 1973, and owned many excellent speaker systems. Then, sometime in the 1980s, I heard several of Polk's SDA speakers at a local store (which no longer exists). To say that my face fell off would be an understatement ... this seemed like magic, not acoustic science.

I went home with a pair of SDA-2s. The bass response ... the clarity ... the soundstage!

Given the rate at which I had previously changed speakers in the quest for ... well, you know ... I had no way of knowing that, in 2012, I would still own the same speakers! At this point, my SDAs have been complimented by four RTi A3s, a CSi A4, and a DSW Pro 500 subwoofer -- used mostly for music, occassionally for video.

Three years ago, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to place everything I owned in storage: storage with no temperature or humidity control. As a result, my precious SDA-2s were subjected to bitter winters and sweltering hot, humid summers.

That set of circumstances has now thankfully passed, I have a new place to live, and I went to begin setting up my beloved system. Now, over the years, I've had to replace a tweeter twice, which I simply got from the store where I'd originally bought my SDAs. But when I took the grilles off of the jewels of the system now, to my horror, one of the main drivers had ripped -- I could stick my finger right through the hole to the magnet. The right wood/fabric side panel had fallen off one of the speakers. The dome tweeters are mushy ... they deform to the touch.

Even if you could still buy these treasures, I could no longer afford them. Is there any hope of obtaining the requisite drivers and fixing them myself? Would this require soldering or anything else beyond my capabilities (I mostly handle the philosophy in the family), assuming the parts are even available? Should I replace all of the drivers, or might replacing the ripped one be enough? My SDAs are the whole purpose of my having a living room!

If anyone can help ... well, you can probably tell from the tone of my message how grateful I'd be.

Any help is appreciated in advance!

Brian Marasca
eaton.fores@yahoo.com

[F1nut]

Polk still sells replacement parts. Pull the driver, on the back you'll find the MWxxxx part number. Your tweeters are SL2000's, the current replacement is the RD0194-1, which is far better than the SL2000 ever was. On Monday, ~CALL~ Polk customer service to order.

[BrianMarasca]

Hey, thanks so much for the fast reply. Any idea what the replacement drivers cost? Is there any special difficulty in doing the replacement?

BTW, I spent 23 years in the Mars Hotel ...

Brian

[F1nut]

The tweeters are $48.00 and the drivers are about $60.00.

Did you pay in full?

[PolkieMan]

Pipe Dreams and I don't smoke.
Polk Audio 40th anniversary.
I would like to see the Sda-1C bought back as a Limited Anniversary Edition, how about 1D's.
There is people still buying large speakers and I would think that there would still be a market for Stereo SDA speakers.
Look at the interest in vinyl records and turntables and better sounding, higher bit rate, music in general.
A lot of the improvements that we have seen done by hobbyist could be added and even the end caps could be done in rosewood
with like a special gold grille badge etc.

[Moose68Bash]

In the last couple of months I began the process of modifying my SDA SRS 1.2s and SDA 1Cs -- with the help of a lot of advice from forum participants and VR3 Mods. This is relevant to this thread only because I looked long and hard for better speakers than my unmodified SDA SRSs before I decided to undertake modifications. Some of the speakers I auditioned: B&W 800 Diamonds, 801 Diamonds, 802 Diamonds, and 803 Diamonds; Nola Baby Grand References; Thiel Cs3.7s; Harbeth Monitor 40.1s; and finally, Wilson MAXX 3s. None of these, in my opinion, offered a significant enough advance in sonic performance to justify the large outlay of cash required to buy them.

Now, I don't trust my own judgement in such matters enough to rely on it alone. Fortunately, I am blessed with two daughters who are gifted with musical talent -- violinist and pianist/singer -- that I never enjoyed, except through them. They agreed, as did my wife. Hence, I decided to do all that I could to get the best sound possible out of my two sets of Polk SDA speakers.

And, I believe the factor that makes the vintage and far less expensive Polks sound so good, even in comparison with much more expensive "contemporary" speakers, is the SDA effect. I have no scientific evidence for this belief, but I tried to test my hypothesis simply by listening to the SRSs with and without the SDA interconnect in place. To my satisfaction, my test verified my hypothesis.

So, the modification process has begun -- and many thanks to DarqueKnight, VR3, Toolfan66, Drumminman and all the other Forum members who have made it possible for a "layman" like me.

It would be a gift to all of us who appreciate vintage Polk speakers if Polk Audio would strike out on a new SDA line! Whether it would be a good business decision is another matter!

[drumminman]

It would be a gift to all of us who appreciate vintage Polk speakers if Polk Audio would strike out on a new SDA line! Whether it would be a good business decision is another matter!

I agree, but then I would have to seriously think about buying them! And abandoning my 2.3TL's

[HollowState]

In the process of upgrading my original set of SDA SRS speakers, manufactured in May, 1986. While already good, can't imagine what they'll be like once I'm done!

[tophatjohnny]

As a new owner of a fine pair of SDA 2B's, I can't wait to find the right receiver to power these babies up and enjoy them. I did hear them when I brought them home (hooking them up to my main rig in the living room) and man do they sound awesome! Thanks to Mr. Polk for making such a great speaker.

[PolkieMan]

You would think that you could take two center channel speakers like the CS2 Monitor and wire them for Sda a kinda new Crs model.

It would be a gift to all of us who appreciate vintage Polk speakers if Polk Audio would strike out on a new SDA line! Whether it would be a good business decision is another matter!

I agree, but then I would have to seriously think about buying them! And abandoning my 2.3TL's

[DVADER]

If new SDAs were made in USA as they should be, they would cost a fortune.

[Bugstyvy]

Its so sad.....

[Bugstyvy]

It would be a gift to all of us who appreciate vintage Polk speakers if Polk Audio would strike out on a new SDA line! Whether it would be a good business decision is another matter!

I agree, but then I would have to seriously think about buying them! And abandoning my 2.3TL's

I will take you "old ones"

[olly42]

I strongly believe that Good things come in small packages..... and Better ones in Bigger... I haven't heard any versions of the SDA lines but one look at it and I just cant wait to get my hands on them. IMHO Polk is one company which gives value for money products in their current product price range they offer the best. There are many ways of reducing cost of production but then this decision would remain with the Polk Management. Just have to get my hands on these monsters

[tophatjohnny]

I strongly believe that Good things come in small packages..... and Better ones in Bigger... I haven't heard any versions of the SDA lines but one look at it and I just cant wait to get my hands on them. IMHO Polk is one company which gives value for money products in their current product price range they offer the best. There are many ways of reducing cost of production but then this decision would remain with the Polk Management. Just have to get my hands on these monsters

When you do, you will be thrilled!

[olly42]

Im sure I will.... just a matter of time

[Msabot1]

Thought SDA stood for STUDIO dimensional array! Maybe I'm wrong,but one thing is true,they were a top notch product!

[ambiophonics]

Yep, you're wrong :)

[Schurkey]

Polk Audio 40th anniversary.
I would like to see the Sda-1C bought back as a Limited Anniversary Edition, how about 1D's

SDA 1C/D...or SRS 3.1TL/3.2TL?

I bet the 1C and 3.1TL fill the same market niche; and I'm guessing that the sound quality of the 3.1 is superior to the 1C. If I won the lottery, chose to license SDA technology from Polk, and reintroduce new versions of old speakers...I'd start with the 3.1TL and the never-produced SRS 4.x version of the CRS series.

If new SDAs were made in USA as they should be, they would cost a fortune.

IMHO Polk is one company which gives value for money products in their current product price range they offer the best. There are many ways of reducing cost of production but then this decision would remain with the Polk Management. Just have to get my hands on these monsters

The current line of replacement SDA drivers is Communist Chinese, correct? (That's why I bought two RD0-198s instead of four--and the "white box" with no Country Of Origin label they each arrived in seems to support the Chinese sourcing.) The moment "value for money" comes up, the typical answer is to offshore as much as possible to the most reprehensible nation on Earth.

[tophatjohnny]

SDA 1C/D...or SRS 3.1TL/3.2TL?

I bet the 1C and 3.1TL fill the same market niche; and I'm guessing that the sound quality of the 3.1 is superior to the 1C. If I won the lottery, chose to license SDA technology from Polk, and reintroduce new versions of old speakers...I'd start with the 3.1TL and the never-produced SRS 4.x version of the CRS series.



The current line of replacement SDA drivers is Communist Chinese, correct? (That's why I bought two RD0-198s instead of four--and the "white box" with no Country Of Origin label they each arrived in seems to support the Chinese sourcing.) The moment "value for money" comes up, the typical answer is to offshore as much as possible to the most reprehensible nation on Earth.

I did not know that/ Glad my 1B's sound so darn good like they sit!!

[PolkieMan]

Well yea the 3.1tls were better but they were also bigger and not as many made.

The SDA 1C represents the middle of the SDA line a lot of them were made, they were cheaper and they are of a size that is not overwhelming.

When I got my RDO 198's I too was concerned no QC pass or date stamp, nothing. I am glad that they
do sound as good as mentioned because they sure did not look like much compared to the white paper,
highly engineered Q.C. SL-3000.
I think everything Polk makes now is manufactured in China,
everybody is trying to make a profit.

SDA 1C/D...or SRS 3.1TL/3.2TL?

I bet the 1C and 3.1TL fill the same market niche; and I'm guessing that the sound quality of the 3.1 is superior to the 1C. If I won the lottery, chose to license SDA technology from Polk, and reintroduce new versions of old speakers...I'd start with the 3.1TL and the never-produced SRS 4.x version of the CRS series.



The current line of replacement SDA drivers is Communist Chinese, correct? (That's why I bought two RD0-198s instead of four--and the "white box" with no Country Of Origin label they each arrived in seems to support the Chinese sourcing.) The moment "value for money" comes up, the typical answer is to offshore as much as possible to the most reprehensible nation on Earth.

[PubFiction]

Awesome information, straight from the guy who knows!

Has Polk ever considered opening up their own limited retail outlets? That way they could control what equipment the speakers are running on, and how they're set up. I hate seeing Polk speakers jammed in and stacked on top of each other in a Circuit City....

You do not need to open your own stores but you do need to pay stores to properly demo your products. This is why apple is so popular, or one of the big reasons, they use a combination of incentives to force retailers to set up apple only areas of the store with very spread out products and very large nice displays. It is one of the things most PC makers and companies in general do not do well. On the other hand it often ruins the value of the product because you need higher profit margins to justify paying for reps and floor space.

I also think that generally opening your own stores is a bad idea, it is always limited to the biggest cities and difficult for most of average america to ever see. Most Americans know about bose and klispch because they can see them in best buy often in a dedicated display. Opening your own store has a huge cost associated with it.

[PolkieMan]

You know Klipsch still carries it's Heritage line which I am sure they don't sell a lot but they are still available for a price and there is a local dealer in Houston.
It is a high end store for people that can appreciate high end audio equipment. And has deep pockets
http://www.sigtheater.com/
I think DEI Holdings owns (of course), controls Polk and pretty much what is offered now.

[tophatjohnny]

Polk should do the same! Bring back the SDA's!!

[PolkieMan]

Could you imagine what they could do today with what has been learned over the past 20 years?

Polk should do the same! Bring back the SDA's!!

[tophatjohnny]

Could you imagine what they could do today with what has been learned over the past 20 years?

Yeah, looks like they are trying to cram it all into a surround bar?? The only surround bar I'm into is one surrounded with dancing beauties!!

[PolkieMan]

That's because everybody wants something little and cute that does the same thing as brawn, size and power.

Yeah, looks like they are trying to cram it all into a surround bar?? The only surround bar I'm into is one surrounded with dancing beauties!!