Vintage Polks

[cjq]

Hello, I have an interest in purchasing a pair of Monitor 10B 's .I don't know their mfg. date but have a concern about the cone suspension material. Dose anyone know if the material has long life of is it a known area of failure
My other concern is I cant find many negative comments about their performance but an abundance of raves. Are the ravers Monitor waco's ? lol I guess what I mean are they just die hards.
Thanks

CJQ

[badman]

The old Monitor series were very good speakers- well balanced, with well-behaved drivers, big enough cabs, and simple crossovers. The surrounds are a thin rubber and will be fine unless they've been abused or left in the sun (same thing). The passive radiator alignments also allow a LOT of bass output compared to most speakers of similar size. Even the little monitor Jr. 5s can whump some tunes in most rooms (6.5" with passive 6.5")


You may need to swap in some replacement caps in the XO, and possibly stiffen the box panels a taste.

[kach22i]

I think that model or something similar to it goes back to 1980. I lived with a room mates pair for about a month back then and had a chance to compare them to my AudioLab's (Fisher drivers) of the same size. The Polk's cost 2-3 times more and sounded like flat cardboard to me.

In 1992 I gave a serious listen to some Polk's in a higher-end stereo store. There must be a house sound, because they still sound like flat cardboard to me.

If they are cheap enough pick them up, but they take up a lot of floor space compared to the skinny towers of today.

well balanced/well-behaved = FLAT

[pedroskova]

They were mfg'd ~ '76 - '80, back when Polk was a much smaller company. Good bang for the buck in their day.

[phivates]

The x-over needs redone, as with everything else ordinary from those days. Better bass than you might expect.