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Some of you may know the tale of Matt Polk and his (more or less) original consumer speaker offering -- the Model Nine. If not, you can find more at the Polk forums (see link below).The original Model Nine (picture attached) was a small tower-format, "dipolar" speaker, with essentially full-range CTS 4"-ish drivers front and rear, an 8" passive radiator in the rear and a Motorola piezo (!?!) tweeter in the front. The sales literature boasted of "no electrical crossovers"! My alma mater, which was also Polk's alma mater, had a pair of these in the student pub when I was there (it was the mid-1970's and the drinking age was 18). A little later, the Model 9A appeared, substituting the venerable Peerless KO10DT silk dome tweeter (used by Polk for quite a few years on a number of models) with a "real" crossover.
Long story short, I acquired a pair of Model 9A's last week from a fellow in Lebanon, PA. I really wasn't expecting much, but the 9A's actually sound pretty good. What was really surpising, though, was the quality of stereo image they produced: deep, detailed, and noticeably "life-sized". My much beloved Polk Monitor 7A's (purchased new ca. 1978) have a great "tone" but do not have the 3-dimensionality of their modest younger brothers.
Just thought I'd share.
all the best,
mrh
Follow Ups:
Just about everyone I know online that has Polk's really like them.
I have RTi10 and RTi6 Polks in my lab area. Each gives the performance of speakers at least twice their price. I cannot fault any aspect of their performance.
Their real cherry cabinets have the best finish I have ever seen too.
Yes, I am pretty familiar with Polk Audio, having bought my first speakers (Monitor 7A's) at Soundscape, Polk's first dealer, in 1978.These things were the beginning of Polk's long, strange trip... built to use up a passel of small fullrange drivers originally sourced to make Bose 901 clones.
The original Nines don't have such a great reputation :-) I think the Peerless KO10DT probably makes the difference in the 9A.
The "imaging" thing, though, is something Polk didn't get involved with again until the SDA speakers quite a while later.
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