A Living Legend

MANY YEARS ago (the early 1980s, to be precise), Polk Audio produced the first speakers to feature a technology it had developed called SDA (Stereo Dimensional Array). The idea behind SDA was to eliminate a problem called interaural crosstalk that’s a necessary artifact of typical two-channel speaker configurations. Basically put, when listening in stereo, your left/right ears hear not just sound emanating from the respective left/right speakers, but sound coming from the other speaker as well. According to Polk Audio, this has a constricting effect on the presentation, with the width, height, and depth of the stereo image coming across as a pale representation of what’s actually contained on the recording.

The original SDA models, a number of which were reviewed by Sound & Vision magazine’s predecessor, Stereo Review, dealt with the issue of interaural crosstalk in a purely acoustic way by using a second set of drivers (the Dimension Array) on each speaker. These directed a “cancellation” signal—essentially, an out-of-phase version of the sound being emitted by the opposite speaker. The effect of this was to maintain the stereo separation that exists in the recorded program through the full audio component chain direct to your ears, roughly similar to the way that headphones function.

For its newest line of speakers, the Legend series, Polk Audio decided to revive SDA