Polk Monitor 40

[yepimonfire]

Pros: Sounds like a (smaller) floorstander. Very well damped thick cabinet that does not "feel" resonant" (when placing your hand on the cabinet when music is playing you don't feel it resonating). Literally transparent grill, taking the grill on and off as the music is playing i notice absolutely no difference in sound. Very large port.

Cons: Very narrow vertical sweet spot. A bit bright. I can't stand to listen to my old Sony's now

Well the first thing i noticed about these is how well they brought out the detail of synthesizers, first off, i had no clue there was a synthesizer playing in the background of Coldplay's "Clocks", i also noticed immediately on Muse's "Uprising" how the synth in the beginning was not flat note transitions as i was hearing on all my other stuff, but had some interesting phasing effect on the transitions.

The second thing i noticed about these was how three dimensional they sounded, not in terms of being able to trick you into believing there is sound behind you, but into rendering instruments in a wide space. when sitting on axis, using a sub, these things can seriously convince me the sound is in a "space" not coming from speakers.

Another interesting thing i noticed about these is how well the instrument separation was, a lot of times i notice on music how when the guitars come in the drums seem to blend in to the music and not stand out anymore, with these i can clearly hear the drums, guitars, and bass, all as separate instruments, all of them sounding "in front" of the performance, meaning, none of them seem to fall back when things get complex. one of the things that surprised me the most about these is how well they rendered cymbals, i could finally hear the subtle details and crispness of them as a stand alone sound instead of them blending in with the drums.

Overall i really like these, and i plan on keeping them in my setup for a good amount of time. if these weren't on sale for $120 at newegg and i had to spend the full $349 for them, and i knew how they sounded before hand, i would certainly have paid that price for them, and still felt like i was getting a good deal, i am so angry now that i spent $150 on those POS sony speakers, i'll never forgive myself

 

[j_garcia]

All of the lower lines of Polk in the last few years have been on the bright side, though not in an unpleasant way. The LSis aren't bright at all with the Vifa tweeter, but they also aren't quite up to the task in terms of midrange performance for what they are charging IMO. The cabinets are one place they seem to do well though, through all of the lines except the bottom one.

 

[yepimonfire]

i would avoid their R/M/T line, if thats the line you mean. heard one at best buy, sounded very mediocre, which is why i bought sony's originally. too bad i didnt hear the monitors first, the brightness is not that bad IMO, these speaker actually remind me alot of KEF's speakers, first time i heard them i thought hmm, these sound like my old burnt out KEF's. the brightness seems to be on the upper high's, at around 16-18khz, so it's actually pleasant.

 

[j_garcia]

Yes, the Rs and the Ms are really just basic speakers. The TSi line is essentially the same as the monitor line though, are they not? Is there a T line?

My review of the A3:

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38870&highlight=a/v-1

 

[yepimonfire]

the tsi's are upgraded monitors. they are what replaced the monitor series.

 

[yepimonfire]

this is the T line, only one speaker, and this is what they had at BB, not a bad speaker for 179 a pair, but it certainly does not compare to their monitors or other lines.

http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/rtm/index.php?s=t15

this is the floor one i demoed, it wasn't bad, it just sounded a bit congested if that makes sense.

http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/rtm/index.php?s=t15#m20

 

[j_garcia]

http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/rtm/index.php?s=t15#m20

Fry's had those M20s for a ridiculous price of like $99/pr, but after checking them out, I still didn't think they were worth it.

 

[lsiberian]

You should take a peek inside. Small improvements can make a big improvement in sound.

 

[yepimonfire]

i have and this thing is well braced and very well damped, maybe i will take some pics of it. you can actually place your ear on the cabinet while it is playing music and not hear resonance.

 

[j_garcia]

The LSi cabinets are some of the most solid mass market speaker cabinets I've seen, except that they are charging too much for the level of sound they produce. Even the RTi cabinets, which are curved, are not as inert as they could be, but they are well built and good for the price.

 

[yepimonfire]

i would like to add a few notes on this since i have had more time to listen to them, at time these things can be VERY bright, to an irritating point, especially with recordings that are bright to begin with, occasionally S's and T's can be harsh sounding as well, but this again depends somewhat on the recording as to how severe the issue is, i also have noticed running these in full range mode and doing some tone sweeps with them that they roll off pretty harshly after about 50hz, they are pretty flat down to 50hz but these should not be rated with a 47hz response because the level of sound between 47 hz and 50hz on these things is dramatic, i also feel at times these speakers are lacking in midrange but this could be because of the dominating brightness. i will say if your a person who cannot stand bright sound avoid these at all costs, these are seriously bright. almost harsh at times.

 

[dkane360]

i would like to add a few notes on this since i have had more time to listen to them, at time these things can be VERY bright, to an irritating point, especially with recordings that are bright to begin with, occasionally S's and T's can be harsh sounding as well, but this again depends somewhat on the recording as to how severe the issue is, i also have noticed running these in full range mode and doing some tone sweeps with them that they roll off pretty harshly after about 50hz, they are pretty flat down to 50hz but these should not be rated with a 47hz response because the level of sound between 47 hz and 50hz on these things is dramatic, i also feel at times these speakers are lacking in midrange but this could be because of the dominating brightness. i will say if your a person who cannot stand bright sound avoid these at all costs, these are seriously bright. almost harsh at times.

If I'm not mistaken, I think the newer polks are known for being overly bright. Do you have something you could do some slight equalization with? Maybe on your receiver?

 

[yepimonfire]

i think the new Tsi line or whatever it was that replaced the monitor series are NOT as bright, the monitors are incredibly bright though, its not really going to make a difference which speaker you purchase from them because they all use the same tweeters, and my receiver has a treble and a bass control, the bass control is 50hz centered and i'm not exactly sure where the treble is centered all i know is when i turn it down it messes lower then the bright frequency, polks are bright up in the super high range, i would guess 16khz or higher maybe 17khz, thats just a guess though. i wish polk had frequency response graphs, but they don't. i've done some tone sweeps on them but couldnt detect with my ears what frequency was bright, they seemed pretty flat actually. i'll have to try again.

 

[yepimonfire]

alright after some goofing around with a tone gen, i have discovered the brightness begins at 8khz and stops at 14khz, everything between 8-14khz seems excessively louder.

 

[j_garcia]

A lot of people like bright speakers, which is why many on the mass market tend towards this characteristic. I do not like bright speakers at all.

 

[yepimonfire]

i second that, they sound irritating after awhile, i mean a little brightness is alright, but i shoot for flatness here, i don't think these speakers are intentionally bright, it's just the tweeters used, these actually sound brighter then my KEF center channel i have laying around with no use for. i tried using it as a center because these speakers do have pretty similar characteristics sonically to the few KEFs i have heard but the brightness is even higher then the KEFs. aside from the super brightness of these i still feel these have very accurate imaging since they continue to represent a soundstage much larger then they are, these by far have the widest deepest soundstage i have heard from the speakers i've listened to, they sound especially realistic on movies, in two channel mode i am enveloped in wide spacious sound, as long as i sit in the sweet spot i couldnt tell i DONT have surrounds hooked up. they also have great instrument separation in music, i can clearly hear each instrument individually rather then a blended sound of combination.