Great, compact towers, sleek design and beautiful sound.
Written: Feb 24 '04 (Updated Feb 24 '04)
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Pros: Great design, looks, size, and hey the they sound great too! price drop since debut.
Cons: Speaker vibrations at high volume. Possible instability on carpet. Build quality? 2 years and counting...
The Bottom Line: Good speakers, find yourself a pair in good condition and you cant be displeased. Perfect for smaller rooms, entry level home theaters, audiophiles etc.
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| tourniqet's Full Review: Polk Audio R40 Speaker |
I can not believe there are no reviews on these babies!
These were the first speakers I bought to go with my new onkyo receiver. I was very excited about buying speakers and was looking for some in 250 dollar range. I had searched high and low, and finally came to my conclusion. I had to spend more money...
well Luckily for me I came across a huge deal. I found these pretties at Fry's electronics for 199 for a pair!!!
Got the speakers home (yes they will fit in a 94 camaro, somehow).
When I first eased the speakers out of the boxes I was amazed at their weight. They have about a half in thick of that compressed soundboard stuff. They are very clean cut, solid and contemporary. The speakers come in a dark ash black and also a cherry, I got the ash black >:) Physically the speakers are good, not great. They seem a little less stable on carpet (especially spongy kind), and also the speaker grille is adequate. It does not seem to hinder the performance in any way except the following. There speakers are ported and the port is at the bottom of the front of the speaker, and when you turn the volume up high enough the cloth grille can get vibrated so much by the air moving in and out of the port that it actually slaps the bottom of the speaker making a little titter tatter sound... This should not be a problem, I turned the volume up more than 200% of a regular listening level. However, for the party animal who is a bass'a'holic he may find this annoying.
Now for the sound! It is really great overall, very full for a small tower speaker. The speaker has really good bases, but can still benefit from a subwoofer (as most speakers can) but one is not necessary by any means. I never really found any distortion, in the listening levels that I experienced, and these levels were reletively high considering I get in the dorm room "who has the loudest stereo contests" frequently... Don't worry these babies had all the other systems blown away. Even those punks who think their 150$ harman kardon computer system with a woofer hits hard... Anyway, the basses are there and are clean at most listening levels. The midrange is also beautiful. I compared these speakers to my 200$ pair of boston acoustic CR7's, and they came out on top. They filled the room much more easily and were much less directional. They do very well for their size, as I also compared them to sony's of larger size and could tell the sound was much more tight, and precise on the Polks... The higher range is great on these too. It is hard for me to determine if highs are good sound quality, but it is easy for me to tell if they are grainy, harsh, or distorted. This speaker showed none of the signs above.
I am not sure of the price of this speaker now but when I was looking at them they typically went for around 400 for the pair. I saw them at crutchfield.com for 430$ I got lucky with my 199$ for the pair find. Although I could not condem people for buying these at 400$ I would not recommend it. This review has been written at least 2 or 3 years after this model came out so the price should be dropped considerably.
I have had other polk products after this person, and was not pleased with the build quality. These speakers have held up though. I got the other polk speakers second hand so I suspect that is the culprit... BUT! I've got my eye on you Polk...
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199
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Epinions.com ID:
tourniqet
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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