Home > Consumer Reviews > Polk Audio R15 2-Way Bookshelf Loudspeakers (Pair, Black)

To begin, this speaker did not blow me away the second I hooked it up or anything. But it does put out nice warm sound you would expect from polk. It was definitely worth the money. Polks sound nice with Onkyo receivers (I dont know why, they just do). I highly recommend these to any non-audiophilic person out there who still enjoys good clean sound from a small cabinet that wont hinder your rooms aethetics.

These are great speakers for the money. Recently, I also purchased a pair of Sony 350 speakers to put in my living room. The Polks cost about the same as the Sony's but are much smaller. To be honest, I like the sound quality of the Polk's much better. I guess if you need a bigger speaker to fill a huge room, the Sony's would be adequate, but overall, I highly recommend getting the Polks. One final advantage: you can easily mount the Polks on the wall.

The R15s from Polk can be had for as little as $50/pair if you spot a good sale, and are a reasonable buy for under $125/pair. They are small, not too heavy and nice looking. Like a lot of smaller speakers, they tend to open up more when played loudly than they do at lower listening levels.

These ported speakers sound decent with lower-powered amps (I have a Proton 100, maded by NAD in the '90s, puts out 25 honest watts RMS) but may benefit from higher power in increased accuracy and balance. Since my amp sounds a bit warm, I found the output from the R15s was soft and too concentrated in the midrange at the expense of bass response. They don't have much extended bass, and benefit from the reinforcement of a decent subwoofer. I tried them alone and with an NHT 10" powered sub, and the low end was definitely improved with the added bass output.

Compared to better --and more expensive -- bookshelf speakers, the R15s color their sound somewhat with thicker vocals, compressed guitars and horns, somewhat thumpy bass and drums and a noticible push in the midrange. I found them, however, a definite improvement over similar size units from Sony or JBL.

I played music ranging from electronica and rock to jazz and classical. Hip-hop music tended to sound best because there really is no midrange in a lot of hip-hop tracks, so the speaker could concentrate in the highs and lows. Rock songs suffered from too-heavy guitar and weak bass response.

Bass is improved by moving these close to a wall, though the speaker may get boomy, and drops off noticably when moved more than a foot out.

The bottom line is, these speakers are pretty good for moderate stereo systems, smaller rooms and less discriminating listening, but better sound comes from other brands like NHT, Paradigm or Atom for a bit more money.

I just purchased these on sale for half price as a replacement for some Acoustic Research AR 215PS speakers which I have been using on one of my computers. (I have been really unhappy with the ARs.) In between the computer and the speakers is a 25 year old 40 watt/channel Harman Kardon HK495i stereo receiver. Since they are being used as computer speakers, I didn't want to spend lots of money.

The cost, size and weight of the Polk and the AR speakers are almost identical; however, in my opinion, these sound much better. The ARs are harsh and brittle. The Polk uses a 1" soft dome tweeter which is much smoother. The use of a good tweeter improves the midrange as well.

They do sound a bit hollow, which I guess is due to the lack of any baffeling material inside the box. This can be fixed easily: I went to the local sewing shop and picked up a $2 bag of fiber fill used to make stuffed toys, took off the woofers, shoved a fair amount of the fill inside, replaced the woofer, and the speakers no longer sound hollow, and are moderately warm sounding and easy to listen to.

There is not much at the bottom end, which is not surprising given their size. (The literature says they are -3db at 65Hz.) They would no doubt benefit from an inexpensive subwoofer. Since they cost almost nothing, they are well worth the price in an inexpensive system.

I just recently bought a 2nd hand Teac av receiver to add sound to my upstairs and needed a relatively inexpensive set of bookshelf speakers to match.

The Polk R15's came with good customer reviews and after listening to them at Circuit City and comparing them to Infinity and Sony's at a similar size, I was impressed with the amount of bass one could get out of speakers this size. I got a new pair for $50 on sale and quickly set them up. I don't have a graphic equalizer but it would be a huge benefit for these speaker.

They are serving a large living room area and do manage to fill the room with pleasing sound. The bass is not room thumping and they aren't Kappa 5 quality for the highs but for the price you won't be disappointed and may I suggest that you will be pleasantly impressed?.

I agree with most of the reviewers that these would make awesome rear surround speakers and eventually, when I restructure my upstairs with new furniture, these will do quite nicely in a rear role.

A nice find at a very nice price and worthy of 4 stars.