Polk Audio R30 Two-Way Floorstanding Loudspeakers (Black)

Amazon Customer Reviews

(2 out of 5)

Basically a cheap bookshelf with a stand

I tried out one of these at Circuit City, they had them for a hundred forty a pair on Black Friday and only at that price point these would be a decent purchase. When I see them retailing at close to three hundred regular price, my heart just goes out to the poor fools who'd pay that much for these.

See, the R30s are virtually identical to the R20, which (see my review on it) is a very disappointing speaker especially coming from a respected name like Polk. Well, this speaker basically just puts the R20 in a taller cabinet with a front port on the very bottom, which does create slightly better bass---though strong bass was about the only good thing about the R20 in the first place, the mids and highs were atrocious and the speaker distorts quickly at high volumes. It sounded slightly better with my receiver speaker settings on "small" and the low frequencies being handled by my sub.

For just a little over two hundred dollars shipped at ac4less dot com you can get the mordaunt short 906 towers which blows these out of the water. Use it with a sub and you'll be very happy, in this price range.

(1 out of 5)

Polk Audio R30 spreakers are horrid

I just had a pair of Polk Audio R30 towers delivered for $49.99 each + shipping from Outpost.com. I connected them to both a Harmon-Kardon HK 3480 receiver and Hafler DH-220 power amplifier and listed to them with a variety of sources including Scott Ross's classic Scarlatti harpsichord, acoustic Johnny Cash, William Clark, the Doors, and others.
In all cases I found the speakers to have an overly bright high end and midrange that sounds so strained it is as if it is coming through a tin cans on a string. The midrange imaging is all but non-existent because it is so strained, and the high end is grating.
After living with them for 2 days I find I can no longer listen to them because the bad sound irritates to no end.
I have a set of Creative Inspire computer speakers I bought for $50 that sound an order of magnitude better than the Polk Audi R30's. These speakers are tinny and unlistenable and are a waste of time and money at any price.

(5 out of 5)

Very good speakers once properly set up

I purchased these speakers after seeing them dropped from their msrp of $300 a pair to a little over $100 at Outpost.com. After giving them an extensive listening test, I can offer the following advice on how to balance the speakers into making them sound quite good.

1. When you first get them, the won't sound very good. They'll be missing the mid-range and the treble will be overpowering. THEY NEED TO BE BROKEN IN!!! After about 10 hours of heavy bass music, they'll loosen up the drivers enough to make a night and day difference. The mid-range will be there in full force, sounding accurate, while the tweeter will settle down and blend nicely.

2. Being a Two-way setup (2 drivers, one tweeter and one 6.5" midrange with extension down to about 100 hz), to function properly they need a subwoofer or an equalizer that emphasizes the range from 70 and below(I've upped it 3db). Adding a subwoofer to the mix with a crossover range of about 150hz will make the setup sound much fuller. Lacking a subwoofer, equalizing the low end up a couple of decibels (experiment with this since the amplifier might automatically do this and depending out good your receiver is, might be unnecessary) will give you good kick and fuller low end. Be warned: the more bass you give it, the less mid-range you'll have. I strongly suggest only 2-3 decibels max.

3. I found the best position for them to be at least 8 feet apart (any closer and the channels tend to blur a bit, erasing the stereo image. Experiment though, I have a lot of furniture that sucks up sound very easily), in the corners if possible with a buffer space of about 12" from back and sides. Avoid sticking them next to couches if possible as they have a very wide dispersion of sound- Your volume from a speaker can drop by 25% if one side is to a heavily clothed object (couches, chairs, thick curtains).

If you set these things up right, they'll sound great. Avoid older receivers(15+ years) unless they are truly top notch. A decent sub-woofer (10" minimum) as a compliment will give the system great range and be quite accurate. MAKE SURE YOU RUN THEM FOR AT LEAST 10 HOURS WITH FULL RANGE MUSIC(20,000 HZ - 50 HZ) OR WHITE NOISE BEFORE GIVING THEM A SOUND TEST!!! Break them in and you will be well rewarded.

A great set of speakers.

(5 out of 5)

Have no qualms about these.....

I replaced 2 Sansui (huge, heavy, 15 inch woofers) with these and I must admit, I was blown away with their performance. Not only do they look good, they sound WONDERFUL!!! Bass is quite decent, despite having a JVC sub to do most of that work, distortionless and exceptionally bright on highs. Mid range is ample, but does need a boost through EQ for tonal quality. Overall, I would have to say Polk did their homework when producing these and would highly recommend them to anyone thinking about replacing their older sets or getting new ones. I am particular about sound, being a musician and these are about as good as it gets, other than Bose, but then not all of us can afford such luxuries (about 5X the price of these)and alot of their price is their name. I do not believe that you would be disppointed in purchasing these for your your needs.

(4 out of 5)

Polk finally gets one of their tower models to sound right!

These two towers are quite the showmen for small floorstanding speakers. The tweeters are 1" silk, and they sound nice!. The tweeters open up a little more than the usual sweet spot sound effect you'd get from others.

The bass driver is fair sized, pretty tight firing, and not too clumsy. Front oversized porting for the driver helps ease the stress of any large 'boofs' of bass on these. I found a number of larger Polk 'R' series tower speakers to sound too beefy, and not very clean sounding when it came to detail. These smaller ones mop the floor with them when it comes to clean bass and detail, and still give plenty of power to boot!

If you really want a fantastic speaker that's equally priced, but constructed better with superior sound (honestly), look into Paradigm, or PSB! Still, thumbs up for Polk. These are quite the little towers. Not the gold medal, but definitely a bronze medal contender!