Clean Clean Clean! Detailed! Natural! Love the "Cherry" finish on mine!

None!

Small footprint...quality drivers...excellent port! These speakers are being driven by a Pioneer SA-500 Inyegrated Stereo Amplifier rated a mere 10 watts rms per/ch! They are efficient with beautiful Mids, Highs and superb deep bass. Don't use a crappy modern HT receiver with them and they won't sound crappy! These beautifully crafted wonderful transducers need classic warm electronics to drive them and they'lll sound great without piercing or breakup. I run mine most of the time using less than 3 watts per channel! They are so sweet and detailed sounding...revealing every subtlety! Best pair of speakers under $800. Superb!

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer SA-500, Pioneer TX-5500-II, Pioneer PL-518 w/Ortofon OM5E, Toshiba CD/DVD, Rega Planar 2 w/glass platter and Ortofon OM-40 Gold cartridge, Pioneer SX-990 Stereo Receiver w/Cherry finish

COMPACT TOWER, ABOVE AVERAGE IMAGING AT THE PRICE POINT.

MODERATE DISTORTION AT EXTREAM LEVELS

GREAT SPEAKER FOR THE MONEY. CLEAR IMAGE ADEQUATE BASS, A SUB IS NEEDED TO FILL THE GAPS. GREAT SOUND AT MODERATE LEVELS. I UPGRADED TO THE ATHENA F-2, BUT FOUND THE POLK-30 TO BE A GREAT VALUE, PARTICULARLY FOR THE CONDO, APT DWELLER OR PERSONS IN GENERAL THAT LISTEN TO MUSIC AT MODEST VOLUMES.

Similar Products Used:

ATHENA F2 BOSE AM-5

Sound quality, honest clarity, solid lows.

Not much to look at

These speakers were marked way down from $399 so I decided to get a pair to use as fronts on my Home Theatre system. They sound decent, with an honest clarity and respectable bass from the mid (thanks to the cabinet). The do the job for basic HT use and occasional listening, although I prefer my Energy C2's and Arcam system for stereo listening. Not a bad deal at all at under $200 a pair, if basic HT is what you're looking for.

Clear highs, decent midrange, looks good without grill

None, I mean look how much you are spending..you can't expect the best.

I saw these on sale and bought these as a start for a Home Theatre project. These speakers sound better than the R50's to me, the highs are not to piercing and the single mid seems to handle what I gave it well. I did have them set as small with nothing under 80 hz going to them. Music was much better with the 30's than the 50's also. Outpost has them on sale all the time for $100 pair. For the price you cannot beat them.

they look nice and have a small floor footprint

tinny midrange and grating treble

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 blues, 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. I moved them around the room to see if they had a sweet spot; they did not, they sounded bad everywhere. 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.

Great sound, clean and crisp highs without being too bright or intrusive; bass is surprisingly clean and not muffled; moderately atrractive; front ported

Sound is quite open, but on occasion it can be a little held back-hardly though;

After constructing a home theatre environment that's truly a setup with good power and VERY clean sound and picture (this being Paradigm Signature Series Speakers, Denon DVD/CD, and Runco projectors), I wanted to fill up space in our basement, altough it was hard to decide what to use it for. Call us crazy, but we decided to put another home theatre setup there, although smaller, and strictly for video games. After installing a less expensive yet very effective setup, including small projector, reciever, screen and Nintendo Gamecube), we decided to compliment just two tower speakers for now since we just came to the limit of what we said we could spend on this setup. Before I was finished my stint working with Future Shop for the Christmas season, I walked into work one day and found that we were slashing prices BIG TIME, and that Polk Audio were discontinuing the "R" line to make way for the "RTi" line. And even though the Polk R30's were already at an amazing loow price for $299, they were slashed again, this time to a mind numbing $199 PER PAIR! $199.00 ! AH ! I grabbed a dolly as fast as I could, and hid a pair in the back storage room, and boy was I glad. The R30 towers are really the only well manufactured and characterized speakers out of the "R" towers. The others, like the R40' or R50's, have above average highs and somewhat entrapped bass, and doesn't come across with "clean sound", no matter what amps and setups we used and configured. And yes, we did tweek the highs, lows, etc to as much as we could. The R30 speakers seem to have more attention put to them, as well as a smaller cabinet, which "sometimes" can make a difference since there's less space for the sound to goof around in. The tweeter is fairly crisp and clean. Voices and sound environmments / effects reproduce to a good reality. The soundtrack and music also has quite the oomph, carrying on without any unwanted tones or flicks, even if your cables are moderate quality. Glad I got THX Certified Monster Cables for both speakers. I will say that my favourite speakers (with the best CLEAN sound and bass) are Paradigm and PSB. Still, Polk Audio can make a good speaker if they want to, and I was surprised that the smallest of the "R" series tower speakers gives you the best sound. I will try to find some Polk R15 bookshelf speakers for surrounds, and the Polk CSi40 Centre channel, which compliment these tower speakers well, and also sound great for Polk. I can't wait to finish the setup with the rest of the equipment. Until then, the Polk R30 towers are a great start to a modest but awesome sounding game system and home theatre system. Okay, time for Rogue Squadron 3! Basement setup as of present: Polk Audio R30 Tower Speakers Sony STR897 7.1 Pro Logic 2 Receiver Nintendo Gamecube Monster THX Certified Cables Panasonic PT-AE300 Projector Hawk Sight Projection Screen Needed: Polk R15 bookshelf speakers (surround) Polk CSi40 centre channel speaker

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm Signature Series Sound Dynamics

Everything

Wish I had 2 more

These are by far some of the best sounding speakers Ive heard for under a $1000.00.Consumer Reports have rated these an excellent buy over more expensive speakers and I can hear why.Make sure you put a nice sub with them and you will be pleased

Similar Products Used:

Bose,Infinity,MTX-yuc!,Pioneer