great sound in music and movies, clear, precise, and tight bass

none

I bought the RT-35i's from a friend that works at Circuit City...they were still in the box and never opened. I looked at the PSB Alpha and Image, NHT SuperOne, Mission, Mirage, Polk, Def. Tech., and Jamo speakers before I bought the Polk's. I must say that for the price, the sound is amazing. I match it up with the CS-245 center channel and the PSW-350 sub being powered by the Onkyo 484 receiver. The sound, whether its music or movies is just amazing. I would highly recommend them.

Similar Products Used:

Infinity, AR, Bose, etc.

Sound and build quality. Nice looking wood veneers.

None worth noting.

When I went out to audition speakers Polk was not on my original list of speakers to check out. I happen to find a few reviews and they seemed to be well liked, so they were added to my go and check out list.
Let me start off by saying that you could not go wrong with any of these speakers. They all share one thing in common, outstanding sound quality for their price.
I went with he Polks because I felt their sound was the most balanced from top to bottom. The highs were very detailed without being harsh even at high volume. The midrange is very clean, voices are very natural, no smoky or chesty sounds here. Of course with a bookshelf speaker bass will be a issue, they will need a subwoofer if you want full range sound. The bass they do put out is very good, very quick with no fake bass hump. These guys can be driven to insane volume levels and still sound very respectable. I use them as the front speakers in my home theater:
RT35i = front
CS245i= center
RT25i = surround
Velodyne CT100
Onkyo 575
Considering what I paid I could'nt be happier. If you're looking for speakers in this price range I highly recommend giving the Polks a listen. Another point I would like to make is to audition the speakers in your home if you can. I don't think you can really decide with a showroom only audition, that you will like the speaker over the long haul. I chose my Polks this way, it's the best way to avoid buyers remorse.

Similar Products Used:

Auditioned speakers from PSB, Paradigm, and NHT in the same price range.

The best sound for the least amount of money.

The cheap sticker in front with there name on it "polk Audio"

I owned Infiniti speakers for 15 years. So when I went to buy new speakers I figured I would get another pair of Infiniti's. I went to the sound room at a local store to deside which Infiniti's to buy. Well, I ended up with "polk Audio'. I could not beleave how good the rt35's were. If you want a "True" sound these do the trick. Since then I picked up the rt25's for the rear and a cs245 for the center channel. I also have a Velodyne CT-100 sub. There you have it the perfect Dolby Digital system for my DVD's. There's nothing like having full range speakers all around instead of satelite(small) speakers and a sub. You can buy all these speakers for about the same price as the Bos AM15's or the polk RM6500's. What a deal!!! DVD's never sound so good. The reviewer who said they were muddy, well you have to wonder what receiver he used.

great sound for music or movies

none

great fit and finish, i strongly urge you to listen to these before buying anything.

very nice for this price, and polk is great at keeping customers happy.

need a sub for movies as with any speaker. you can't expect polk to break the laws of physics, just bend them.

Similar Products Used:

several

Great overall sound, rich & full bodied: wonderful investment for the price I paid.

The trebble increases as you turn up the volume to a level which requires you to "back off" - at least on the system I run. Other than that, they're wonderful

Actually, I was looking to purchase some Yamaha NS-A638's when I started pushing buttons in the Good Guys - and that's when I discovered the Polk 35's. I was very impressed with how they handled highs and lows and the amount of body they asserted into the music. They are very well balanced and conseritively designed - when comered to the Yamaha's, JBL's, even Boston Acoustic's lower end.

As I mentioned earlier, though, they seem to define the highs as I turn up the volume which is a draw back; however at that level you would go deaf in a matter of hours. So if your in it for great sound at an acceptable db level, then these are for you.

I run a Technics SA-DX940 & Technics SLPD 8 cd player. Sorry no DVD yet............ Although, Christmas is around the corner.

Similar Products Used:

Polk rt15i(back surround), Polk 245i (center), the Polk 35's in da front and an energy eXL: 8" powered sub.

This is an update of my earlier review. I wasn't really satisfied with the overall sound of my RT 35's, so I sold them to a friend who liked them and bought a pair of Acoustic Energy Aegis Ones, which everyone has been raving about on this site. They are incredible! slightly smaller than the Polks with only a 5" woofer, but oh my god are they better! and for only $269, compared to $350 for the Polks. Better bass, better mids, better looks, better everything. Better even than my NHT super zeros, and at least as good (maybe better) as my $600 NHT 1.5s.

To be fair, the Polks midrange improved a little after about of month of very intermittent use. But the AE's sounded immensely better on first listen. Sorry Polk, but there are much better sounding speakers available for less. I should give it a 2 to average out for my previous 4, but that would look kind of bad so a 3 it is.

clear sound

Been using these speakers as rears for my home theater system. (Using the polk cs245 as my center and some old bose 301's as fronts) As rear speakers they're great, haven't tried them as fronts yet, but i'm sure they will be good too. They do a good job of bringing out all the subtle sounds in movies like The Matrix.

Price/performance ratio, decent bass for a bookshelf, good build quality, you can crank them up pretty loud without distortion

For HT, you might want to add a sub

Got these at a bargain price of $150/pair open box since all the local dealers are shipping out their old Polk and Infinity speakers to make room for the new models (in Polk's case, the RTi series).

I have these babies in my small college dorm room, and they work great for the stereo music that I'm using them for. Great build quality - they are pretty hefty speakers, with built-in wall brackets.

They pack a decent amount of bass for speakers this size, but I think if you were gonna use them for movies and other home theater applications, you'd prolly want to add a sub.
In my little dorm room though, these things can jam pretty loud without any distortion. They sound really warm and rounded, which is the type of sound I prefer for my listening tastes (pop music, R&B). The Klipsch horn sound was a little too bright and crisp for my tastes. The Energy speakers were very nice and well-rounded, but when I saw these getting cleared out, I couldn't pass them up.

I originally got some RT15s but traded them in for these babies when I saw how cheap they were going for. I can't stop congratulating myself on for the price I got (stole) for them. I guess the new Polk RTi series is supposed to be improved over the old RT series, but I don't really mind if I'm getting a deal like this.

Similar Products Used:

Polk RT15s, Infinity, Klipsch, Energy

See review

NONE

For the record:

I am using a
Denon AVR 3300
Toshibia 3109 DVD
and JVC S-VHS VCR

Speakers are as follows:
RT35's for fronts
RT25's for rears
CS245 Center Channel
Ininifity Sub

This speaker package is great. I had a set of the Energy speakers for a few days and there is no compair. I love these Polk speakers and recomend them to anyone.

They have a warm rich sound and are not to tinny, voices are natural and FX are supurb!

If you are looking for new spaekers, run...don'r walk to your nearest retailer NOW and get yourself a set up!

Similar Products Used:

Bose AM15s and Energy's

Great bass for size, build quality, good imaging

A little weak in the mids, but can be improve dramatically by running as "small" or passing through a sub with a high-pass crossover

I bought these to complete a bedroom system made up of old components: A Harmon Kardon AVR 25 MkII, Sony cd-x500 single disc player & Cambridge Audio DAC. Wanting to stick with Crutchfield because of my excellent experience with them in the past, I thought what the heck - I'll try a Polk product. Plus, I wanted something that had reasonable bass without having to resort to a subwoofer, because that seemed like overkill for a bedroom. Well, my first impression with these was not fantastic, having gotten used to the incredibly clear and accurate sound of my NHT Superone and sub combo. Using some good female vocals,the mids came across as kind of "papery". The highs were pretty good, and the bass went plenty deep for me. In fact, I was quite impressed by the bass response.
So I decided to hook them up as front mains in my NHT system, which is driven by a Sony STR-DA30ES receiver. I had to crank the center, rear, and sub up +3dB each to match the increased efficiency of the Polks. I left the Polks set as "small" at first, which I think crosses them over at 80Hz (the crappy Sony manual does not say). Well, they sounded pretty damn good. I switched them to "large" while playing music, and the effect was dramatic - the mids went to crap. Well, not exactly crap. I left it on "large" and watched a new DVD - "Cradle Will Rock". It sounded pretty good, and the extra bass in the front mains was noticeable. I then tested it with Stereo Review's test CD. Bass was great in the large setting. Imaging was also excellent - but the NHTs were still a hair better. Large orchestral presentations benefitted from the extra bass somewhat, but suffered from the loss in the mids. However, switching back to "small", the mids were almost as good as the NHTs. The disadvantage with this setting, however, is that sending all the bass to the sub loses bass imaging, which I know is not supposed to happen because bass is "omni-directional", but I definitely lost the image of the stand-up bass in a few recordings when I did this, with both the NHTs and the Polks.
The verdict? The Polks sound great as satellites, but lose a little when run full-range. I think this must be a weakness with any 2-way speaker, though. For the money, if you are looking for a 2-way to use as a satellite, the NHTs are a little better, and the Superzeros cost 100 less. If you want a full-range speaker, I'm not sure. I wasn't able to compare them to the Superone (which costs the same), so I don't know if it would have the same problem. The bass sounds good and handles rock quite well; better than the NHTs on their own, to be sure. However, If I had the money I would go for the next model up - the RT55 - which has a separate driver for the bass, which has got to clean up the mids. Or, save a little more and get the NHT Supertwos. But if I was looking at a sub/sat, I would definitely go with either the NHTs or a smaller Polk, perhaps the RT25.
They really are pretty good speakers, but I can only give it a 4/5 because the NHTs are better for the same price.

Similar Products Used:

NHT Superzeros, Supertwos, older JBL 3-ways