Absolutely blown away by the quality and sound clarity of the RT400! Bravo Polk. I picked these up about a year and half ago on CL for free!! Running these in a 2 channel configuration with a Pioneer VSX D514 on my media server. Incredible sound for music and very good for HT use.

cost, form, value, balance..

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Still amazed by this speaker as well as it's smaller brothers i.e the r15. I know they are not in the same league with some big money speakers, but I have heard some nice speakers. Snell, Klipsch, Advent, Paradigm, PSB, Cizek.. and these R400's just plain old have it. For a tower, which fits perfectly in my small rooms, I can't imagine any more for any less. 5 stars on all fronts. Bravo Polk, and customer service too. Wow!

Customer Service

Polk is the kind of people you call and they will give you more little rubber bumpers for the bottoms.Free

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm, PSB,

Great bass, I haven't felt the necessity of subwoofer. Image and ambience are spectacular. Tight sound along the whole range, I haven't heard distortion even at very high volumes.

Color (black). I once read that the sound is better with the grilles removed. I noticed just a slight improvement, maybe all speakers improve without grilles.

I've had these speakers for 3 years. I used them with a Sony GA8ES with good results: classical music and opera sounded more than satisfactory, home theater was good but not impressive. When the Sony died, I bought a Yamaha DSP-AX600. What a change! now I have powerful bass, and great clarity even with chamber music. Home theater is amazing, especially with DTS encoded discs. Opera and symphonic music sound very authentic (I am a frequent attendant to live concerts).

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Bose 301; Advent

Clear highs and mid, throws bass really well; nice design

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The best thing about these speakers is the value; they easily blew away any floor speakers I could find in this price range. The sound is warm yet powerful; I listen to a little of everything (rock, jazz, classical - you name it) at all levels of volume and have not yet been disappointed. I was a little concerned about buying two-way v. three-way, but these have performed just fine -- no discernible weakness in the mid-range. I have not yet used them for home theatre so my comments are limited to music, but I fully expect them to perform just fine. If you're looking for great sound on a relatively small budget (as I was), I strongly recommend the RT400s. They're really a great buy.

(Speaking of value: I bought my pair on sale at Circuit City in Chicago for $440 and got a free Polk center-channel speaker for surround. I've seen this price/offer before, so it's definitely worth waiting on, if possible.)

Also: One of my speaker boxes was missing its pack of floor pegs. I contacted Polk service via e-mail and got a replacement pack less than one week later, with no hassle. I appreciated their customer support.

Similar Products Used:

Boston Acoustics bookshelfs

Very good bass, clear, well-defined mids and highs, warm sound quality.

For the price I paid for them, none that I've found yet.

I replaced my Polk RT3 bookshelfs in my HT setup with RT400s as the front channels to go with my Polk CS245 center, and moved the RT3s to the surrounds (replaced Polk R1's). A JBL 10" sub completes my speaker setup, all connected to an Onkyo TX-DS676 receiver. The money I spent on the RT400's was well spent. When my wife and I listened to the 400s in the store, she immediately noticed the improvement over the RT3s, especially in the low end (not surprising considering the 7.5" woofer vs. the 5.25" woofer in the RT3). With the JBL sub taking up the low lows, the RT400s are great for music (with the 676, I love the 5-channel stereo), and even better for home theater. A great buy. I'll give 'em 4 stars overall since I haven't sampled a huge variety of competing speakers, but they get an emphatic 5 for value.

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Infinity RS Series, JBL HLS Series

Clean crisp mids and highs, tight bass, don't take up alot of room and speakers are at an optimal height for home theater listening.

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I got these at Circuit City as floor models for $119 each and still got the five year warranty along with an extended five years for $34 more. the build quality of the speakers is better than the Cerwins I owned as the foam and woofer on those dry rotted in about five years. The RT400's compliment the rest of my speakers well (RT15, CS245, and Klh Sub). They also play well with my Onkyo 575 reciever and Proscan DVD.

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Cerwin Vega AT40's

Excellent Sound for the money!! Picked these up at Good Guys for $150 a piece. Sounds great with my Polk CS245. I am no expert on sound but I am really happy with these speakers!

Can't think of any!

Love the sound!Buy these speakers before they become discontinued! Check them out at Good Guys.

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Mission bookshelf speakers

Clear highs and good bass

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I needed floor standing speakers due to a new entertainment center that I ordered. I was using the Polk RT 5 as my main speakers in my home theater with excellent results. I also have the CS 400 for my center channel which was an upgrade from the CS 245. I went to Circuit City and found a pair of RT 400 for $89.99 each as they were floor models. I usually research every thing I buy but I bought them immediately without listening to them as I trusted the Polk reputation. I installed them in place of the RT 5 and I was blown away. As I played CDs and DVDs it was like a feast for my ears. For the price, these speakers are a great value for the budget minded enthusiast.

My Home Theater System:
Yamaha DSP 2095
Hitachi 61" Widescreen progressive scan RPTV
Pioneer DVD 434
Polk CS 400
Polk M3
Infinity 8" powered subwoofer
Pioneer Laserdisc 701
Mitsubishi SVHS

Similar Products Used:

Polk RT 5

good bass and price,

little midrange , but enough for the price

this is a good speaker , it has what i expected and more , goos for a good budget speaker , good all over sound , and can hit.

I bought the Polks after listening to different floor standing speakers for over an hour at Circuit City. I wanted to keep on a budget, and these were about as inexpensive a quality speaker I could find. They sounded very good comparing them to many other higher priced speakers. I got them $398.00 for the pair, and hooked them up at home. My Sony reciever never sounded better, I couldn't believe the difference. I am replacing an older pair of JBL, and I am still impressed after a few weeks with these. I listened to the Polk RT-600 and RT-800 again at Circuit City to see if I might upgrade, since these sounded so good I thought I could only do better with the higher line of Polk, but for the money difference, I was not convinced to give up my RT-400.