I had a pair of KEF Q50's and had to replace them around Christmas, and the favorable reviews here of the RT600 were promising. I picked them after listening in a showroom, and agree that they seem to be the best value of the Polk tower line. I'm very happy with them for music and movies. I added a powered subwoofer and a Polk center speaker. Though I think I liked the Q50's better alone, the new combination is quite excellent.

Where is all that bass coming from? Just amazing, powerful, sleek and beautiful. Good on highs. Value.

The high frequencies get a little tiring on the ear in movies yet reproducing beautiful and good imaged sounds.

Hi there,

Would you like a speaker that beautifully matches your decor or one with a small footprint, or even with good value? Well look no further the RT600i are here for you picky listeners.

After testing many other speakers of different price range and shape, these were the best. The infinity's were costly considering it's slight performance advantage. The RT800i were in my opinion to boomy and on some bassy notes it sounded like the 2 woofers started coliding. The PSB are truly amazing yet in another price range and only for audiophile use. The Vivid's were the low end floor standing speakers that have served me well for 6 harsh years of sonic abuse. They did not have proper imaging or even good tight bass. Yet the bass was tremendous from an 8.5" woofer.

Now to the Polks, well it's almost perfect except for the fact that in some movie scenes the highs can truly get your ear a little sonically fatigues yet on proper recordings of i.e. Eric Clapton it was wonderful to hear individual notes and smooth transitions, and the imaging was unbelievable as a pair and even better when in dolby digital mode.

The speakers truly are a work of art at a price which is quite attractive. You can pick out mistakes made by artists or even hear other instruments or background sounds never heard before.

Are you worried about bass with a single 6.5" woofer, well your worrying days are over this will boost lots of bass which is not to say it is extremely powerful yet more than sufficient.

As for its looks, I got the black oak as other wood finishes were not available at the time. Beautiful and quite heavy for such a slim tower speaker to say the least, it holds well.

These speakers even have a manual?! Hmmm, makes you wonder how much time they spend on the speakers themselves then. Great detail and effort has been put into these speakers.

If you are worrying about low wattage receivers, well worry no more, I myself, own a Harman/Kardon AVR210, which is 40 watts of full bandwidth, 20hz-20khz. Sonically the receiver improved my old vivids yet it showed the speakers' limits. But with the high efficiency/sensitivity of the new Polk 600i I was able to enjoy great sound at very low volume levels at half way it is much to handle but at 75% it will surely give you a headache that will not go away. And at uncomfortable levels of listening I am able to say (half deaf now) that the speakers can handle anything you throw at them.

The packaging box was a little flimsy but very well packed in order not to get a DOA (Dead On Arrival)item.

All in all without writing a constition or a bible for these speakers I will say that I highly recommend them.
Polk Audio, my acclaim goes to you for a very well deserved piece of well designed technology. Note: Do not even attempt going for overpriced and overhyped BOSE speakers just an advice.

Similar Products Used:

Infinity, Vivid, Sony, and PSB. oh and BOSE

Great sound

not as full as the 800i's

It is true that these speakers are not as full as the 800i's; however, if your room is small enough (mine is 15 x 15 w/ vaulted ceilings), then you will notice only a slight difference (not worth the $200 extra in my opinion). Additionally, when coupled with the Polk PSW350 (10" sub) there is nothing to complain about. I am also using the FX300i's for surround and the CS245i for the center. By the way, upgrading to the 800i's also means upgrading your center to the CS400i (another $200-$250) because the 800i's completly dominate the CS245i.

Similar Products Used:

a bunch

I am a big fan of PolkAudio.The highs,midrange,and presence really suit mytastes. I set the RT600's on heavy 8" stands and hooked them to a yamaha receiver, and subwoofer. I put in a CD and hit play, and a warm fuzzy feeling came over me. High end sound for a reasonable price.
The RT600's are really helped by a subwoofer for home theater applications,
and should be raised so the tweeters are at ear level. After a year of ownership
- I am still blown away by these speakers! I have no future plans for upgrading
my system.

Excellent highs and lows. A great value if you can still find it. Exceptional speaker performance

slight hum at low volume levels. Doesn't look as polished as the RT thousands(subwoofer builit in)

These speakers are really a great value. They are being discontinued so they're really cheap if you can still find one. Mine were the last ones in Orange County. These speakers produce excellent highs and mids, but lack the bass w/o the built in sub. For 2.0 stereo soundtracks, these speakers sound great and they add more depth to dvd 5.0 soundtracks. Combine these speakers with a center, surrounds, and a high performance sub, and you got a better than average entry level sound system. For the price I got them for(400 for the pair), I have my highest recommendation for them.

Similar Products Used:

RT 800, RT 1000, RT 400, and Infinity RS

Great Bass extension
Atractive Box

A little weak in mid-range

This speaker has a unique porting
system through the bottom that really
gives it a great sound. It is very
impresive. THey can be purchased for
under 450.00 a pair. It will beat out
almost any bookshelf or other speaker
which needs to be put on a stand. This
floor standing model is best paired
with a quality receiver with 75 - 100
watts of high current output.
Four of these speakers in an home
theater set up sounds awesome.

Detail, bass, small footprint, well built.

Styling; slightly loose bass can be annoying with bad recordings.

I wanted some extension speakers for a 21'x13'room and these were within budget; the free sub cinched the deal because I wanted it for another small system, but I was not expecting too much. I have never been a Polk fan, but I did note the cabinets were more solid than similar products and that the veneer was real black walnut.

When I got the speakers home I was astounded by the deep, musical bass and overall clarity. It is easy to follow diferent instrumental lines all across the frequency range. I haven't even tried the sub with them because the bass is already quite satisfying.

This is a very well executed speaker, and the 90 dB sensitivity means even small amps will play at a satisfying level. I would recommend these very highly for music listeners (not for equipment freaks). The most fun I have had with an audio product in a long time.

Similar Products Used:

Various AR, Advent, Magnepan, Linn, Canton

Strong Bass, Very Good Mid-Range, Incredible Tweeters, Excellent Quality of Construction, Very Good Value

Loose Binding Post

I bought these babies on blind faith (from Crutchfield which allows you to test speakers out for 30 days, not such a high risk) due to the fantastic reviews on this site....I was NOT disappointed!! Rated frequency is 45Hz-25,000kHz. I thought that I might have to buy a sub to augment the system. I will not be buying a sub any time soon. I can irritate my neighbors who live 50 feet away at only 30% volume!! I usually turn the Dynamic Bass FeedBack off on my Sony Receiver so as not to annoy my neighbors (I bumped the Bass and Volume way up the first day that I got these babies...I have been a good boy since).

Anyway, the sound quality is excellent. You can hear every subtle sound that is possible. For example, I was listening to a Celine Dion song [Why Oh Why] that I have heard dozens of times on dozens of speakers. I noticed for the first time what appeared to be a separate background vocalist that I had heard before but that I thought was Celine's voice recorded on a different track. With these speakers that voice came alive and was recognizable as being someone else's voice. Sure enough I checked out the jacket credits for the song and the background vocalist was Sherree Ford-Payne, not Celine!!

I am thoroughly impressed with the range of music that these speakers are suitable for. The sound stage is wide and natural and tonal quality is excellent. They are superb for Home Theater as well. I mated these RT600i's with a CS245i for the Center Channel (I wrote a review on the Center under CS245) and they rock!! My old crappy TV doesn't look so crappy now!

Thanks to all previous Reviewers...your opinions and insight were instrumental in my purchase of these speakers and I am not the least bit disappointed!! (I was able to fix the loose binding post myself by removing the Terminal Cup, tightening the post and then reattaching the Cup...shhhh, don't tell Polk)

Similar Products Used:

1980's era Panasonic Thrusters (don't ask...they were free)

RT600i :Hights, midrange, amazing ditail, style and speaker's real wood finish

RT600i :Lower bass, # of drivers for a price (not really a weakness, look below)

I'm not a casual listener who limited his speaker search to chain stores in the n-hood. Actually, the first time I heard Polk speakers was at small Home Theater shop. I mast say that I fell in love with the speakers from the very first passage on the Kenny G album. (Don't tell my girl-friend) The speakers I auditioned where the original RT600's. What striked me, was the amount of detail these babies put out, and crystal clear highs - to my surprise no matter what I through into them I could never make RT600 hiss or become confused on high frequencies. Everything from female voices to sax solo sounded clear and controlled, not fatiguing like horns in Klipsch’s Reference line. Midrange is very strong and balanced, but not overpowering, and RT600i that I actually got, have even improved on that. To my surprise Polk was able to achieve this with only two drivers. But this also explains a little weak midbass/bass on RT600i. Also it much deeper that you might expect from a 6in woofer, thanks to the power port, it does loose some integrity at the lower notes, and voices are not completely deep. (Power Port - buzzword, basically a reversed cone over the bass reflex port, but Polk is the only one who invested time into researching) If you are using a subwoofer the effect is minimized to the most part. All in all, these are great speakers for a price for any kind of application. They are much taller then the last year model too and feature real wood veneer even though they cost the same, thus I gave it 5 instead of 4 on the value. I auditioned many speakers from "accepted as audiophile" companies, but as you see I went with the Polk’s and have no regrets. I was surprised when later I found out that a lot of folks consider Polk to be a chain store speaker manufacturer. Then again there are people that say a $1000 digital cable will bring more improvement to the sound than a $1000 CD player.

P.S. I later upgraded to Polk 800I which are significant improvement in the mid-bass department.

Similar Products Used:

Infiniti, Klipsch, Paradigm and B&W: all towers in the similar (higher) pricerange.

Movie sound reproduction and music reproduction

Crisper highs are needed which only an inverted titanium dome tweeter can handle thus making the speaker more expensive.

At first I was very nervous about buying two way speakers. I am a person that likes very crisp highs, smooth mids, and tight bass. These speaker are connected to a Denon 3300. I just recently watched "The Patriot" and "Gladiator". All I can say is WOW. I have put these speakers though a battery of testes ranging from differnent types of music to the most demanding of movies (DVD). The gun and cannon shots in the Patriot were perfect. I felt like I was on the battle field. The tweeters are smooth and clean for movies, however, they do not produce high freq. the way I would like them to be reproduced from music. All in all these speaker are amazing for their size (and driver size) and price.

Similar Products Used:

Hand Made Speakers