I'm on a limited budget but I wanted to get the best speakers I could for my money. I figured $400. would be my limit so I spent some time going to local retailers listening to what was available.For $400 you're basically limited to either decent bookshelf speakers or crappy towers. I chose to concentrate on the decent bookshelf speakers for my stereo system. After listening to comparably priced speakers from JBL, Klipsch, and Polk I chose the Polk RT7.
The RT7 is the largest of the bookshelf models that Polk offers, with a 7 1/2 woofer and 1 inch tweeter. It has more than enough volume to fill a average size room. It can handle up to 150 watts and has a 20 watt minimum.
The Polks are well built. Each of the two speakers weighs 26 pounds. It's suprisingly heavy for a relatively small speaker. I seems well put together.
Bass response is usually the issue in bookshelf speakers. You can't expect room shaking bass in a small bookshelf and you don't get it in any of them. My listening experience showed that the bass in all of the speakers in this price range were about the same. The small differences between models could just as easily be attributed to room placement or hookup in the listening rooms where I auditioned these speakers.
I found that most of the differences were in the midrange where (naturally) these speakers excel. The best of the bunch in this regard was the Polk RT7 followed by the Klipsch (I don't know the model number) and then the JBL. The JBL HSC-810 was just plain bad in the midrange with vocals almost disappearing behind a curtain of bass and treble. Very disappointing in that regard. By contrast the vocals just seemed to jump right out of the Polks and it was that one issue that made up my mind.
Some people might prefer the non-existant midrange in the JBL since it make the treble and particularly the bass sound loud by comparison. One wonders if the JBL is like this by design. Perhaps and unwary customer might conclude that the JBL has better bass simply because it is loud in comparison to the midrange. It doesn't though, the Polk and Klipsch were right there with it and in fact both speakers were discernably cleaner in the bass area with less boom. The JBL didn't sound bad. The other two just sounded better.
My ratings are based are as follows, JBL-3 stars, Klipsch-4 stars and Polk-5 stars. As an added advantage the Polks have voice matched center channel and surround speakers available for later upgrade. And they are sold by Crutchfield so you can get them anywhere.

I recently bought a pair of RT7's as my right and left front speakers, along with the Polk CS275 center channel, RT f/x dipole/bipole speakers as my surrounds and a Polk PSW150 powered subwoofer to complement my Home Theater. I prefer quality bookshelf speakers over towers in my house. This set-up is powered by a Denon AVR3200 Dolby Digital receiver and features the Panasonic A310 DVD player. The RT7's along with the rest of these speakers give my audience a presence, spatial quality and realism that I could not find in any speakers IN THIS PRICE RANGE. Comments from guests have included, "I have never heard anything that good" to "awesome" to "God it's like Arnold's motorcycle is in the room with us!" as they watched Terminator 2. Music as well as movies sound equally at home on this system and I can't say enough good things about these Polk Audio speakers. I am one happy Home Theatre enthusiast!

My home surround speakers consist of RT10s for the front, RT7s for the back and CS225 as central channel. I can say without any doubt that the RT7s are much, much more then what’s needed for the rear speakers, although I have a DVD and an AC3 receiver.I have a friend with a similar setup and he’s so impressed with the sound that he installed the RT7s as front together with the RT10 and for surround he bought other smaller Polks the M3s.
In short, the point I’m trying to make is that even for Dolby digital, surround speakers does not have to be to expensive, all that you’ll get is just some echoes and sporadic sounds. Even for the DTS music, only some voices and trebles you’ll get, I’m not saying that is not nice, but probably I was the one expecting I don’t know what more from it.
The RT7s are beautiful speakers and the price I paid for them makes them even more attractive. I can say now that the RT7s and a subwoofer will do a great job as front speakers. I may change my mind too, about my speakers’ set up and put something smaller as rear speakers.

I have the RT7 speakers with a CS275 center speaker. For Home Theater and casual music listening this setup has been great. The RT7 woofers have even been holding their own (until a powered subwoofer is chosen) through a lot of action DVDs. I listened to about 5 other brands and these won out. Recommended.

Great Sound from these speakers! The low end is ok but when you team these with a sub the sound is amazing. The best of the bookshelf speakers! I haven't heard the new RT-55's but I will either buy those soon for the front speakers and move these to the back or try to find a pair of used RT-7's for the rear!
Sony STR-DA50ES Receiver
Sony CDP-CX255 CD Changer
Polk Audio CS275 Center, M2 Surrounds
Sony 300 DVD Player
SONY WEGA 36 TV

As an audiophile limited to a college students budget, I jumped at the chance to pick a pair of these marvels up when they were discontinued, at a substansial discount. In my tiny, acoustically terrible dorm room, the RT7's still manage to shine. For less than $300 dollars I have purchased a pair of speakers, that, paired with homebuilt sub, decent electronics, and moderate wires and interconnects, never fails to send shivers down my spine. Listening is still a surprise - it defies logic and reason that a system this inexpensive and (necessarily) poorly set-up can sound this astonishingly good. Highest reccomendations.

We decided to buy a pair of these because of the reviews here. We brought them to the store and hooked them up to levinson amps and parasound preamp.(I am a parner in a high end audio store) They sound alright for the size.. not great, but very nice for the price. But they don't have the imaging of some B&W 602's (around the same price) I will give them 5 for the price/quality but only 3 for sound quality. they had a little to much 8-15khz color..

My choice was pretty simple. I had $400 as a burthday present and I new that was not enouhg to go to a specialised store for audiophiles. So I went to the nearest Nobody Beats the WIZ. First I show the guy size of speakers that I was looking for. Then I asked him to turn on one after another all speakers they have in the room. The difference between RT7 and all the rest were tremedous. They have all you need: stage, bass, smoothnes, details. I spent about $350. I believe that for this price RT7 is simply unbeateble product.They definitely deserve 5 stars.

clear highs, smooth bass, good imaging

At higher volumes, the limitations of the bass can be heard. It is actually easy to over push the woofers. Yet, they're fairly resilient. Also, the mid range might be a tad dark in color.

These speakers are a heck of a lot of bang for the buck. If you are concerned with good imaging, accurate reproduction of recordings, smooth bass, and clear highs then these speakers are for you. If you just want a ton of bass in apeakers that very loud, then you can definitely get that for much cheaper. But, for you audio enthusiasts, these speakers offer all the qualities mentioned at a good price.

I purchased the Polk RT7's about 9 mths ago.Being anaudiophile presently on a budget they fell right into my price range.I had also auditioned Missons,AR's,B&W and others.The RT7's were hands down the best sounding of the
bunch.The B&W's while detailed were way to dark sounding for me,while the Polks were more extended in the highs than
the others without being harsh,yet lacked nothing in the
low end.In fact they appeared to have the most extended low
freq response of the bunch also.These speakers sound great,
excellent imaging(very important to me!!),tremendous bass
for a bookshelf speaker especially when on good stands
(Target T-60's $140).They have a midrange clarity and
presence that can be spooky on good material( Diana Krall-
All for You/Impulse label).Boy do these baby's soundstage,
even a bi-polar fan(which I'm not!!!) could'nt complain.
They are equally adept at home theater matched up with
the new CS-400 center.I even have them set at large spkr
in my DD decoder and they handle everything thrown at them.
Time to stop rambling, simply a great speaker in this
range or on up to $1200,they will keep me until I purchase
Von Shweikert VR-4's.