Full, crisp range.

None

These are great speakers for the money. I blew a set and replaced with these and tese blew my Denon reveiver in one night. I upgraded to a Onkyo TX-DS 797 which handled them well. The only weakness I think I have found is that when I put them in a home theatre package with Klipsch KLF-20's abd RF-3's they disapear as they are not as effecient as a horn type speaker. However as stated before I feel they are more "crisp". I will set these up in our bedroom on the front speakers on the repaired denon receiver for a surround system in that room.

Similar Products Used:

Kipsch

Great imaging

I was look for more debt in the BASS department, I can't complain they do a pretty good job for 6.5 twin whoofers

When I first got them it took a while to get use going from 5 ft towers with dual 12" rear&front firing sub's in a 6-way speaker system to the small but good looking Polk RT800i. But it seems they sound better with age. It's hard to believe some of the sounds that come out of them, it's almost scarey. I can be watching a movie or playing my favorite jazz CD, and have to take a 2nd look and then say that my Polks are as realistic a speaker system as it gets. Depending on how a CD is recorded they can produce good DEEP! LOW FREQUENCY BASS I offen have verify the SUB is set to OFF. I pushing them with a Harman/Kardon AVR-510, I also have a +400 watt carver amp which I've never hooked to the 800i but I believe the more clean power the better they will sound. Please feel free to email I will answer -JR-

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AR TSW- 910, 410 210 & 110, also AR 302 & 328's

Accurate reproduction of sound,crisp ,clear, and can handle plenty of bass !

NONE what so ever!!!!

Have thoroughly enjoyed these speakers.They do need a good breakin period though.Wheather i am watching a dvd or listening to music they sound incredible.If you are thinking about getting the rt600i i would encourage you to spend the extra money and get the rt800i. The rt800i has better overall sound of being there, and you can crank these puppies up, because the can handle it!!! Add a good thumping sub and there will be no need to go hear a band anymore.Don't get me wrong the rt600i are a good speaker too, they just don't have the bass and mid that the rt800i has.The conrtuction of these speakers are of some of the most solid that i have seen, when you knock on the side of the speaker there is no hollow sound at all.Trust your own ears though.Be sure to bring a good music cd that really sounds good on the speakers that you may have now and listen to it on the rt800i, you will be taking a pair home.They will be alittle bright till they are broke in good.Happy speaker hunting!!

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Nothing can compare at this price!

none really

sharp treble

to the reviewer below who said that polk didn't fall out of favor with the audio magazine reviewers until they started selling at mass merchants. that is not true. high end reviewers have always blasted polk, and at the expense of advertising dollars. stereophile won't even let you continue to advertise unless you allow them to review your products. and many mass marketed products have gotten positive reviews from them.

back to circuit city employees, i don't nor have i ever worked for circuit city. but cheers to those who do and have the courage to point out that polks are inferior to infinty for the most part.

to anyone looking for speakers right now, i implor you to give the infinity IL 10's a long hard listen.

these are the best pair of under $1000.00 speakers available right now. they sound so much more like music.

and that's the selling point for me, they seem to get out of the way and don't constantly remind you that you're listening to speakers.

my son is enjoying the polks, and i the infinity's.

Similar Products Used:

infinity

none really

sharp treble

to the reviewer below who said that polk didn't fall out of favor with the audio magazine reviewers until they started selling at mass merchants. that is not true. high end reviewers have always blasted polk, and at the expense of advertising dollars. stereophile won't even let you continue to advertise unless you allow them to review your products. and many mass marketed products have gotten positive reviews from them.

back to circuit city employees, i don't nor have i ever worked for circuit city. but cheers to those who do and have the courage to point out that polks are inferior to infinty for the most part.

to anyone looking for speakers right now, i implor you to give the infinity IL 10's a long hard listen.

these are the best pair of under $1000.00 speakers available right now. they sound so much more like music.

and that's the selling point for me, they seem to get out of the way and don't constantly remind you that you're listening to speakers.

my son is enjoying the polks, and i the infinity's.

Similar Products Used:

infinity

Great sound at any price.

Boy, there most be something wrong with Circuit City employees. Their reviews are among the very few negative ones for these speakers. Jason Wong and Paul Ventura (see their reviews bellow) must be experts with excellent ears. I guess they went through an intensive audiophile training program before they started working at CC. The rest of us, the actual RT800I owners (who have the speakers at home and listen to them daily), must not have such refined hearing because we seem enjoy the Polks. It’s such a shame my salesperson was not as adept with stereo equipment…he did not stop me from making the mistake of buying them.
It is incredible to see how passionate people get over Polk Audio speakers. Either they like them or they abhor them. Audiophile magazines ignore or classify them as an inferior product. It seems that these writers always end the few Polk reviews with a remark stating that Polk speakers are Ok, but the fact that they are inexpensive is apparent in the sound. At first, this kind of statement would seem to make sense. There must be acoustical differences between speakers that costs $800 and ones that are priced in the thousands of dollars. The problem is that those magazines never seem to regularly make this type of assertion when Paradigm, PSB or the lower end models of high-end speaker manufacturers are reviewed. It seems that Polk Audio fell out of favor with the audiophile world when they started to market their equipment in electronic chains like Circuit City and the Good Guys. It is very interesting to note that Polk Audio has very few ads (actually none in recent editions of ‘The Perfect Vision’ and ‘Sound & Vision’) in these magazines as opposed to Paradigm and PSB whose ads are all over the place. When auditioning Paradigm and PSB speakers at the local audiophile stores the salespeople where always ready and willing to trash the Polks. These are the same stores whose bread and butter up to a few years ago was their Polk line. Today, Paradigm and PSB are their major selling equipment. It’s funny, but here in San Diego two of these audiophile stores sell either the Paradigm or the PSB line. The salespeople are ready to trash Polk as well as PSB if they happen to be selling Paradigm…and vise versa. Do you think that either Paradigm or PSB would pass up and offer to sell their equipment at Circuit City?
The truth is that all three manufacturers make great speakers. I listened to similarly priced equipment from the three makers. The Paradigm speakers where a little too bright for my tastes. The PSB where, I think, the best speaker I heard. They had a little more depth and the lows where fuller than the RT800s. The price was for the whole package (main, center and surrounds) was about the same for all three brands. I decided to get the Polks mainly because of the Circuit City’s return policy (small stores are not as lenient when it comes to returns). Also, I got the impression that I was dealing with a used car salesman when talking with the audiophile salespeople. I felt they where dishonest and extremely biased.
The 800s are a just a great product. The PSB speakers sounded a dash better but they where a little more expensive. I also think that esthetically speaking, the Polks are better looking than the PSB models (PSB speakers remind me of the monolith astronauts found on the moon in ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’). I have to admit that I almost bought the PSB surround package. I am, however, extremely happy with Polk (as I would have been with PSB if I had gone that way). I also purchased the CS 400i center and RT 35I surrounds. I matched these speakers with an Onkyo TXDS787 receiver and a Technics DVDA10 DVD player (DVD-Audio rocks). Extremely happy with the sound the setup produces.

Good luck with your systems…

They blend in well with the ensemble of Polk speakers I currently have. Look good too.

I don't think they would be a good fit for a stereo only setup.

These guys, the RT800i's, blend in well with the other Polks products I have. This would be the PWS650 subwoofer, CS450 Center Channel and RT500i's for surrounds. Taken together they are a nice sounding system to my ears in either music or theater operation. When I first hooked them up I was disappointed at the muffled nature of the sound. Seemed to lack high notes and precision in the tones. After about a day of simply playing DVD's and some music, viola! It started to sound MUCH better and now after about a month, I'm hearing the music with the clarity I'd hoped. For the price of all 6 speakers, roughly $2400,
they are competitve with others out there.

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Advents dating from 1975.

Great Highs. Surprising bass. Bi-wiring allows good seperation of lows and highs.

None (as of now)

I agree with some of the harsh judgements that some listeners submitted. Sometimes, the high range sound can be a little too high and irritating after long periods of time. The good thing is, Polk Audio has compensated for this short coming by including speaker inputs for both high-range and low-range sound. By modifying my reciever, I toned down some of the highs going to the tweeters and it solved the problem. Now the speakers play with absolutely zero distortion (that I can detect).

When I purchased these speakers, I wasn't expecting to get loud bass. However, I did a side to side comparison with my friend's Cerwin Vegas with 12 inch woofers, and the Polks blew them away. The fact that these speakers came with a free 8" sub only increases the value.

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Cerwin Vega, Yamaha, NAD, Nakamichi, KLH, Onkyo

great sound

none

beleive me these are a beautiful set of speakers, they reproduce sound perfectly(for my taste). please dont listen to people who give them a poor rating because they didnt like them in the store, personally i thought they were great in the store but until i took em home and set them up that was when i fell in love! a mark of 10 if i could! i will have a more indepth review after i have used them a while, in the meantime go out and buy them!

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bose, jbl, infinite, definitive tech

It really didn't have anything I liked

Lightweight and narrow

I don't really have too much to say about the Polk 800i's except, DON'T GET THEM unless you can get it for about half the msrp. The Klipsch is about the same price and sound 10x better-no kidding




I ran both the speakers with an Onkyo 575x, trust me Polk-bad;Klipsch-good

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Klipsch RF-3