jbl or polk (1 Viewer)

[Leo Shan]

Need help. I've listened to both the polk and jbl, but still undecided. I have a Onkyo SR700 in the box ready to go. I'm looking at the following choices:

Polk
R30 front, Csi20 center, R15 rear, PSW 350 sub

JBL
N38II front, NcenterII, N24II rear, PB10 sub
or
N38II front, NcenterII, N26II rear, PB10 sub

My room size is roughly 12'x18'. Also, can these sub's be hooked up w/ a dual RCA cable w/a "Y" adapter?

 

[Pablo Abularach]

Leo,

Both (JBL and Polk) are very good for the money, I havent audtion the Polks you mention, but I have the JBL Nseries.

For me JBL is one of the best brand if you have $1000 or less, the NSP1 is a great system for the money. A friend of mine bought it and added two N38, to have a 7.1, and sometimes I think it sounds better than my setup with S series.

The only thing that I want to recommend you is to search for a better sub, although the PB10 isnt a bad choice, I think you could get a better and cheaper, like SONY SA-WM40. And if you can consider SVS as future upgrade.

Hope this helps,
Pablo Abularach

 

[Stephen Houdek]

I'd say it really depends if you like Horns or not. Listen to both and pay particular attention to the Klipsch Horn fed Highs....If they don't bother you you'd be doing great with either set.

I own JBL S-Series all around and am 100% satisfied in all aspects.

 

[Brian Kleinke]

I own two sets of Polk speakers, one set being the RTi and other being a set of LSi's. I love em both being one set was about $500 and the other $2500
Brian

 

[Mark R. Ososkie]

I had JBL's all around, s38 mains, s36 surrounds, s-center, and it was GREAT for home theater, but i found the s38's lacking when it came to two channel stereo, so i took all my JBL's back and picked up a Klipsch reference system, which has satisfied me much, much more than the JBL's ever could.

But, if you have to choose between the two, JBL all the way.

 

[Angelo.M]

Leo:

I'd also pick JBLs over Polks. The N38IIs are, in my humble opinion, vastly underrated speakers which are fantastic front speakers for both music and movies. I have both the N38IIs and the S38IIs, and there are occasions when I think the Northridge speakers are as good if not better than their Studio cousins. I also think the N38IIs will outperform the R30s in most theater applications--they just seem to be more dynamic to my ear. A well-intentioned salesman once told me, without any technical data to support his claim, and probably without really knowing what the heck he was talking about, that JBL are one of the few speaker lines that 'get' both theater and music sources right. I think he was onto something...

--AM