Why do many people pick on Polk subs? I have one and I think it's fine... (1 Viewer)

[todd stone]

It sounds good to me, which I guess is all that matters, right? But why do all people pick on POLK?

 

[Bryan Acevedo]

Because they usually don't go very low.

As an example, a friend of mine has a PSW 450 I think. It is a 12" woofer. At the time I had a Klipsch KSW 12, which I didn't think very highly of. After hearing the Polk on the LFE sweep in Avia, I realized how much better my lowly Klipsch did in the lower regions. Now this could be part of the room, but it just sounded very weak. No bass < 30 Hz whatsoever. And it just sounded like it was emphasizing all of the higher bass, which could have been harmonic distortion, or just the room.

Now I have a Velodyne SPL 1200, and it blows both away in terms of sound quality, depth and impact.

My guess is that most Polks aren't truly subwoofers, but rather just woofers, and that is why most people pick on them.

If it sounds fine to you, that is all that matters. But don't ever go out and listen to a sub that can go really deep. You will see what you are missing, and then you will probably understand.

Bryan

 

[Jeffrey Noel]

Hmm....I guess they're just easy to "Polk" fun at!

 

[todd stone]

ouch, that was bad

 

[Keith Mickunas]

I like Polk speakers and use them for everything but the sub. They don't even claim on their website to go down very low. I doubt their the worst out there, but there's many that can go down to 20Hz, something Polk doesn't even claim to be able to do. The lower limit for their biggest sub is 25Hz, and only 28Hz at -3dB. Its not bad, but its not great for a sub that costs over $700. An SVS 20-39CS is just a little more than that with an amp and is flat down to 20Hz and can keep going lower, now that's a sub.

 

[todd stone]

well for my townhome it's good enough. Had neighbors complain once already

 

[Brandon_H]

Has anyone used SVS sub(s) with Polk speakers? If so, was it a good marriage?

I have Polks all around -- a CS245i for the center, a pair of RT25i's for surrounds, and two "vintage" Monitor 5's (circa 1988) for mains. I'm driving these, by the way, with a Parasound HCA-855A amp (85w x 5), and I'm using a Sony STR-DA333ES receiver as a pre-amp. I'm using a Polk PSW350 for a sub. My room is fairly small, I'd guess 16'x16', with an 8-foot ceiling.

For even more (probably unnecessary) info, all speakers are set to "small" in the Sony's bass-management circuitry.

I suspect much of it has to do with a.) inadequate tweaking, b.) poor room acoutics, and c.) poor line-level output from my Sony receiver, but I've never been really pleased with bass output from the sub. I probably won't replace it anytime soon, but the powered SVS models have caught my eye.

So back to my original question. . . anybody used SVS and Polks together before? What should I expect?

Thanks in advance. . .