Polk L200 Speaker Demo Reviews

F1nut

This thread is for the reviews of the members in the demo program. Everyone else try to keep on topic, thanks.

Willow

When can we expect the first review? Roughly...

VR3

Willow wrote: »

When can we expect the first review? Roughly...

Friday, October 25 8:18 a.m.

mhardy6647

Oops, I got off to a bad start already

You can expect a 'review' (well, some sort of miscellaneous ramblings) from me sometime in the next 24 hours.



Actually, and in all seriousness, @F1nut, since I am not technically in the demo program, is it OK for me to post comments here?

tonyb

Post away Doc.

tonyp063

Mark,
You had ears on them & we in the forum know that you understand good sound.
I, for one, would like to see you observations & opinions

mhardy6647

Thanks to my gracious hosts, @Manticore and his wife (and their pups, both young and old) I spent a good chunk of a gorgeous, early fall New Hampshire afternoon listening to the “demo” Polk L200 speakers in their lovely home theater/audio room.

Disclaimer: @Manticore’s been experimenting with position and (I believe also) amplification since his receipt of the speakers late last week. One shouldn’t assume that any of these parameters were optimal (and this is in no way meant as a criticism of my extremely gracious host!), but the perfect is the enemy of the good and they certainly weren’t profoundly handicapped by position, and also certainly not handicapped by his ancillary equipment. @Manticore mentioned that he’ll provide his own assessment at the completion of the demo, but he encouraged me to share my thoughts when I was good and ready to and @F1nut said it was OK for me to do so here – so here you go.

The first impressions of the speakers was certainly positive. The finish is nice and the veneer is attractive. I certainly prefer the matte-finished baffle (fingerprints notwithstanding! ) to the gloss panels of some other Polks! The grille is cheap looking (especially its flimsy plastic frame) but the little button magnets that hold it on are nice. I would love to get a look inside, to see what the construction values are like – bracing, stuffing, and of course the crossover components and general fit and finish (“lead dress” of the wiring, quality of the solder joints). I am sure someone will show us the guts of one or more of the “Legend Series” in the fullness of time.

See @Manticore’s signature for a sense of the equipment in use.

The first track we listened to (streamed from a music server) was War’s beautiful Summer. Now, if any of you aren’t familiar with War, their music, or (more to the point) the phenomenal quality of their recordings – well, you should be! This detailed, relaxed but percussion-driven track definitely displayed the little L200s at their best. Their ability to pull out details, particularly in the percussion, was admirable, and the quality and richness of the vocals was very fine. They seemed a little "thick" or heavy sounding overall, but the bass wasn’t boomy, so overall I’d qualify the balance I heard as warm. More to come on this anon. I did note, with some surprise, that the image was ‘small’ – centered between the speakers but not extending beyond them. It was also ‘shallow’; considerably less depth than I am used to from my FrankenAltecs. Both of these observations might stem from the L200s’ placement, so I am loath to fault them too much for this.

We spent the next three hours going through a bevy of tracks from many different genres, from several sources (streamed, presumably high-res, ‘Redbook’ CD, and vinyl on @Manticore’s beautiful Denon/Dynavector setup) and the L200s were never anything but enjoyable. OK, almost never – one little glitch, see below.

The quality of treble produced by the spiffy little tweeter was excellent; extremely smooth, sweet and utterly non-fatiguing. The tweeters are a treasure. The midrange was extremely pleasant (particularly vocals) but somewhat reticent. That being said, there was no sense of blatant response irregularities associated with the crossover point between the drivers – pretty clear the engineers did their job well both designing and (presumably) listening, tweaking, and “voicing” the XOs to good effect.

The overall balance of these, taking everything I heard into account, definitely strikes me as warm. They, of course, lack thunderous bass, but they also (to their credit) don’t mis-represent the bass they do reproduce with any artificial enhancement -- and they’re certainly not boomy. They are polite and utterly easy to listen to. In that latter sense especially, I’d say that they pay homage to the early Polk “Monitor Series” which were also very easy to listen to loudsepakers (albeit far more ‘value priced’ even in their era). I have a feeling that the overall presentation of the L200s may resemble other recent “legacy themed” two-ways, e.g., the “80th Anniversary” Wharfedale Dentons – (which are much smaller and, at least at this point cheaper speakers). It would be interesting to A-B the two.

My host played several “soundtrack” type recordings (I believe) from Battlestar Galactica. They sounded good to me. He played some solo piano that I also felt was very well produced. A cheap piano sounds tinkly, and a poorly-reproduced piano can seem that way too. The beautiful German-made piano used in the recording we listened to sounded rich and sonorous.

We listened to several jazz tracks with fairly explosive percussion. One, a digital version of (IIRC) a Stan Kenton recording, had a drum solo that sounded good, but lacked impact (thwack! as I like to call it); the drums sounded very small – like a miniature drum kit somewhere between the speakers. I suggested we spin the track Old Hymn from Charlie Byrd’s 1977 emponymous direct to disk 45 rpm 12” record (on white vinyl). This track contains the single best sounding drum solo I know of. The result was initially pretty revolting – a flabby and unimpactful rendition of a solo, and a recording, that is anything but. My host realized that the “Phono Direct” mode of his preamp (pre/pro? I don't know much about this stuff!) was not engaged, so he rectified that and we tried again.

Results the second time were much better (what the heck was the processing stuff in that preamp doing to the analog output of his phono preamp?) but still uninspiring. The L200s didn’t handle the drums too well at all. They sounded pleasant -- but they didn’t sound like drums.

We even listened to one bit of symphonic music (on vinyl) -- the soul-stirring fourth movement (Allegro con fuoco) of Dvorak’s 9th Symphony “From the New World”. My foot was tappin’ all the way through it – the little two-ways did a good job conveying the emotion and even the scale of this performance (a late 1970s Philips LP, performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Colin Davis)

We also spent a few minutes listening to @Manticore’s recently received (and already much beloved) Polk LSiM 707 speakers. I’ll share a few thoughts of these vis-à-vis the L200s… anon.

It would’ve been great to listen to more music – to try the L200s on stands oriented along the long axis of the room, maybe to try other amplifiers my host had waiting in the wings, but my day had started very, very early, and I was tired and had a long drive home ahead of me, so I reluctantly bade my host(s) farewell and headed north.

What's that I hear you say... you want some kind of synopsis?

Gimme a minute...

to be continued

mhardy6647

Cage Match: Polk LSiM vs. Polk L200!



It was very interesting, instructive, and enlightening to listen to @Manticore's big Polks (at least I think they're LSiM 707s!) in direct comparison to the L200s.

I was very surprised by how different the LSiM707 sounds compared to the L200. The former speaker is much more up-front and lively in its presentation, and (of course) it has much more impactful and rumbling bass. The LSiM sounds good, but very different than the L200. I wasn't expecting that.


Driving home, reflecting on the afternoon, I 'realized' (i.e., I decided) that what I was hearing in the case of the big Polk towers was a home theater speaker -- I don't really mean to denigrate them, but the effect they had on music, in that context, was rumble and sizzle -- impressive but not necessarily realistic in terms of the real sound of actual music (acoustic or electronic).

The L200 has a much more 'classic hifi speaker' sound, albeit at an impressively high level of (for lack of a better word) resolution than one would associate with most of the classic monkey coffins of the golden age.

Synopsis

All in all, I found the L200s supremely easy to listen to, but (perhaps not coincidentally) not very soul-stirring. The lack of emotion, for me, isn't due to a lack of bass, but rather an overall sheen over everything that makes everything sound nice but a little bland. Not rounded off, but not stirring. I've never taken SSRIs (y'all can probably tell), but I wonder if what I was experiencing listening to the L200s yesterday was the aural equivalent of Prozac or maybe some mood stabilizer -- nice, pleasant but ultimately not very real.

There was just something kind of artificial -- kind of plastic-y -- about the L200. The LSiMs sort of hid their sheen behind some added drama in their... well, I wouldn't call it brightness -- maybe forwardness, and the Marvel Comics movie style, resounding bass they manifest. Sort of like the Prozac patient, tweaked with speed.

Hmm... I may have bitten off more metaphor similie than I could chew, sorry!

Of the two, I'd actually probably be happier with the L200, but they were just a little too emotionally muted to make me happy.

Finally -- the L200s seem to me to be awfully expensive for what they look like, and what they do. What's the MSRP of the KEF LS50? (sounds of Marky googling...) Looks like the LS50 (the 'hard-wired' version, not the amplified wireless morph) is $1300 (e.g., from Music Direct). Now, personally I find the aesthetics of the LS50 rather comical (not to my taste, shall we say?), but I am not sure whether the far more old-fashioned/conservative cosmetics of the L200 would justify their $500 premium in price over the LS50 (e.g.). I am also not sure the L200's audible qualities would justify it, either.

All of this being said, I would still like to hear the L800s.

fin.

mhardy6647

Nightfall

Very informative Mr. Hardy, thank you.

Emlyn

Thanks for the write up!

They are smaller than I thought they would be, and weigh about 34 percent less than the LSiM 703s. Dimensionally, they're smaller all around. But, the specs say their -3dB lower limit measurement is a tiny bit lower than the 703s (46 Hz vs 50 Hz).

https://d3vqw2nv1topde.cloudfront.net/assets/Product Documents/Legend/Polk_Legend_Product_Infosheet_6Pgr_Digital.pdf

Given the nature of the new cone material, my guess is it make take quite a few hours for the L200s to open up and bloom. That's also what I found with the 703s though. They sounded dull and boomy at first.

rooftop59

So is it correct that they were not on stands and we’re sitting too high? In my meager experience a good pair of loaded stands at the right height can make a significant difference...

mhardy6647

As I mentioned, @Manticore had stands and has listened to them on said stands along the long axis of the room (and possibly also with a different amplifier and/or preamp, I am not 100% sure of that). I listened to them as you see them (per my disclaimer posted earlier). He would have liked me to hear them that way as well, but I had been up since 4:30 am and was pretty brain dead by 3pm. I also attended the NEARC swapmeet in Brookline NH Saturday morning (and did a pretty good job of offloading some hifi junk, too -- even made some $$ doing it!).

As to break in, I don't know how much total play time they have since they started out with @F1nut.

F1nut

They had close to 200 hours in them.

Definitely way too high up in the pic.

Mark, thanks for your review.

rooftop59

Thanks for the very detailed review mark!

motorhead43026

Thanks for the review. I will be interested in another review where these are set up properly. Asumming this listening session was with the setup as pictured.

pglbook

Mark, thanks for the very informative and detailed review.

indyhawg

Doc, thank you for the detailed write up.

verb

Interesting comments Doc. Well written as usual. I'm having a bit of difficult trying to understand "artificial" and "plastic-y" please expound if you would indulge me.

Now where's my Prozac? And speed for that matter?

mhardy6647

Spend some time listenin' to vintage Altec drivers and horns and you'll know exactly what I mean.

There is a polished gloss to everything that makes it sound smooth and nice. I used the mood-stablilizer drug metaphor (well, OK, I used a simile, so, like, sue me... ) but I actually had another one.

You know how the internet is rife with complaints abou the heavily airbrushed "photoshopped" photographs of (typically) beautiful, nubile women that are just too perfect to be real? Like that. But sonically.

I was tempted to invoke, umm, what's her name? Kim Kar... something. Karmann Ghia? Something like that. Kinda commonly found on the internet. Married to some musician. That kinda gets to the point, but brings in a whole 'nother level of metaphorical resonance related to bottom end performance that -- well, I just didn't want to go there.



The too good to be true effect is pretty common with modern audio production values, too -- but we tried a lot of different kinds of music, from multiple sources, too. There was a sort of sameness to the way everything sounded that was extremely pleasant but not particularly natural.

How about this? I have the same sort of response to "HDR photography".





I mean, the world doesn't really look like a carefully focused variant of a Bob Ross painting.

verb

Ahhh. Thanks Doc. Only you have such an ability IMO to articulate your thoughts such that, even an engineer can understand! Thank you!

VR3

Very interesting thoughts Doc Hardy

I think the entire industry has moved to this direction.

Look forward to more thoughts

mhardy6647

verb wrote: »

Ahhh. Thanks Doc. Only you have such an ability IMO to articulate your thoughts such that, even an engineer can understand! Thank you!

In biotech, I had to work with engineers, too

Actually, some of the very best scientists I've ever worked with were actually engineers. Like this guy.

https://www.nae.edu/149873/Dr-Brian-D-Kelley

mhardy6647

... sorry, I am taking this thread off-topic!

gmcman

Thank you for the detailed review, looking forward to this.

dolbyd

Nice review

New legend ad from Polk just dropped

https://youtu.be/ZkoKV0JxDfY

natronforever

Nice writeup, but I'd like to address the obvious elephant in the room. Prozac isn't a mood stabilizer, and if it were, wouldn't it be best applied to treat something like this?

pitdogg2

explain yourself @natronforever ?

Emlyn

Surround speakers are not using the SDA function, although angled baffles may look somewhat similar. There is no crosstalk cancellation with the old FX speakers, just tweeters aimed in different directions to produce a more diffuse soundfield. Seems like most companies have abandoned that bidirectional speaker design approach lately as Dolby processing systems have evolved to be more precise thanks to better processing power being available. Dolby Atmos systems actually call for rear speakers to be at ear level now.

mhardy6647

Not to sound defensive but I think I correctly identified Prozac as an SSRI -- I think I tried to invoke mood stabilizers kind of incidentally, and I offer my apologies if I failed.

... but I wonder if what I was experiencing listening to the L200s yesterday was the aural equivalent of Prozac or maybe some mood stabilizer --

note the "or"

natronforever

mhardy6647 wrote: »

note the "or"

Touche! I was reading the bit about emotional flattening, which is atypical to an SSRI (though sometimes anecdotally seen.) I missed your clearly applied "or". Apologies!

pitdogg2 wrote: »

explain yourself @natronforever ?

Bipolar speaker. Get it? Ba-dum.