Polk L200 Speaker Demo Reviews

nooshinjohn

These have been passed along to Ray as of today... final impressions coming soon.

rburgess714

Got to meet 2 fellow Polkies @nooshinjohn and @civilian today. Listened to a great system, I was floored. Good people and tunes. Thanks for hosting.

Oh yeah that’s right I have the L200s, listening to them now and will give a review after I have them for awhile.

I will say that they put out a lot of sound for a bookie. Sound much bigger than they are.

Thanks @F1nut for coordinating.

gp4jesus

Mike Reeter wrote: »

Me likey your speaker end. BEAUTIFUL! I trust it “sounds” just as good. Other end looks comfy for extended listening

Tony

nooshinjohn

My impressions of the L200

I had a week with them and put some twenty hours of listening in on the L200 before I pulled them from the rig and passed them along to Rburgess714. The gear used for the demo included my Carver Tube amps, Pass Labs X0.2/XOno, Krell Evolution 505 SACD, TriangleART turntable with CA Goldfinger V2, and the PS Audio Perfectwave DAC bringing up the digital side. No direct comparison was done with the SDA-SRS 1.2TL, as that would have been a fool's errand.

I ran the L200 on a true double bi-wire run of Audioquest Meteor speaker cables. I did some cursory listening the first couple of days mostly as background music before really putting them through their paces.

I will copy and past my comments from the week here and address the points I was hinting at as I go forward...

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Not so fast my young Padawan. This gear is also good at exposing serious flaws. The first of which is these Polk logos on the face of the grills are hideous to look at on a speaker of this caliber. They should have used the signature of Matt Polk from the old SRS badges IMHO...

The appearance of these speakers did not grow on me at all during their time here. The logo on the grills was staring at me like a neon sign and did not evoke the air of class I have come to expect from a product at this price point. The wood veneer was nicely done, but I would have preferred some character there as well, especially since the outward appearance is that of a simple wooden box.

nooshinjohn wrote: »

First night is in the bag. I will be doing some tweaking of placement tomorrow, but so far they are sounding ok.

I found these speakers to shine or sink in performance based on placement. I don't know whet Polk recommends in this regard, but I found them to perform best when they are placed well out into the room, at least three feet. Toe-in is critical to focus the soundstage properly.

nooshinjohn wrote: »

One thing not discussed a bunch in the reviews so far is the redesigned Power Port on the back of the speaker. This is showing itself to perhaps be the most significant element of the new speaker, at least in my listening. It allows that speaker to perform as a modified dipole.... more to come.

This post drew the most curiosity, and it is easy to understand why. given how they were placed in my room for most of the time they were here, they were almost near-field in their placement, with two feet of space behind the speakers to my TL's. During a listening session, I thought it was sounding like I had sound coming directly from my center channel speaker. Given that the L200's were sitting 18 inches below and 42 inches in front of that center channel, I was surprised when I got up and walked behind them and could still hear sound coming from the back side of the L200's. I have only experienced this with dipole-type speakers like Magnepan and Martin Logans.

I placed my ear to the backs of the Power Ports, and sure enough, there was clear, tuneful and powerful sound being emitted from the ports, perhaps as much as 15 to 20 percent of the volume coming from the front, depending on volume and music type. This explained what I was hearing from the speakers themselves.

The L200 is a speaker that in many ways, punches well above it's diminutive size. When augmented with my REL, tuned to simply provide a foundation, base was fast, tight and accurate. With the REL off, the bottom end would be somewhat muddy as volume approached reference levels. With the REL engaged, everything from mids and highs, all the way down was very good. Imaging was off the chart with these on most types of music. In my listening, the soundstage was easily 3 feet behind and above the fronts of the speakers and extended well into the listening space and projected to the sides, above and below the plane.

On a few recordings, especially Linda Ronstadt's "What's New", it appeared at times that there was an orchestra performing from a pit in front of Linda's vocals, and feature musicians performing on risers behind her. This is something I do not experience with the big SDA's. I was very impressed more than a few times with the accuracy, imaging and sense of the acoustic space they provided.


This gear is also good at exposing serious flaws...

On the performance side, the L200's main weakness was being able to keep up with music that presented serious demands on them. Congested material such as heavy metal, sweeping orchestral pieces, and demanding movie soundtracks left the speakers stumbling through the material and just not able to keep up. This became particularly clear on the new "Terminator" 4k Blu-ray , "The Rise of Skywalker" soundtrack, and on just about anything by Metallica.

Having Jeff and Ray here this past weekend solidified what I was hearing, and I could not get back to my SDA's fast enough. It is not fair to expect a bookie-type speaker to compete with the big dogs.

I do, however remember the sound from the SDA-CRS from back in the day, and the L200 does an admirable job of providing a large and immersive soundstage in a smaller package. give them the room to breathe and some quality gear to move them, and they would make a nice addition to almost any listening space.

gp4jesus

Hmmf... your review (placement details) tells me how little I know. I’ve thought for years “Bookies” usually care-free about placement. 🤔

mhardy6647

gp4jesus wrote: »

Hmmf... your review (placement details) tells me how little I know. I’ve thought for years “Bookies” usually care-free about placement. 🤔

Years ago, they were -- modern ones (based on my limited but rather bitter experience) are quite picky indeed. To the point that, in 2020 (and, again, in my limited empirical experience), bookshelf speaker is a complete misnomer.

Stand mount loudspeaker seems to me to be a more apt term for little loudspeakers like the L200.

erniejade

Some stand mount bookies are very placement dependent and some, not as much but all can benefit from playing with the placement.

erniejade

Solid review John.

rburgess714

Nice review, another hard act to follow.

Inspector 24

Agreed, those still waiting aren't going to have much left to say other than, yep, we agree, they do that!

smglbrth

Nice review John. I totally agree with your assessment of the Polk logo on the grills, drove me nuts too. IMHO if it would have been the size of the logo on the front of the cabinet it would have been fine, none would have been better...

rooftop59

I never took the grills out of the plastic, and it didn’t look like anyone before me had either...

Hermitism

Can someone post a pic of the grills? I can't seem to find a pic of them, even on Polk's website.

rburgess714

The logo doesn’t bother me as it’s the same as the Signature series.

F1nut

Looks fine to me.

Hermitism

Thanks guys!

mhardy6647

Hermitism wrote: »

Can someone post a pic of the grills? I can't seem to find a pic of them, even on Polk's website.

source: https://www.crutchfield.com/p_107L200WN/Polk-Audio-Legend-L200-Brown-Walnut.html

Hermitism

I'm glad they didn't use the heart.

mhardy6647

I don't think that the heart logo really survived the sale to -- umm -- whatever they're called. D&M Holdings? Whatev's.

It does still show up at the top of the forum pages, though, one notes.
In fairness to Polk and its owners, the heart does date way, way back as a Polk motif.



From Audio September 1974


The current logo is a tad blocky. Wouldn't look out of place on a first-generation Scion xB.




I do like the mid/late '70s morph (perhaps needless to say) best of all.



(borrowed image)

treitz3

Me likes the older logo better. The new one ruins the look of the speaker IMO. It does stand out too much. FWIW

Tom

Inspector 24

That doesn't look so bad, way less offensive than the 706C grille badge. Nothing like a big bright shiny reflective oval right under the screen like a great big button that needs pushed to turn off. Besides, no grilles sound better.

marvda1

I found at higher listening levels the tweeter becomes shrill. anyone else experience this?

nooshinjohn

Yes, and the midwoofer can't keep up at all. The speaker is great for soft rock and jazz.

Viking64

Inspector 24 wrote: »

button that needs pushed

F1nut

Please keep the comments related to the subject matter.

Inspector 24

Viking got a LoL. Aesthetics are part of the review.

F1nut

Just a quick update....the demos have been moving along without issue, which I greatly appreciate. Good job everyone

dromunds

Inspector 24 wrote: »

Agreed, those still waiting aren't going to have much left to say other than, yep, we agree, they do that!

There's always something else to say, according to the listener's own personal listening experience, in their own listening space with their own gear, in their own words, plus there are a ton of other bookies out there that folks can put them up against.

Clipdat

@halo, @rooftop59, and @Mike Reeter's reviews make me want to request a review sample from Polk and review these.

dromunds

Why not the L600's?