Carolina Polkfest Vol. 5 - Oct. 22-24 2021 North Charleston SC

Hermitism

Foiled again!

DaveHo

Good thing those aren't ported. He must really like them!

F1nut

VR3 wrote: »

Is broke Jesse!

You shouldn't have let Tom near it. What's broken?

nooshinjohn

That cable stretched across the room is messing up the acoustics of that space...

txcoastal1

nooshinjohn wrote: »

That cable stretched across the room is messing up the acoustics of that space...

I thought they were fixin' to start jump roping

TheLovelyWendi

Another Saturday nite and we got Polkies.

TheLovelyWendi

Good fun and lots of memories❤️

TroyD

F1nut wrote: »

VR3 wrote: »

I recognize that CDP

F1nut wrote: »

VR3 wrote: »

I recognize that CDP

2 channels, best I can do…

TheLovelyWendi

And a little more.....

Hermitism

txcoastal1

Hermitism needs to know for Halloween 2022 ..."The Insurrection"

Hermitism

I just made one of Tom where he's looking down. I swore I was done for this year!

erniejade

Looks like an amazing time!. I need to make the next one.

gmcman

Wow, looks like a great time, very cool this all came together.

TroyD

The morning after....

I’ve got more thoughts coming but what an amazing time!

I’m also going to tell you, Polk is making great speakers. The R200’s are insanely good. Insanely.

The L800’s....wow.

But, PolkFest is about people and TLW and are are blessed in that department.....full wrap up later but right now, I’m getting some L800 love!

VR3

Please post reviews of the l800 on the Polk product page as well 😁

https://www.polkaudio.com/en-us/product/floor-standing-towers/l800?msclkid=183eae2c63e81761a5accf593b05d441&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=BNG_Polk_US_Search_Brand_Floor-Standing_Models_Exact&utm_term=polk audio legend l800&utm_content=Floor-Standing - Models - Legend L800

JayCee

Looks like an awesome time, Troy. Glad you had a good turnout and I'm looking forward to your additional impressions. Pleased to read you're digging the latest Polk offerings. I was really impressed with the L200's during the forum demo.

TroyD wrote: »

I’m getting some L800 love!

The rubber feet are spongy...remove them and use the spikes if you can. For the short time you have with them I can confidently say you're missing the last bit of goodness. The bass and mids really tightened up on mine.

TroyD

So, everyone is gone and the house is about back to normal.

I gotta tell you how much I appreciate the folks who came. Look, it's a hard sell to get folks to travel just to hang out at the house of a stranger for a weekend, ostensibly, to listen to audio gear. What if the folks are doucherific? What if the gear sucks? What if the food sucks? I sure as schit would be torqued if I drove 8 hours to listen to K-Pop (Or Dee Lite....right F1?) at full blare on a JVC receiver while munching on a mystery meat burger and some stale chips.....so for those taking the leap of faith, it means a LOT to TLW and I.

Sid. Man, I don't know what to say....but somewhere you stopped being a kid and are now a stand up guy. This is a guy who took a TON of schit when he joined wow, he's someone I'm proud to call a friend. Can't say enough about him. Sid is probably an inappropriate nickname now....but, old habits die hard with me. So, like McLovin....you are Sid.

Tom. Zero to 60 time is better than a Ferrari, brother! Ron Swanson and Rick from Pawn Stars love child......it was a true pleasure and I can't wait for next time.

Lou - retirement isn't THAT far away and this is a great place to end up. I'm just saying.....and what you had to do for the R200's, that's between me and you but it was special. S-P-E-C-I-A-L

Caleb and Randy. Family I didn't know I had. TLW thinks Caleb and I were separated at birth. We coming to visit. Plan on it.

Peter - what an ENJOYABLE person. I am truly bummed that the time was so short. Post more. Please.

Dave, Micah, Melissa and the list goes on....it was just a GREAT time. I've said this a million times....PolkFest is a family reunion with family you didn't know you had.

We laughed, we shot the breeze. We told stories. We ate. We drank....Repeat. What a blast. I enjoyed every single minute and feel bad because I feel like I didn't get to talk to everyone enough.

So, the gear......

Folks. Polk is BACK. This was a revival of sorts......what I heard this weekend, the lineage from vintage Polk is faint. Put this way, listen to the R200's and I'm not hearing LSiM, LSi, RTi, RT, Monitor pedigrees. Ok, well, perhaps some (extraordinary bass extension from a bookshelf...for example) but, by and large....these are there own things and they are fantastic. The R200 is the best value in loudspeakers right now. There. I said it.

The L800. Holy SCHITBALLS. This is the speaker that people like me BEGGED Polk to build for YEARS. And they did it and it's awesome. Full stop. Now, there are those who are going to prefer the original SDA's to the L800 and that is a very valid point of view. The L800 is a COMPLETELY different animal from vintage SDA with the exception of the employment of inter-aural crosstalk cancellation. It doesn't work like traditional SDA and these speakers do not sound like traditional SDA's.......so, if you are looking for an updated SRS model, you may well be nonplussed. Get it. However, IF you judge the L800 on it's own merits (as I think it deserves to be)......it will make you schit your flat hat. Right out of the box, no run in on a hodgepodge rig......we were all gobsmacked. Got 'em repositioned and so forth and it was breathtaking. You need to hear these. Now, there is a caveat......and the online review by the lifestyle guy, Andrew Robinson touched on this (I still disagree with him) but the L800 will not put a bandaid on a poor recording. It is RUTHLESS to poor recordings. RUTHLESS......and it's not a case of just the sound staging not having the dimensionality because there isn't great separation in the stereo mix....I'm talking it exposes a recording for what it is. Good. Bad. Indifferent. So, that is an issue to consider. However, if you set out to design a high resolution system....is that really a flaw?

However, I don't think that it's an exaggeration to say that the R200 stole the show. The plan was to audition the L200's against the R200's.....however, two pair of R200's showed up. No L200's. So that comparison didn't happen but to a person, everyone here was flat amazed out how the R200's performed. AMAZED.

Last but certainly not least. We've raised a GOOD chunk of change for both the Githens Center in memory of Tiff and George Grand and for the Multiple Myeloma Foundation in honor of Polk Paul DiComo.

So, PolkFest is back. It's a thing once again. We've already had preliminary discussions about PF 2022. I will host again, IF no one else wishes to do it.....I don't want to deny anyone the opportunity to host it but I'm just saying that I'm more than willing to do it again, as long as I'm able, PolkFest will always have a home....so, lets start planning on 2022.

BDT (of the PolkFest loving BDT's)

treitz3

F1nut wrote: »

VR3 wrote: »

Is broke Jesse!

You shouldn't have let Tom near it. What's broken?

Haha. I treated your baby right man, calm down. We noticed a grain to one of the channels and figured it was one of the tubes, so I swapped them out with a known matching pair Troy had in his stash. Plugged her back in and it was significantly better but still there, albeit faint.....but we had just installed the tubes, so I said let's wait until the tubes warm up and that noise will most likely go away.

I went back to the hotel to grab something and when I got back? They told me that it had **** the bed. We never diagnosed it beyond that, we just used the Auralic and streamed from that point on in that rig.

What was weird is when we powered it back on after the tube swap, the LED turned Orange (I've never seen that on mine) and the display was not on (again, never seen that on mine). Someone came up and hit the eject button for the CD and the display came back on.....so we went ahead and played it. Sounded great (except for that hint of grain that one would have to strain to hear) and then reportedly it started getting worse to the point to where they couldn't play it.

FWIW, Troy had lent it to a friend and when he went to go hook it up shortly thereafter? He noticed the grain.....and chalked it up to a bad tube (but never played with it again after that). We all chalked it up to a bad tube. We were all wrong. It's got something else wrong with it. The only thing visually that we saw was a cap that was glued down was no longer secured with the glue but the cap was still connected. With that said, we never did "really" dive into it.

"Polk is back in the game" - That's an understatement. Well done on both speakers! That R200 was quite the surprise and is easily the best value in bookshelf speakers at the moment. Everyone was surprised that those little things filled Troy's LR (which is not small, mind you) with sound. Good sound too.

It sure was a pleasure to see everyone again and meet some new faces this go around. If you were on the fence for this Polkfest? Mark your calendars for this time next year and make it happen. We ALL had a freakin' blast and the food? Well, I forget who said this but they summed it up perfectly. "We ate like kings all weekend".

Troy, you and TLW are awesome, awesome hosts. My hat is off to you both for hosting such a fun event! Did I mention that you guys are awesome?

Tom

F1nut

Tom, thanks for the rundown. I'm thinking there's a half bad connection somewhere, possibly that loose cap you mentioned.

VR3

First and foremost! Thank you Troy and Wendi! Wow! What an event, incredible food, incredible people and such a great time. Troy throws a bash like no one else, that is for sure!!! Thank you guys so much for opening your home and having all of us.

It was amazing to see everyone after all these years and catch up like old friends. When @ohskigod walked in I almost fell over! Lou is the man!

As far as the L800 goes...

To quote Polk "all Polk products are the result of tight-knit collaboration, teamwork, and our collective passion to make great sound available to as many people as humanly possible." they have succeeded man. The first night we had them set up on the back wall and they were ok, good, but definitely something was off. The right channel was blooming but the left was almost absent. The next day we moved them to the wall with the Bozak. Once you had a wall on each side of each speaker, it was on. The next thing that brought it home was moving the Adcom pre to passive mode which removed all of the brightness we heard.

The L800, for $6k MSRP brings high class 2 channel performance to the masses. You can have virtually no experience, modest gear and bring home bad **** 2 channel performance, this I have no doubts about. The only caveat I can think of is the room needs to be a little ideal to their needs. They need room to breathe, one. They need a wall on each side of the room. If you can bring that, I think you can generate truly incredible 2 channel performance with minimal knowledge or effort.

They throw a huge soundstage, great details, excellent bass extension. They were a little shy in the midbass department where Polk is usually robust in like the R200 but this could change with burn, placement and gear. The highs lacked some natural decay but this could also be burn in or gear related. But again, for what we were running these speakes with and the random assortment of gear we were using, they threw down.

I highly recommend the L800. They are everything we asked for from Polk all these years, and then some!

The R200 was an instant winner, right out of the box they filled up a huge room with great bass and did so much right for $750 a pair! Fantastic!

What a great Polkfest, simply awesome. So great to see everyone and I look forward to the next one!

verb

Wow! Everyone reading this thread (including myself) were wishing they were there! Looks like it was a fantastic time! Well done Troy and Wendi!

TroyD

verb wrote: »

Wow! Everyone reading this thread (including myself) were wishing they were there! Looks like it was a fantastic time!

My thanks go to the attendees. Really. TLW and I LOVE PolkFest.....but, the real thanks go to the people who come and support it because it IS a commitment of time (and money) to attend and both of those things don't grow on trees...so those that choose to expend those precious resources to spend time with us....sharing in what we love.....means more to TLW and I more than you could possibly imagine. @Navy_Goat and Randy ....guys I've never met, drives all the way down to SC from MD. He doesn't know what he's getting into....and I feel like I've gained a lifelong friend. How farkin cool is that? M

PolkFest is an amazing, homegrown, grassroots event like no other. It's not a corporate sponsored thing. It's about the forum, it's membership and the one thing that we all have in common, music, audio and Polk. And, really, what is better than sitting down, listening to music, having a beer (or a some homemade moonshine, right @treitz3 ?), shooting the breeze, talking audio and everything else over some steak and lobster and bbq and homemade banana pudding?

So, for those saying, man, sounds like a great time, wish I could have been there......next year, BE THERE! You will LOVE it. You will make friends and memories that will last you a lifetime. THIS is what social media SHOULD be. I'm not bagging folks for not coming, that's not my intention, life happens and I TOTALLY get it (that's why there has been no PolkFest for almost a decade).....but, be a part of it next year.

PolkFest 2022 is a thing. October 2022. Start thinking about it now.

pitdogg2

Excellent post Troy!!

george daniel

Appears a great time was had by all,,Tom and tubes,, the stories I could tell you with his Anthem Amp one.

Micah Cohen

Holy snit, PolkFest LIVES!

First of all, please understand: I have ambiguous feelings about this now.

When I worked for Polk Audio, like so many of the people who worked for Polk Audio through those years, I did actually (surprisingly) LOVE this company. It was a family. And I loved working to promote its products and the lifestyle that those products enabled us to enjoy. It was a new world of audio and entertainment. I enjoyed meeting and encouraging enthusiastic fellow travelers. It was interesting and even inspiring. And fun!

And then things... changed. ["Womp, womp."]

No need to dive into that water under the bridge. (But I do wish things had turned out a little differently.)

So, even though we've kept in touch randomly, it was a surprise when Troy invited me to attend a PolkFest this past weekend. So many reasons not to! Who even likes this company anymore; what is there to celebrate? Do I want to drive my toy-like Hyundai all the way to Charleston and back? I don't remember any of the guys who might be there, and what would I say to them if I did? (I'm really so shy!)

Plus, there's this killer virus lurking out there, and I'd have to leave my Covid cocoon to attend this gathering. What about my pre-existing condition?!

Believe me: I tried my grouchy old-man best to get out of it.

Melissa: "No, we are going to visit Wendi and Troy this weekend."

And so, dear friends, it was proclaimed and enacted.

And you know what? It was not such a terrible thing. In fact, it was pretty awesome. Trey, Tom and Lou all quickly forgave me for not remembering their names or faces. (This is "early onset.") And darned if they weren't having the time of their lives setting up and demo-ing the huge new Polk Legends in Troy's living room with a truck-load of dangerous-looking audio equipment. Worse, I had to admit, after spending some serious time listening to them, guided by Trey and Tom's skilled experimentation, that those big Tiki-faced speakers were unexpectedly excellent. Maybe Polk still has some cred? (Can we call them Polk Audio again, please?)

I was actually sad that we had to leave before I could get a listen to the beautiful new Reserve Bookshelves.

There was a huge food spread in one room. Demos in the other room. More demos in the den. Plenty of jolly conversation out back, more going on in the garage. The whole neighborhood joined in. Polk Audio should rightly be grateful to everyone involved. You can't buy this kind of old school product promotion, this kind of grass roots affiliation. Because it's not about that, really. It's about sharing an interest in something everyone can enjoy, something fun and really exciting; something we can all get together and agree on. It was really cool to find out that it was still a thing!

In the end, who can express anything but amazement at the boundless energy and extreme generosity of the relentlessly ebullient Troy and the amazing, unstoppable Wendi? (Oh, Wendi, what you put up with, girl!)

Really, it's exhausting.

But I'm glad I made the trip. Thanks for a great time. Long live PolkFest!

MICAH

TroyD

The Hobbit Pimp LIVES!!!

YES!!

Believe me, folks, when I say a couple of things. One, I take it as a great compliment that Micah came for all the aforementioned reasons. I am, no joke, honored.

YES. I expressed in my email that I felt that in past few years....that Polk had somewhat lost it's mojo for me. Nothing bad but nothing that excited me and it had become, well, corporate. Much of the allure of Polk Audio was the people behind it. Genuine people. Nuts about audio. True believers in their respective crafts. I remember reaching out to Micah, oh, 2001ish....pre PolkFest era and saying that we'd be breezing through Bawlmer and perhaps we could stop by 5601 Metro Drive and introduce ourselves?

Micah was genuinely perplexed as to why. It's a cubicle farm. We work here. Why would anyone want to visit? We did and he was a gracious host and it was awesome. People. That's why.

Now, I think, perhaps Sound United may be swinging back the pendulum? We shall see but I think that is at least on the radar.....perhaps. BUT they HAVE, IMO, succeeded, in spades.....fulfilling the idea and intent of Polk Audio. Great sounding speakers and real world prices. No BS. I think that what I heard this weekend is fantastic.

Back to the people though. Amazing....and that's what's great about this hobby in general and Polk Audio in specific.

Polk Audio. With the heart over the "I" is what it was then....and I think it should remain that way now.

treitz3

Trey orchestrating the music....mind you, it's recorded music but that's besides the point. He was in the groove.










Tom

motorhead43026

Yummy, I see some shine.

Navy_Goat

Where do I even start......

@TroyD Thanks to you and Wendi for the hospitality! The food was great, the tunes were great, you assembled a great cast and crew for an event like this, but the secret sauce was your effortless generosity. You invited a complete stranger to your house without a second thought. Not only that, but you didn't hesitate when I asked to bring someone who wasn't even active here of the forum. You fed us but more importantly you ;made sure we felt welcome from the the first minute. Until next time, you have my thanks. We both enjoyed the weekend immensely.

To the rest of the folks that made the weekend special, thank you for welcoming me into the group. Music really can bring people together. On that note the music was awesome! I will add a post below with a list of the tracks that I played on the off chance that others were intrigued by any of them, more on that later this evening. Lou, I am listening to some Takuya Kuroda right now.

I really enjoyed the conversations. Trey, I appreciate you taking the time to explain your thoughts about crossover work and other related topics. I will be trying some of the suggestions you passed along for sure.

I hope to see you all again at some time for sure.

-Caleb