Is Polk going the Bose direction?

pano1967

People I am new here at Polk. I sold all my Bose speakers because of unamimous reviews from alot of forums as inferior speakers. I bought all Polk speakers for my 7.1 system. I read an interesting Bose bashing article here at this link http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html. Not only did he bashed Bose but here he said
"Polks are IMO overpriced and they are moving in the wrong direction as a company. They're newest speakers aren't much to talk about at all." at this link http://www.intellexual.net/speaker5.html. Now I am worried Is Polk going in the Bose direction?

Shizelbs

Polk has a very long ways to go before it can be properly grouped with Bose. No need to worry.

surfntomm

i think you should purchase an average polk product and ask yourself if it was worth the price you paid for it. i think that the polk product is not only great for its price bracket but on the used market it can be found for a fraction of the new price because the occassionally go on sales that have been to known to make peoples jaws drop (lsi sale at frys for 199 etc...) either way my parents own bose and its cool if you dont really care about sound reproduction and you just want to reproduce the high frequencies and throw in a sub to get some low end. polk is prolly the best value online when it comes to speakers taking into consideration that is a large company with good customer service/ tech support/following

ledhed

You have to cross compare yourself. Sure, the Polk system is pricey for that group but, compare it to similarly priced set-ups. In a lot of those, the Polk's have larger and more expensive materials and better specs such as frequency response.

Also, I think it will be a loooong time before Polks are overpriced. Who pays more than 3/4 retail anyway?

Shizelbs

When you look at the value offered by each company only, Polk is the polar opposite of Bose. Polk offers an outstanding value from the top to the bottom of their production line. Bose cannot say that.

LuSh

The person who wrote that also wrote:

"At least 60% of your audio budget should be allocated to speakers. Good luck in your search for the perfect speakers!"

Polk get's a bad rep from everybody because they went mass and left the individual dealers high and dry. The SECOND paradigm or PSB is offered at big box stores suddenly online nerds from around the country will be typing away how their speakers have gone down hill and sound inferior to earlier generations. What a funny world we live in.

michael_w

I'm not a fan of the RM series but then I don't really care too much about HTIB's anyways. They would be great for a clean install in a home where someone wants / needs a small setup but other than that I think they're a little too much money for what you get (comparing to full size bookshelf speakers).

Maybe I just haven't given bose enough of a chance but it's hard to when all their demo's are just clips from movies that are perfect to impress the masses with "Shwing, SHWING, BOOM, Shwing!" (trying to make sword sounds here ). The main reason I'd stay away from bose is just how overpriced they are. If their packages were a third the price they would fit as a nice alternative to the other HTIB packages offered by many other companies.

I actually had to set up a bose system at work the other day. Because of the location I was forced to do a 2ch demo (with 'bass module') using the little jewel cubes that came with the acoustimass 10 package. I was using a cheapo yamaha receiver but nevertheless it sounded absolutely horrible. All I could do was laugh and walk away as the $1200 package played in the background. I mean c'mon... the pair of voight pipes I made for under $20 sound better than those cubes. :rolleyes:

That comment about 60% budget on speakers was pretty bad. I'd say around 35/40% would work a lot better. At the last DIY audio meet I went to I first walked into the room and thought to myself 'wow that sounds really really good'. Turns out the speakers of choice at the time were made with modified $8 radioshack drivers (used custom phase plugs in them). They sounded so good because there was at least twenty grand worth of electronics behind them.

McLoki

pano1967 wrote:

"Polks are IMO overpriced and they are moving in the wrong direction as a company. They're newest speakers aren't much to talk about at all." at this link http://www.intellexual.net/speaker5.html. Now I am worried Is Polk going in the Bose direction?

One persons opinion. For every review like that one (and that is the first time I have heard Polks described as overpriced) you can find at least 2 saying that Polk offers a bargain for what you purchase.

With that being said - the rm series is made to compete with bose (based on size of the speakers themselves) and have many comprimizes built into them. If sound quality is your number one concern, sub/sat speakers from any company is not what you should be looking for.

(then again, if you are looking for a surround sound system that your wife won't want to beat you for installing in her living room, they may be exactly what you are looking for)

Michael

MSALLA

I have never listened to a set of Bose speakers I liked. But that is just my opinion. For the money, I think Polk is the best value out.
Did you get rid of the bose because you didn't like the sound or because you read some bad reviews? Wich Polks did you buy and do you like them?

pano1967

Well actually I bought the Bose after hearing a demonstration at Sears.It sounded great there. Now after readind about the marketing stragedy I realized that at Sears you stand right in front of the front speakers. Also the bass module is at your feet and the rear surrounds are right next to your ears in a pair of suspended mounting bars. It should sound great like that. After buying the Bose I started reading all the audio pages in the internet. All I read was negative. There were few positive things about Bose so I got worried of going to all the trouble of setting up a system that sucks. I read alot of how Polk speakers sounded great for their price. There were reviews of other speakers but they were not in my budget. Budget? You might think well he bought Bose which are way expensive. Yes I did but I bought them at E-bay for a steal. Since Polk were relatively cheap and people said they sounded great after breaking them in? What? Breaking in a speaker? Well thats what I read. They wrote that Polk speakers sounded flat and dismall the first 5-8 hours. Than after the break in period they sound wonderful. Right now I still haven't set up my system. I am waiting for the rest of my Polks to come in from E-bay. But I tell you, I sold my Bose in E-bay, bought Polk and still have some money left over for inviting some friends over for beer and football (also to show off my system...haha).

This is what I bought. I still haven't set them up so somebody tell me if it should sound good.

One CSi-25 center channel
2 R300's for main left and right
2 R150 for main surrounds
2 R15's for rear surround.
and a powered Polk psw-10 sub
A Marantz 4600 A/V reciever 7.1

With this seven speaker setup I hope this will sound better than the real skimpy Bose cubes. Actually after comparing the two only physically, the Bose are made of cheap plastic and the Polks are of solid and quality design.
I hope they sound as good as they look.

janmike

Congrats on the new purchase and welcome. The speakers actually open up after a period of time. This was quite evident when I purchased the LSi9's. After that, heaven. Enjoy.

Phasearray

Bose is doing the entire audio industry a favor. One way to think of it is they're doing the advertisement for everyone. Average Joe watches Bose advertisement and realizes that he needs a sound system to go with his big screen.

Phasearray

At least that was how it was for me. I didn't know there was a world outside of television speakers until Bose bombarded the hell out of me with advertisement.

Phasearray

Of course I could never had been able to afford Bose. I started with a pair of Altec Lansing ACS-48 speakers for my computer in college. OMG I wish I didn't ebay them, even today they're better than anything that comes out of some cheapo home theater in a Box.

Phasearray

After the Altec Lansing I realized that I needed something with more power. Bought a THX certified Klipsch speaker set for my computer, they were no improvement over the ACS-48 except for the surround sound.

Phasearray

Next stop Onkyo HTIB. All 5 speakers were just a tad worse than my ACS-48 or Klipsch, but heck they were lound. I watched Gladiator again in Dolby Digital and I was like OMG, it's almost like setting in the movie theater.

Joey_V

Polk will never equal Bose.

Phasearray

Thankfully Onkyo makes good receivers, all 4 speakers were replaced by Polk R50 from Fry's electronic. This is my first time using floor standing speakers and OMG. What a difference. I can't go back to mini speakers anymore. It's hard to described but My old Klipsch and Onkyo speakere, they sound sound like something trapped in a little enclosure. The R50s sound like vibrant compare to them. Even when I goto Best Buy and listen to the Bose systems, I can feel the "trapped" nature of the sound coming from small speakers.

Phasearray

Now that I have a good paying job and looking to buy a house, it's time to step up to something more high end. The Lsi25 are the front runners, but they sure are power hungry. The thought of buying 4 amps to power them....
Not just that, but 4 amps times 1500 watts per amp. I don't know if I can afford the electric bill!

None the less, I'm earmarking about $3k for a new speaker setup. Thats the sweet spot for me. But this all started 14-15 years ago when Bose brain washed me into believing that having a good audio system is everything!

cfrizz

Phasearray, do you have a problem with putting all of your thoughts in one big post? Or are you simply working on upping your post count so you can then try to sell us something?

Phasearray

cfrizz wrote:

Phasearray, do you have a problem with putting all of your thoughts in one big post? Or are you simply working on upping your post count so you can then try to sell us something?

shhhh

The answer is yes.
not sale something but buy something if something cool comes up.

MLZ

Last year my wife & I went to a party at a friends house, and they had recently purchased a Bose system. On the way home she said she thought the sound was much better than what we had at home and we should replace our old 2 channel system. So did a little research and ended up with a Onkyo 603 / Polk RM6800 system. Last time we went to our Bose friends house, she commented on how "thin" the Bose sound was.

I had some old Bose 101 in the den which I gave to my "Bose friends" after getting a pair of R50's at the Fry's clearance.

MSALLA

Phasearray wrote:

shhhh

The answer is yes.
not sale something but buy something if something cool comes up.

Well your at 23 now so how about posting right.

It should change so you can only BUY at 25, and to sell should be higher like 500 posts or something.

Monster Jam

Polk and Bose have only one thing in common: Bose's Wave Radio and Polk's iSonic Radio.

That tells me that Polk caught wind of the profit margin Bose's Wave Radio affords and created an imitation to steal some of the potential market. I'm not hating Polk for it, but it is blatent.

ND13

Monster Jam wrote:

Polk and Bose have only one thing in common: Bose's Wave Radio and Polk's iSonic Radio.

That tells me that Polk caught wind of the profit margin Bose's Wave Radio affords and created an imitation to steal some of the potential market. I'm not hating Polk for it, but it is blatent.

They may have "imitated" the Wave radio, but they also did it with much higher quality materials and much improved SQ and asthetics.

Have you even compared the two??? I have and there's really no comparison. It's like the difference between a Deawoo and a Lexus.

Strong Bad

Monster Jam wrote:

Polk and Bose have only one thing in common: Bose's Wave Radio and Polk's iSonic Radio.

That tells me that Polk caught wind of the profit margin Bose's Wave Radio affords and created an imitation to steal some of the potential market. I'm not hating Polk for it, but it is blatent.

Even there, it's not much in common. You really should hear the iSonic. I was extremely impressed at how big and deep the sound was. The Bose just flat out sucks. Yes, I've heard the Bose at one of their stores in a shopping mall.

MSALLA

pano1967 wrote:

People I am new here at Polk. I sold all my Bose speakers because of unamimous reviews from alot of forums as inferior speakers. I bought all Polk speakers for my 7.1 system. I read an interesting Bose bashing article here at this link http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html. Not only did he bashed Bose but here he said
"Polks are IMO overpriced and they are moving in the wrong direction as a company. They're newest speakers aren't much to talk about at all." at this link http://www.intellexual.net/speaker5.html. Now I am worried Is Polk going in the Bose direction?

If your into reviews, read this months Perfect Vision. They have a very nice review on Polk's line of on wall speakers. Nothing but good remarks.

Monster Jam

To be honest, I haven't heard either, and based on Bose's track record, it wouldn't suprise me that the Polks sound much better. So no arguing there - I was referring to the obvious niche that Polk is trying to steal from Bose.

Its a high profit margin item - you can't agrue that either once you see the price tag.

heiney9

Monster Jam wrote:

To be honest, I haven't heard either, and based on Bose's track record, it wouldn't suprise me that the Polks sound much better. So no arguing there - I was referring to the obvious niche that Polk is trying to steal from Bose.

Its a high profit margin item - you can't agrue that either once you see the price tag.

Since when is entering a niche market stealing. If a competitor (Polk) comes along and does what you do much better than I'd say shame on Bose if they continue to make the inferior product. Last time I checked Bose didn't have a patent on all in one table top systems. Funny thing is the Bose is the one that sounds and looks like the cheap copycat knock off.

H9

Drumingman

Not justifing the price for a radio but I guess a high power amp in the units drives the price up some. At least that's my undersatnding of why the prices are sooo much more than a regular table radio with 1 watt or less. I think the bose is supposed to have a 25 W amp, don't know what Polk uses.

MSALLA

heiney9 wrote:

Since when is entering a niche market stealing. If a competitor (Polk) comes along and does what you do much better than I'd say shame on Bose if they continue to make the inferior product. Last time I checked Bose didn't have a patent on all in one table top systems. Funny thing is the Bose is the one that sounds and looks like the cheap copycat knock off.

H9

No stealing. Fair business. It's also what drives companies to build a better product. If Bose starts to lose sales, they can always improve there's.