A marketing question - why doesn't polk send speakers for review?

pvsat

I posted a comment on audioholics website asking why there were no reviews on recent polk offerings. The answers i got was that the company does not send them products for review ...is this true?

Considering it is true.....I have a polk TSI500 and found no professional reviews on it except for a few here and at various online store websites. I listened to it, liked what i heard and bought it and now I just love the sound. Considering the huge following the review websites (audiohoilcs, hometheatermag etc) have would not it be easier for polk to advertise it through them, i have had friends who do not know about the polk brand and found it very difficult to convince them with the limited number of reviews and no comparison reviews available.

I do not know why polk does not send products out for shootouts, i consider that option the best example of proving what the brand is capable of :cool: and personally I think polk offerings as one of the best . I see so many reviews of infinity, JBL, and other products which claim they are better than polk with direct comparison to some of the polk offerings

What is the polk marketing team doing? shouldn't polk be sending some out to kick the competition?

SaTMan

Face

Discard everything you've read at Aholics, Polk does send out speakers for professional reviews. It was only a few months ago that Stereophile reviewed a pair of RTiA bookshelves.

strider

They did the RTiA towers(the 9's?) not too long before that, didn't they?

AffordableAudio did some LSi's recently, too.

pvsat

hmm...this is funny..so polk somehow either does not get along well with the audioholics guys or them with polk..either way..its that website that does not have enough of polk reviews. im not nitpicking...but i did not find anything on the new TSI line...LSIs and RTIAs were beyond my budget. But good to know that there is a discrepancy...now...who hopefully the audioholics folks can answer me once i give them this feedback.

thuffman03

There are a lot of different people reviewing electronics. I don't know how long Audioholics have been around but I think it would be hard to let everyone who starts up a "Reviewing" forum of some sort to be able to get products from everyone. Plus from what I have seen on Audioholics web site they tend to review companys that advertise with them more often than not IMO.

pvsat

thuffman03...i think you nailed it on the head...most of the review websites i have been to have adds of the companies that adversitse on their website. That might be the real reason. now to have one of the other websites review the TSI line

heiney9

I don;t recall AH sending any products for us to review. You;re making too much of it. There's no grudge or discrepency. Polk I would assume prefers to mostly send products to well established professional reviewer's. Polk is not a start up company so they don;t need their name plastered all over the internet like AH's products or Emo are a few that come to mind.

If AH wants to review them so badly......they can buy a pair, review them, and then sell them and only loose a little bit.

H9

pvsat

Face, strider thanks for pointing out the reviews on stereophile...and they were posted sometime sept last year.

dkg999

I wouldn't waste any of my precious time reading AudioA$$hatHolics reviews anyway.

pvsat

heiney9 thanks for the reply ...i was not trying to get a war started...i posted a comment on the AH website asking why they did not have any polk review, i thght they were popular website..helped me in finding my HSU research sub... but looks like i was indeed wrong and there are lot more websites which review speakers...its just good to know how all of this works.

Kex

dkg999 wrote: »

I wouldn't waste any of my precious time reading AudioA$$hatHolics reviews anyway.

What? You don't appreciate bloated hyperbole? What's wrong with you? The last product I bought that they had written a flawless review about was very average IMO, and had lots of flaws that I identified. It was as if we didn't speak the same language, in fact, which just proves beyond any doubt that they are professionals and that I don't know a damn thing.

kingtut

I used to read AH reviews, until they started to sell the products that they reviewed. Can you say conflict of interest?

Matt34

The Monitor 30's where involved in a blind shoot-out awhile ago in which they compared favorable to the AV123 X-LS and HSU HB-1. I would like to see more Polk products reviewed.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/bookshelf/bookshelf-speaker-faceoff-2007

pvsat

that is great the polk was favoured against pretty good brands. It is however peculiar that every review site has some special words like "buttery smooth middle" and "harsh but detailed top end"...whatever that means.

has there ever been a reference set of benchmarks in terms of sounds and songs that everyone can run to compare their speakers. I somehow feel that looking at graphs and frequency responses is only half the story...most of us do not have the excellent acoustic room features that the reviewers have...how would they rate the same speakers in an ordinary living room, the "painful top end" might vanish if you have a living room with carpets and window draperies.

Matt34

pvsat wrote: »

that is great the polk was favoured against pretty good brands. It is however peculiar that every review site has some special words like "buttery smooth middle" and "harsh but detailed top end"...whatever that means.

has there ever been a reference set of benchmarks in terms of sounds and songs that everyone can run to compare their speakers. I somehow feel that looking at graphs and frequency responses is only half the story...most of us do not have the excellent acoustic room features that the reviewers have...how would they rate the same speakers in an ordinary living room, the "painful top end" might vanish if you have a living room with carpets and window draperies.

That's why I don't put much weight into professional reviews. Objective measurements will get you an idea and baseline to start with but it really comes down to testing the speakers in your own room and equipment.

Ender

pvsat wrote: »

that is great the polk was favoured against pretty good brands. It is however peculiar that every review site has some special words like "buttery smooth middle" and "harsh but detailed top end"...whatever that means.

has there ever been a reference set of benchmarks in terms of sounds and songs that everyone can run to compare their speakers. I somehow feel that looking at graphs and frequency responses is only half the story...most of us do not have the excellent acoustic room features that the reviewers have...how would they rate the same speakers in an ordinary living room, the "painful top end" might vanish if you have a living room with carpets and window draperies.

That's why it's almost always recommended to demo speakers in your environment and not listen to reviews as much.