I elected to try the S15 over the Elac B5 as the B5 has a poorly braced cabinet and I suspect that the bass will get a little plump sounding although they are supposed to be nice speakers. Anyway, I think the design of this line is very striking and I would like to commend the design team for bringing their vision out so tastefully (at least in my opinion).
If anybody likes small gadgets I recently acquired the iFi iOne Bluetooth enabled DAC. It is quite a nice little device and has allowed me to move my system onto my desk as the M51 would have been too large in conjunction with my M3. For headphones I had a custom speaker tap cable made so I drive my headphones right from the speaker terminals of my M3 integrated which is 180 real watts.
Is Polk ever going to make a bigger Signature center speaker. They even made a 6.5" TSX250c for the TSX line. I would live to see something like an S40 center with dual 6.5" drivers.
When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
Is Polk ever going to make a bigger Signature center speaker. They even made a 6.5" TSX250c for the TSX line. I would live to see something like an S40 center with dual 6.5" drivers.
Ya I wish they would for sure... I would ditch my s30... Don't get me wrong I like it but..
@D2Lo any plans on making a bigger center for the Signature line?
I'm currently using a TSX250c for my center, not that is sounds better than my S30 but I had to meet the WAF. I built my TV stand to fit a big center and the S30 just looked a little too small.
When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
S15 in the house. Initial impressions are quite favourable. These image nicely and sound very poised. I can only assume that the internal bracing is quite adequate and as I said, I passed on trying the Elac B5 as I insist on at least some efforts at internal bracing. I don't expect the world at this price point, but clearly Polk has at least done more than nothing internally, or at least it sounds like it. Nice fit and finish, certainly more than I would have expected for the cost. Very attractive design in my opinion, but I used to own some Energy C5 Connoisseurs which shared a similar aesthetic.
I am using the S15s with a REL T Zero sub under the desk. The room is quite small, long as opposed to wide and the smaller REL is quite adequate in this space. I find the S15s to be a little restrained in the upper frequencies. This is perceived as a very easy to listen to signature that will most assuredly never fatigue the listener. I am only using these at low volumes so tomorrow when I can turn them up a little I will see if they open up a little more.
Saying they are somewhat restrained shouldn't be interpreted as a negative. There are pros and cons to such a signature. I have had speakers that were too dynamic which may be initially exciting and engaging, but ultimately fatiguing, and I have had speakers that are too polite and lack dynamic presence and tend to be less engaging. I don't think the S15 will be in either camp, likely nicely in-between.
For the record I don't really believe a great deal in mechanical break-in, preferring to ascribe the touted effect to brain break-in, personally. Even so, I have never known something to be perceived as suddenly becoming subjectively brighter. I think what is happening can mostly be explained by the low frequency ability of the s15 being strong, in conjunction with a sub in a very near-field environment and lower playback volumes, resulting in the upper midrange and treble being a little overshadowed. The effect is nonetheless very pleasing and musical, and I suspect once I open the gain up they will start to demonstrate their truer signature. Even if the tonal balance never changed from what I'm perceiving now I would remain very pleased.
I am using the S15s with a REL T Zero sub under the desk. The room is quite small, long as opposed to wide and the smaller REL is quite adequate in this space. I find the S15s to be a little restrained in the upper frequencies. This is perceived as a very easy to listen to signature that will most assuredly never fatigue the listener. I am only using these at low volumes so tomorrow when I can turn them up a little I will see if they open up a little more.
Saying they are somewhat restrained shouldn't be interpreted as a negative. There are pros and cons to such a signature. I have had speakers that were too dynamic which may be initially exciting and engaging, but ultimately fatiguing, and I have had speakers that are too polite and lack dynamic presence and tend to be less engaging. I don't think the S15 will be in either camp, likely nicely in-between.
For the record I don't really believe a great deal in mechanical break-in, preferring to ascribe the touted effect to brain break-in, personally. Even so, I have never known something to be perceived as suddenly becoming subjectively brighter. I think what is happening can mostly be explained by the low frequency ability of the s15 being strong, in conjunction with a sub in a very near-field environment and lower playback volumes, resulting in the upper midrange and treble being a little overshadowed. The effect is nonetheless very pleasing and musical, and I suspect once I open the gain up they will start to demonstrate their truer signature. Even if the tonal balance never changed from what I'm perceiving now I would remain very pleased.
@mrloren, there are no plans to make a bigger center for the Signature Series.
I kind of figured that, is wishful thinking though Be nice if you guys did make a big center for the series.
When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
I also seen the new sub coming out next month that matches the signatures unfortunately it won't compete with the big boys..
Yep I just don't understand why they don't make a real sub that can hit 20hz or below. Perhaps after the new "best" series (LSiM replacement) comes out they will make a real sub...but then again, that might be wishful thinking as well...
HT Rig:
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
; Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
@rooftop59 The HTS12 reaches down to 22hrz and the HTS10 goes down to 25hrz.
Those aren't +/- 3 db ratings, those are -10 which while somewhat helpful are a little deceptive.
I should have been clear: a true sub, especially for HT, is flat (+/- 3 db) to 20 hz. The HTS12 only goes to 28hz, which as I said in another thread, makes it one amount many at that price...
HT Rig:
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
; Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
I have been looking at the Hsu vtf3 mk5 for a while now..
That is bass you can feel. I've had mine for about 6 months and love it
When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
We have a few subwoofers from Definitive Technology that will reach below 16hrz.
LOL.
That is actually true, but they cost like $1500 or more. You can get that from svs or hsu for under a grand...
EDIT: after brief research, I stand corrected. Def Tech used to have subs that could do this (the trinity and the reference), but sadly, no longer. The new top of the line sub - the supercube 8000 - measures three decibels down at 32 hz! for 1500 bucks!!! To quote our esteemed (cough) president, that's just sad...
We have a few subwoofers from Definitive Technology that will reach below 16hrz.
LOL.
That is actually true, but they cost like $1500 or more. You can get that from svs or hsu for under a grand...
EDIT: after brief research, I stand corrected. Def Tech used to have subs that could do this (the trinity and the reference), but sadly, no longer. The new top of the line sub - the supercube 8000 - measures three decibels down at 32 hz! for 1500 bucks!!! To quote our esteemed (cough) president, that's just sad...
Yeah there are reasons why a lot of us have HSU or SVS
When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
I suspect for those who play mostly music and not at insane levels, or requiring subterranean bass depths the Polks (referring to the subwoofer conversation) could do quite well. I just put some Blu-tak as speaker feet and it does really seem to help tighten up things and likely even sharpened the focus of the S15s. Maybe placebo, but whatever. Listening to some Keb Mo at a pretty decent volume and it's all nice and tight.
If anything the S15 is closing in on over controlled. The decay is very short on notes, so you get very quick response and a great deal of control for sure. Let me be clear, it is not a problem, in fact I could see many people preferring it and given a little more time I might also come to prefer it. Part of the issue for me might be that I have been using headphones almost exclusively for quite sometime so the presentation is different.
Anyway, the S15 is fast, rich and tight so hard to say that the slightly truncated decay is a problem. With things like upright acoustic bass lines like in the Holly Cole Trio material I'm playing now you seem to lose just a tiny bit of the note sustain, but in compensation as I said you get very tight and controlled bass. It is also common to have under controlled bottom end where the decay goes on too long and can turn music into soup and obscure detail. I think I really do like this presentation style, it just takes a little acclimation.
That is really odd, I swear I had a post go live here that I did early and now it seems to be gone? Not that it was at all critical, far from it I thought, but would a comment be removed? All I said was that I found the decay on the S15 perhaps a little truncated so that notes from say an upright bass pluck don't seem to reverberate quite as long. While that can be construed as a negative, I did point out that it can also be rather positive in that the sound of the bass is very clean and tight and is more than a fair trade-off for any possible loss of naturalness in the decay.
I did recently use Blu-tak to decouple as best I could from the desktop setting to clean up the sound and I'm wondering if the S15 may have been predominantly voiced in a coupled desktop setting and some of the decay may return if I remove the Blu-tak? And for the record, I'm not suggesting it is really bad, frankly it is fairly minor, but decay does tend to be something I notice as I have played drums off and on for more than 30 years and I as you might expect tune into bass instruments quite a bit by habit and as such decay is something that I retrieve from the music.
I have had other speakers that allowed too much decay which can make the sound muddy and less sharp so it can cut both ways. I hope I'm wrong and my previous post didn't make it through for technical reasons as opposed to being removed which I'm pretty sure didn't happen. Anyway, really loving the S15 and quite glad I decided to try them out.
I must say these speakers are quite transparent, they create such a lovely sound field that even though I'm using them quite near-field, they almost disappear. Quite a nifty feat for such an affordable speaker.
My personal feeling, and I admit that I'm rampantly speculating here, is that Polk is likely making a pretty low margin even by the standards of such a marginal industry in order to get attention and re-establish/reinvigorate their reputation which some seem to feel has perhaps fallen a little off of the good old days when Polk was commonly mentioned in many speaker conversations.
I'm not saying any of this is true, but I look at the fit and finish, obvious engineering efforts that went into this line and based on the reasonable retail pricing, there just can't be much meat left on the bones (meaning profit). Companies will do that, sometimes you spend money to make money later. If I'm correct at all, it is irrelevant, I am quite impressed by the S15 and hope that more people start trying the Signature Series.
Comments
If anybody likes small gadgets I recently acquired the iFi iOne Bluetooth enabled DAC. It is quite a nice little device and has allowed me to move my system onto my desk as the M51 would have been too large in conjunction with my M3. For headphones I had a custom speaker tap cable made so I drive my headphones right from the speaker terminals of my M3 integrated which is 180 real watts.
Thanks, I will do. They should arrive about Wednesday of this week.
Is Polk ever going to make a bigger Signature center speaker. They even made a 6.5" TSX250c for the TSX line. I would live to see something like an S40 center with dual 6.5" drivers.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
Ya I wish they would for sure... I would ditch my s30... Don't get me wrong I like it but..
I'm currently using a TSX250c for my center, not that is sounds better than my S30 but I had to meet the WAF. I built my TV stand to fit a big center and the S30 just looked a little too small.
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
;
Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
Bummer, @KenCustomerService any insight here?
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
Saying they are somewhat restrained shouldn't be interpreted as a negative. There are pros and cons to such a signature. I have had speakers that were too dynamic which may be initially exciting and engaging, but ultimately fatiguing, and I have had speakers that are too polite and lack dynamic presence and tend to be less engaging. I don't think the S15 will be in either camp, likely nicely in-between.
For the record I don't really believe a great deal in mechanical break-in, preferring to ascribe the touted effect to brain break-in, personally. Even so, I have never known something to be perceived as suddenly becoming subjectively brighter. I think what is happening can mostly be explained by the low frequency ability of the s15 being strong, in conjunction with a sub in a very near-field environment and lower playback volumes, resulting in the upper midrange and treble being a little overshadowed. The effect is nonetheless very pleasing and musical, and I suspect once I open the gain up they will start to demonstrate their truer signature. Even if the tonal balance never changed from what I'm perceiving now I would remain very pleased.
Saying they are somewhat restrained shouldn't be interpreted as a negative. There are pros and cons to such a signature. I have had speakers that were too dynamic which may be initially exciting and engaging, but ultimately fatiguing, and I have had speakers that are too polite and lack dynamic presence and tend to be less engaging. I don't think the S15 will be in either camp, likely nicely in-between.
For the record I don't really believe a great deal in mechanical break-in, preferring to ascribe the touted effect to brain break-in, personally. Even so, I have never known something to be perceived as suddenly becoming subjectively brighter. I think what is happening can mostly be explained by the low frequency ability of the s15 being strong, in conjunction with a sub in a very near-field environment and lower playback volumes, resulting in the upper midrange and treble being a little overshadowed. The effect is nonetheless very pleasing and musical, and I suspect once I open the gain up they will start to demonstrate their truer signature. Even if the tonal balance never changed from what I'm perceiving now I would remain very pleased.
I kind of figured that, is wishful thinking though
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
Yep I just don't understand why they don't make a real sub that can hit 20hz or below. Perhaps after the new "best" series (LSiM replacement) comes out they will make a real sub...but then again, that might be wishful thinking as well...
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
;
Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
@rooftop59 The HTS12 reaches down to 22hrz and the HTS10 goes down to 25hrz.
We have a few subwoofers from Definitive Technology that will reach below 16hrz.
Those aren't +/- 3 db ratings, those are -10 which while somewhat helpful are a little deceptive.
I should have been clear: a true sub, especially for HT, is flat (+/- 3 db) to 20 hz. The HTS12 only goes to 28hz, which as I said in another thread, makes it one amount many at that price...
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
;
Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
That is bass you can feel. I've had mine for about 6 months and love it
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
Looks like we will have close to th same setup.. Except the 60s and 55s..lol
LOL.
“I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.”
~ Johnny Cash
Did he leave the company?
Based on a previous comment by @KenCustomerService, yes.
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
;
Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
That is actually true, but they cost like $1500 or more. You can get that from svs or hsu for under a grand...
EDIT: after brief research, I stand corrected. Def Tech used to have subs that could do this (the trinity and the reference), but sadly, no longer. The new top of the line sub - the supercube 8000 - measures three decibels down at 32 hz! for 1500 bucks!!! To quote our esteemed (cough) president, that's just sad...
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/test-report-definitive-technology-studiomonitor-sm65-and-sm45-speakers-supercube-8000-1
Denon AVR-X4200w; Peachtree Audio NovaPre; B&K TX4430; Bryson BPD-1; Mains: Dynaudio Excite x18; Center - Polk cs400i; Heights, Center Surround - Klipsch KHC - 6 In-Ceiling; Surrounds - Monoprice in-ceiling; Sub - HSU VTF-2 MK5; LG UP870 4K BDP; NVidia ShieldTV
;
Master Bedroom
Cambridge Azur 551r; Definitive Technology SM45, NHT Super One CI surrounds, Martin Logan Dynamo (original), Squeezebox Touch
Bummer day, No big center, no more Michael.... cool guy gave us a tour of the Vista facility
Yeah there are reasons why a lot of us have HSU or SVS
Family Room:
Samsung UN60H,
Denon AVR-X4400H, Emotiva XPA3 GEN3
Oppo BDP-93,Sony UBP-X800BM, Sony DVP-NS3100ES, WD Live HUB.
Main: Polk Signature S60
Center: Polk CSi-A6
Front High/Rear High In-Ceiling Polk 80F/X RT
Surrounds: Polk S15
Sub: HSU VTF3-MK5
Bed Room;
Sony KDF-E42A10,
Marantz SR5010, BDP-S270
Main: Polk Signature S20
Center: Polk Signature S35
Rear: Polk R15
Sub: HSU STF-2
Working Warehouse;
Sony 2100ES
4 Polk RTi4 about 15' up the wall
Old sony 12" Sub
Mini tower PC with 400GB of music
If anything the S15 is closing in on over controlled. The decay is very short on notes, so you get very quick response and a great deal of control for sure. Let me be clear, it is not a problem, in fact I could see many people preferring it and given a little more time I might also come to prefer it. Part of the issue for me might be that I have been using headphones almost exclusively for quite sometime so the presentation is different.
Anyway, the S15 is fast, rich and tight so hard to say that the slightly truncated decay is a problem. With things like upright acoustic bass lines like in the Holly Cole Trio material I'm playing now you seem to lose just a tiny bit of the note sustain, but in compensation as I said you get very tight and controlled bass. It is also common to have under controlled bottom end where the decay goes on too long and can turn music into soup and obscure detail. I think I really do like this presentation style, it just takes a little acclimation.
I did recently use Blu-tak to decouple as best I could from the desktop setting to clean up the sound and I'm wondering if the S15 may have been predominantly voiced in a coupled desktop setting and some of the decay may return if I remove the Blu-tak? And for the record, I'm not suggesting it is really bad, frankly it is fairly minor, but decay does tend to be something I notice as I have played drums off and on for more than 30 years and I as you might expect tune into bass instruments quite a bit by habit and as such decay is something that I retrieve from the music.
I have had other speakers that allowed too much decay which can make the sound muddy and less sharp so it can cut both ways. I hope I'm wrong and my previous post didn't make it through for technical reasons as opposed to being removed which I'm pretty sure didn't happen. Anyway, really loving the S15 and quite glad I decided to try them out.
My personal feeling, and I admit that I'm rampantly speculating here, is that Polk is likely making a pretty low margin even by the standards of such a marginal industry in order to get attention and re-establish/reinvigorate their reputation which some seem to feel has perhaps fallen a little off of the good old days when Polk was commonly mentioned in many speaker conversations.
I'm not saying any of this is true, but I look at the fit and finish, obvious engineering efforts that went into this line and based on the reasonable retail pricing, there just can't be much meat left on the bones (meaning profit). Companies will do that, sometimes you spend money to make money later. If I'm correct at all, it is irrelevant, I am quite impressed by the S15 and hope that more people start trying the Signature Series.