New Polk Audio "Legend" Speaker Series shown at 2019 Hong Kong High End Audio Video Show
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“We are updating the list daily as more dealers sign on”.
Maybe we all just hold our horses until the dealer lists are finalized. These speakers were literally released days ago.2 Channel in my home attic/bar/man cave
2 Channel Focal Kanta 3 I Modwright SWL9.0 Anniversary Pre I Modwright PH9.0X I Modwright KWA-150SE I VPI Prime Signature w/ Soundsmith Zephyr MIMC I Lumin U2 Mini I North Star Designs Intenso DAC I Audience OHNO ICs/Audience Furutech FP-S55N and FP-S032N Power Cables/Acoustic Zen Satori I Isotek Sirius -
stangman67 wrote: »“We are updating the list daily as more dealers sign on”.
Maybe we all just hold our horses until the dealer lists are finalized. These speakers were literally released days ago.
They are 6 to 8 weeks out. This is the time of year floor plans are being set for Christmas. If they don’t have a list yet, I don’t mind at all being the guy to sound that alarm.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2800 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon MiND2 Shunyata Triton/Typhon Rotel RP9400 Turntable
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
How many flies need to be buzzing a dead horse before you guys stop beating it? -
KenCustomerService wrote: »@F1nut True, I am with Definitive now, but I still know everything that goes on with Polk, Denon, Marantz, and Classe. We are all in the same office. I sit next to the Brand Manager for Polk. I still want to help out when there are issues.
I reached out to the customer on the 9th, I am looking into it for him.
Also, glad everyone is excited about the new Polk Legend speakers, the team has been working hard on them for a long time!
Ken, nice to see you here! Hey, does anyone at Polk have any feedback for anyone here claiming to have particular "titles" or "offices" related to this forum? Because otherwise, I'd swear that my "Grand Poobahness" outranks anyone claiming to be, say, "President". Is this true?
I was elected by the members long before you joined. Nice to see you back causing trouble once again. -
The dealer search tool on the Polk front page shows me a Home Depot store some 40 miles from my home as the nearest Polk Dealer, when there is a Best Buy and a Fry’s that both carry the brand less than three miles away... I would say that tool is broken.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2800 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon MiND2 Shunyata Triton/Typhon Rotel RP9400 Turntable
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
How many flies need to be buzzing a dead horse before you guys stop beating it? -
I self appointed myself an appropriate title. I know you were all just being too nice to give it to me.
Aw crap, the red isn't working. How do you make it red?afterburnt wrote: »They didn't speak a word of English, they were from South Carolina.
Village Idiot of Club Polk -
Kencustomerservice as I said in an earlier post in mn sd and nd I anticipate maaayyybe one dealer to potentially carry them and he has golden ear, Klipsch, focal, paradigm, Martin Logan, kef, paradigm svs, and we as distributors I’m told won’t have access. While there are a lot of “prosource” members nationwide there aren’t that many in this territory especially that would display Polk Legend, your missing potential dealers that may make sense who are not prosource and some prosource dealers are oddly just tv and appliance dealers who don’t do home audio or home theater. At least in this territory big loss for Polk by limiting yourselves too much. No exposure.
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@nooshinjohn
The actual dealer locator is being replaced as well. We have two separate locators right now.
One for Legend dealers and one for regular Polk dealers. Home Depot does carry in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. But you are right, Fry's and Best Buy should show up too. -
My zip code is 91367 Ken.... enter that into the locator and see what you get.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2800 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon MiND2 Shunyata Triton/Typhon Rotel RP9400 Turntable
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
How many flies need to be buzzing a dead horse before you guys stop beating it? -
I have an in store demo dealer ten minutes away from me.
The location used to be a Tweeter store before that company folded. -
@nooshinjohn
A few Best Buys, Home Depots, Pacific Sales Kitchen and Bath, and Crazy Stereo.
All those make sense to me. Pacific sales sells our Kohler collaboration we did.
Then the Legend dealer locator shows the store in Orange County that I shared before.
The dealer locator for Polk and DT are both being re-worked. -
But those you found, they are all 40 miles away...
Once again, I know you are looking into it, but as Hyme2019 and I are pointing out, there are some massive and glaring holes in the marketing strategy if huge swaths of the country are not able to see or hear anything else Polk makes beyond a soundbar at Walmart and Best Buy.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2800 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon MiND2 Shunyata Triton/Typhon Rotel RP9400 Turntable
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
How many flies need to be buzzing a dead horse before you guys stop beating it? -
As far as I can piece together, ProSource is not a distributor, vendor or supplier. They are a marketing tool for the home automation/home theater/integration business. They do not buy or stock product. They offer their members a wide list of companies from which their members can potentially buy product from, but do not pick and choose with whom they must do business.
https://www.prosourceinfo.com/
As a member, one can obtain product from any vendor they do business with, which is a huge benefit to the member, but I fail to see how, with Polk not selling the Legend lineup direct to consumers, how a closed purchase network is going to get these speakers into the hands of those that want them if nobody within that group will carry or demo them. I have contacted 17 members of the ProSource network of dealers within the Los Angeles market, and NONE of them are willing to get their hands on them for me to listen to if I wanted to make a purchase, but are more than happy to sell me what they want to sell. There are only 4 members of this group that even have a customer showroom for gear to begin with.
Again, all I am trying to do is raise the concern and I am 100% confident that Ken will come through with answers.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2800 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon MiND2 Shunyata Triton/Typhon Rotel RP9400 Turntable
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
How many flies need to be buzzing a dead horse before you guys stop beating it? -
The closest dealer for me is Crutchfield... I would consider the drive if they had a really good show room. But it's still 8 hours round trip- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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There is a reason they chose this company to work with. How about some optimism prior to pessimism for once about a Polk launch? We don’t know what all goes on behind the scenes - it’s a new structure so let’s see how it plays out.
If the pessimism gets the good folks at Polk asking the right questions and thinking of solutions, then it is a good thing. I want these speakers to succeed beyond their wildest expectation, so that maybe we will see more SDA-enabled speakers in all pricing categories.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2800 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon MiND2 Shunyata Triton/Typhon Rotel RP9400 Turntable
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson
How many flies need to be buzzing a dead horse before you guys stop beating it? -
We also distribute for Kef and one thing they do is we can sell Kef Reference, but dealer needs individual authorization to sell anything above Q series, as well as, Kef makes sure dealer isn’t just trying to steal undercut a Kef direct or preauthorized dealer. You could do the same thing with Legend, get more exposure to dealers and still protect the line. Again in this territory, 3 state area, just ball park guessing maybe 15-20 total prosource dealers less than 5 would be serious candidates of the Legend series and of those I can think of one that I see doing it, but Polk will be their 7-8th speaker line which he’s very committed to, but I can think of numerous serious 2 channel stores that would be perfect who aren’t prosource. Even companies like b & w and McIntosh are opening distribution of their lines more than what you guys are proposing for the Legend series.
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I think everyone is forgetting about the length of the product lifecycle on products like the Legend series. I believe the LSiM series was announced 9 years ago. I'd expect the L800s to have a similar lifecycle. It's not like Bluetooth speakers that launch a model at CES and a new model before Christmas. They have time.
Honestly, for a big company like Sound United, reviews are going to hold more value than dealers for this initial launch period. A comparable product was the JBL L100 (and really the retro-revamp of the majority of the JBL Synthesis line). Those speakers were announced Jan 2018, taken to countless shows, advertised in all the big publications, and reviews were flowing like wild over the first 6-8 months. But you still couldn't find them anywhere for almost a year except for Harman's long term specialty installers (similar to what's happening with L800).
But the hype train was moving as the review units made their rounds while dealer and customer interest was growing.
Then Music Direct picked them up as a major ecomm vendor.
Then bigger chains of specialty dealers started to pick them up (Star Power, most places that carry Revel lines).
And now, about 18-20 months later, they are finally starting to trickle into specialty audio stores.
Give it time. If these live up to the hype, they will end up in more and more stores. Especially at their price point. It just might take a year or two to make it into places that seem like very obviously choices.Analog: Hana ML > VPI Prime Signature 21 > Bob's Devices Sky 20-S > Sutherland 20/20 w/LPS
Digital: Cambridge CXC / Streaming > Cambridge CXN v2
Norma IPA-140 > Rosso Fiorentino Volterra
Hifiman EF600 > Hifiman Arya Stealth
Discogs -
Prosource is a buying group. Marketing company is a good way to describe them, but in essence they are a distributor. Dealers pay a fee say $250 a month, every month and as part of that they get discounts on supported brands. Years ago it maybe wasn’t uncommon for there to be a 7-10 percent difference between distribution and buying groups, but that’s all gone due to various reasons including competition and low margins the difference now I would say is 3-4 percent on average, 5-6-7 percent max. Besides you have to figure in that a dealer pays the fees every month, dealers who don’t do At least $150,0000 in. Purchases a year it doesn’t make sense.
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Nooshinjohn your perception of what prosource is is pretty accurate. Please don’t take what I’m saying is that they are bad in any way, it’s just there are a carrying degree of dealers many who are prosource who again aren’t candidates for this product. Furthermore if you look up avb BrandSource that is the parent buying group, prosource is designed specifically for electronics and CI channels, I got a list recently and there were dealers who were listed as prosource that by my count should be just BrandSource so the numbers can be deceiving. Again prosource equals CI and BrandSource is appliances and tvs.
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Ahh sorry varying degree not carrying, sorry
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DSkip up here McIntosh has hired a rep firm not too terribly long ago and trust me the protected dealers of which there were few are less than happy because the rep firm has been signing on new dealers left and right. And just this last week same thing happened with b and w but different rep firm.
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I don’t agree Skip.
I think increased competition only hurts the bad dealers. If a dealer is getting hurt because customers have increased choices, it’s because they were not taking care of their customers.
I’m also big into cycling, we have been seeing this same dynamic playing out with local bike shops (LBS). Online competition has has put extra pressure on the LBS network and many have not weathered the storm.
However from what I’ve seen, it’s the poor LBS that got hit hardest. It’s a natural cleansing of the market place.
Increased competition makes dealers better and makes the whole experience better for the customer.
I think that’s a very, very good thing. -
DeletedSince we don’t know where we are going we have to stick together in case someone gets there….Ken Kesey.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper REALLY likes you.
And the boots you lick will stomp you too. -
I imagine with LBS it is a more service-oriented business, right? This is just selling product. When you have dealers invest six figures in your gear to demo it and you allow another guy down the street to become a dealer with a minimal investment that steals sales from the bigger guy, you've already began to lose. If it continues to happen, you end up with the big dealer dropping the brand and a bunch of little guys who don't represent the brand properly. The biggest issue I see here is that the brands mentioned are going to be repped by home theater integrators, not two channel enthusiasts. HT Integrators do not keep inventory and rarely have any demo products - they only sell based on price and interest.
It's a slippery slope.
A very, very small part of a LBS business is based on service. Usually around 10%
The money comes from bike sales.
Like audio, cycling has a traditional brick and mortar style business that allowed bike shops to be generally isolated. Customers wanted to experience the product before slapping down thousands of dollars, high end bikes can easily exceed $10,000 today. Was it the right fit for THEM, bikes are very personal.
Honestly, audio and cycling are VERY similar industries...
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nooshinjohn wrote: »The dealer search tool on the Polk front page shows me a Home Depot store some 40 miles from my home as the nearest Polk Dealer, when there is a Best Buy and a Fry’s that both carry the brand less than three miles away... I would say that tool is broken.
Dude -- I would totally buy a pair of L800s from Home Depot!
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Knowing home depot, it would be in the gardening section- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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mhardy6647 wrote: »
And you can't find anybody to get them down.Since we don’t know where we are going we have to stick together in case someone gets there….Ken Kesey.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper REALLY likes you.
And the boots you lick will stomp you too. -
I agree that time will tell all. I'm hoping for Polk that these get labeled as giant killers. Then, those with $4K-$10K to spend on speakers might take notice. If they get some to stretch their budget and others to spend less and adopt Polk into the audiophile fold, then they'll be on to something. Polk is large enough to make some noise in the marketplace.displayname wrote: »Give it time. If these live up to the hype, they will end up in more and more stores. Especially at their price point. It just might take a year or two to make it into places that seem like very obviously choices.
Still, lets not forget the LSiM saga. I lived in MI, then moved to IN and could not find a place to demo the speakers in either area. I just knew there would be a huge selection in IL, greater Chi area. However, the choices were not there at all. Only Abt Electronics carried the line and they had very limited selections (703) of the LSiM on display. The 707 is $4K set. So, the smart people at Polk have a lot to figure out and a lot of work to do to move the $6K speakers and more expensive family.
Reviews will help....get them in the hands of all who don't refuse them!
I used to work in the cycling industry and I agree! Back in the late 80's- early 90's the deep pocket customers that were spending $2K-$4K expected the dealer to cater to them and assist with the fit from pre-sales through years after the sale. Most wouldn't purchase from you if they did not trust in your service and satisfaction guarantee. Do them right the first time and they'll ALWAYS come back for that second, third, fourth, etc purchase. There was a lot of competition back then but I don't think that is true today. Still, the dealer network is crucial.Upstatemax wrote: »A very, very small part of a LBS business is based on service. Usually around 10%
The money comes from bike sales.
Like audio, cycling has a traditional brick and mortar style business that allowed bike shops to be generally isolated. Customers wanted to experience the product before slapping down thousands of dollars, high end bikes can easily exceed $10,000 today. Was it the right fit for THEM, bikes are very personal.
Honestly, audio and cycling are VERY similar industries...
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5.2 A/V Setup | OLED TV - Sony Bravia XR A80J 77" | Source - Fire TV 4K Max, Wiim Pro | AVR - Anthem MRX 520 | Integrated - Musical Fidelity A5 | Speakers: Main - Boston Acoustics VS 336 | Center - Boston Acoustics VS 325c | Rear - Boston Acoustics VR-MX | Sub 1 - Boston Acoustics VPS 210 | Sub 2 - HSU VTF-2 mk3 -
I live in NW Ohio. I can drive an hour north to Ann Arbor and listen to $250K Wilson Audios and $125K Sonus Fabers. I had. to drive 3.5 hours to a fellow Polkie's house to hear the LSiM's. I REALLY hope the Legends aren't a repeat of that experience.2-channel Yaqin B2-T Pre, Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 2, Marantz SA8005, Pro-Ject RPM-10 Turntable, Denon DP-59L Pro-Ject Phono Box DS3B, Polk Audio Legend L800's, AudioQuest Cable throughout.
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I have been starting to follow the new line up. Was surprised to find an upcoming event at Nebraska Furniture Mart in the DFW area. Not sure I will be able to experience the full line in a quality way.
You ever try to talk audio with the sales associates at NFM??? They may have been selling toasters or area rugs yesterday.2 Channel Rosso Fiorentino Volterra II, 2 REL T9x, Norma Revo IPA-140B, Norma Revo DAC-2, Lumin U2 Mini, VPI Prime w/SoundSmith Zephyr MIMC, ModWright PH-150, SonoruS ATR10, AudioQuest Niagara 7000 w/Dragon power cable, WAY power cables for all other sources, WAY Silver 3 Ana+ speaker cables, WAY interconnect cables
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