Polk L200 Speaker Demo Reviews

V.
As mentioned previously, I also listened to the L200’s in another rig with Pioneer Elite SC-27 receiver and OPPO 205. This rig was somewhat less engaging and perhaps muted to some extent, but I attribute that to the gear and not the L200’s. Nevertheless, David Gilmore’s Live At The Royal Albert Hall Blu-ray was still almost haunting at times, especially “The Blue” with David Crosby and Graham Nash on harmonies. The high guitar notes on the solo showed the tweeter to be somewhat sublime. The sax solo and the keyboards on the opening to “Red Sky At Night” were full and detailed.

Joe Bonamassa Live From The Royal Albert Hall DVD, as well as his Live At Carnegie Hall An Acoustic Evening Blu-Ray are not the greatest recording and production, perhaps somewhat subdued, but the intro to the latter opens with piano and acoustic guitar with full and rich notes and a tight cello follows. Imagining again outstanding. The Albert Hall show is a bit more of a dynamic recording and also displayed the L200’s imaging skills together with focused guitar notes.

I went back to the LsiM 703’s for an extended re-evaluation, and my reaction was essentially the same. The L200’s are more accurate and lively in their presentation, and the tweeter in the L200s is special as Steve Guttenberg says. Yet, the L200’s sacrifice little in the low end. I don’t suppose either the 703 or the L200 is going to make you want to stand on your chair and propose a toast to the vast width of the soundstage, but the sound stage extended to the outer edges of the speakers in both cases, and the imaging and weight is excellent on both, with the L200 winning out in imaging and three dimensionality. I acknowledge it has been difficult for me to assess the relative low ends of the two bookies. The 703’s have a really good low end for bookies, and I would have liked more time to specifically assess the low end of the 703 against the L200, but the reality of time precluded it. The 703’s may dig a bit deeper, or give the impression perhaps of digging deeper, if that makes any sense, but the precise relative low end propensities of each remained unclear to me when I passed the L200’s on to the next recipient. Perhaps I will have another opportunity at some point in the future to more thoroughly evaluate this issue, when I am more dedicated to audio than I am now

An astute reader will surmise at this point that the present reviewer has not answered the question initially poised as the first question everybody wants to know about the L200’s: are these bookies worth the asking price? Should they be $1,500? $1,200? To avoid a detailed philosophical discussion of the verities of capitalism in the post-modern era, I will analogize to my Taylo Reference Monitors. A two-way with Scanspeak tweeters and Seas woofers, the drivers alone probably go for around $1,200. 5-8 ohm, 44 Hz-25kHz, sensitivity of 88 db. The Taylo’s have a high-quality wood cabinet and are often called a value at a price far exceeding the L200’s, and nobody blinks an eye turning their wallet over for them. They are very nice bookies and are gushed over. The bottom end of the Taylo’s loses to the L200’s. The L200’s are also more 3-dimensional than the Taylo’s. The Taylo’s have luscious mid-range and excellent tweeters that can be listened to for extended periods without fatigue. Yet, the L200’s also have a full and dynamic mid and upper register that I found never fatiguing - in fact the L200’s are wonderfully pleasurable. I found the sound stages similar. I would like to spend an extended period A/B’ing both speakers, but my point is this: often our expectations and judgments are colored by bias and even to some extent by negativity, which seems so quick and ubiquitous in these new dark ages. Some will pronounce that the L200 would be more appropriately priced at $1,500 and then turn around and purchase an in-vogue brand name bookie at a much higher price only to be “quietly disappointed.” Plus, we don’t know the involvement of bean counters in any equation. You know, the guys who keep their office doors closed, and you slip stuff under their door and then its back outside the door the following morning. But bean counters exist from A to Usher. (I can say that the L200’s fairly dusted my Dynaudio Audience 72’s that were previously in the rig with the Pioneer Elite and OPPO. The dynamic range of the L200’s was more extended and more refined.)

As I mentioned at the outset, I agree principally with Steve Guttenberg’s review of the L200’s. They are really good bookies. Smooth, extended, detailed, with excellent high end articulation and overall dynamics. Yet, they also have a bass weight and low end extension that is quite remarkable for a bookie. Excellent drivers and associated crossovers. Aside from SDA’s – I cannot speak to SDA’s here- but from what I’ve heard at this point I believe Polk accurately states that the Legends are the best speakers Polk has ever made. The L200’s are a joy to listen to. They are “hi-fidelity” speakers in the classic sense of the phrase. In this regard, I fully realize my gear is rather low-end compared to some on the forum but I feel confident that the better the gear the better the L200’s will sound, like most high quality speakers do.

Thanks to Jesse for organizing and riding herd on this demo. Not an easy job to say the least. If you think it’s an easy job with this crew, you shall spend your remaining days on a stairway to nowhere in Hades listening to audio through a fish tank filter. Also, a genuine tip ‘o the proverbial hat to Polk Audio and everyone at Polk associated with bringing the Legend series to the light of day – based on what I’ve heard from these bookies, I can’t wait to hear the L600’s and the new SDA’s.

I will NOT be writing a review like that.