Polk L200 Speaker Demo Reviews

Late to the party, I apologize. I haven't had time to listen to music let alone write about listening to music, had to set some things aside but was able to poke my head in here a few times. Now I have a vacation going on I can relax a little.

My review won't be as eloquently descriptive as some here, big thumbs up to many taking time to write very in depth reviews.

For the most part I enjoyed them, I had an idea of how they would sound but was impressed that they didn't possess that, smaller, slightly boxy signature but they tended to fill the room quite easily and sounded quite larger then they appear.

My gear is all solid-state, consisting of a modified McCormack DNA-1, RLD-1, Synergistic Atmosphere 1 IC's and Atmosphere 2 speaker cables.

I played many familiar CD tracks from Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Gabriel, The Police, Sarah McLachlan, Pink Floyd, and a few others..mostly pop and rock. I also played some Tidal streamed from the Aries Mini to the Marantz SA8005.

For the good, my first impression was they are doing a great job of getting a lot of the detail out of the recording. I was thinking something has to give but when asked to reach high the tweeter never seemed to run out of steam. The bass was tight and not overly boomy and I agree the gap between the midrange to the tweeters seemed non-existent.

The soundstage was quite large but took a bit to get the toe-in dialed in. I kept focusing my attention deep into the soundstage and was impressed with the detail these bookies provide.

For the more critical review, maybe hearing the 2.3TL's or the Monitor 7B's for quite awhile, I was overly accustomed to the silk dome tweeter. I want to speculate the L200's sound very nice on tube gear, and this isn't saying SS gear doesn't mate well, however there were a couple areas that stood out.

I thought the higher frequencies at times had this very, very slight edginess but not harsh. almost like you went a hair over on the sharpness setting on your TV. Not bright or fatiguing by any means, very easy to listen to. However the overall character of what I was hearing in terms of treble, had this sense of grain that was so fine it was encroaching on what I thought was the natural sound of either a female vocal or an instrument in this frequency range. I don't want to use the term analytical, only because in my room I think that would be going a few steps more in the wrong direction, kind of hard to describe but hope that makes sense.

The midrange was quite pleasing, accurate and quick, guitar strings were well-defined and vocals were smooth and clear. This could have been a room anomaly, but there were many times there was an absence of lower mid-bass in where I could feel the attack but couldn't pull where I heard it. When I hear a bass guitar, I can hear and feel the bass when the volume is turned up, but could have been a cancellation somewhere but at higher volumes it seemed at times there was a void in the faster transitions with the lower mid-bass.

I think these speakers would excel with jazz and tubes. A few tracks that really came alive were "Don't let me be misunderstood" by Elvis Costello and "Fever" by Ray Charles & Natalie Cole.

I think they perform admirably for their price point, would love to hear them with tubes. Small sidestep....they almost sound like they have components that would be better fit in a smaller cabinet, and these L200 cabinets would do better with a different mix of components. I feel the L200 would fit the bill of the entry level bookies in regards to their sound, opening the door for a L300. This isn't a negative poke, but after hearing the L200, I don't think I would want to go lower in the series.