Polk Audio Monitor Speaker: Polk Audio Monitor 50 2-Way Floorstanding Speaker (Single, Black)

Product Description

sold individually * video-shielded * bass-reflex design * frequency response 57-24,000 Hz (-3dB) * handles up to 150 watts * warranty: 5 years *

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #1061 in Consumer Electronics
Color: Black
Brand: Polk Audio
Model: AM5025-A
Dimensions: 28.00 pounds

Features

Single 2-way floorstanding speaker that delivers high performance at a reasonable price
Equipped with dual 5.25-inch bi-laminate composite dynamic-balance drivers
Equipped with one 1-inch silk polymer-composite dynamic-balance dome tweeter
All MDF construction and extensive cabinet bracing ensure resonance-free enclosures
Magnetic shielding allows safe placement next to TVs and video monitors

Editorial Reviews

From the Manufacturer
The Polk Audio Monitor 50 2-way Floorstanding Speaker, Black Finish (single) is a quality-built, high-performance, yet affordable loudspeaker for music and home theater. The Polk Monitor 50 provides open, spacious and clear audio even when driven by modestly-powered amplifiers and receivers, and is voice matched for lifelike surround-sound environments. This monitor boasts a stylish look that complements today's flat screen technology, with a discreet black finish, beefy stabilizer feet that ensure stability on carpet or hard floors, and a slim tower design that has a footprint of less than one square foot.

The Polk Monitor 50 utilizes a one-inch fabric and polymer-composite dynamic-balance dome tweeter with a powerful neodymium magnet structure that delivers a clear and detailed high frequency response for realistic reproduction of vocals and instruments, as well as dual 5.25-inch bi-laminate composite dynamic-balance drivers that are lightweight and stiff with good dampening for high efficiency, excellent bass and lower distortion. This unit's non-resonant all-MDF enclosure construction with 0.75-inch-thick baffles, and front-to-back and side-to-side internal bracing ensures cleaner and more lifelike sound quality. The Monitor 50 features crossovers that use Mylar bypass capacitors for more detailed high frequencies, five-way binding-post connectors for more secure hook-up options and bi-wiring and bi-amping flexibility, and magnetic shielding for safe placement on or near TVs and video monitors without causing video distortion. This unit includes a critically-tuned flared port that minimizes port noise for good low-frequency extension with minimal distortion, resulting in natural, full-bodied and rich-bass sound. Built for speed, sound and value, the Polk Monitor 50 is a great introduction to high-performance sound.

Customer Reviews

Great bass, nice appearance
I was replacing crummy, but reliable large old RCA speakers. These L/R Polk speakers fit in nicely around my Samsung LCD. I can't have too loud sounds because I'm in an apartment. I actually had to turn the bass down on the Onkyo receiver because of these speakers! They fill the room better and sound richer.

I got a Polk CS1 center speaker with these and they all sound great! Good for a budget, but not budget-sounding.

Not bad at these prices...
The Polk website lists these babies at a whopping four hundred sixty bucks MSRP...now if you're paying anywhere near that, I'd say you're nuts because there's far better speakers available at that pricepoint. Luckily the street prices on the Polk Monitor line keep dropping, perhaps due to fierce competition from both high-quality Internet-direct manufacturers like av123, Ascend, SVS, Hsu, etc. and as more speakers are now produced in cut-rate China, such as the Usher Audio S-520. At the one hundred thirty bucks shipped each price that Amazon currently has them at, however, this is an excellent value---mainly because these being floorstanding rather than bookshelf speakers, you don't have to spend any money on speaker stands, which would start at around eighty to a hundred bucks and negate any price advantage of bookshelf speakers.

The Monitor 50 is basically identical to the Monitor 40 in terms of not only having the same two 5.25" mid-woofers and 1" silk tweeter, but surprisingly the much larger cabinet of the 50 does not seem to give you any extra bass extension: both the 40 and the 50 are listed by Polk as going down to 57Hz, which means that having a powered subwoofer is highly recommended, especially if you are using these speakers for home theater (DVDs)---and particularly if you watch a lot of big-budget action flicks where the subwoofer really makes or breaks your system, particularly in a large open space.

For critical music listening, the Polk Monitor is decent, but hardly anything to write home about. That's "critical music listening"---wherein one sits in front of the speakers and listens intently to the nuances, details, balance and tonality of the musical output, in contrast to casual listening where you're perhaps preparing a meal in the kitchen at the same time, or dusting the furniture, etc. Critical music listeners, look elsewhere, and be prepared to spend at least two hundred fifty to four hundred dollars for a truly good pair of bookshelf speakers such as the Infinity Beta 20s or Ascend CBM-170s.

For everyone else, meaning those who mainly watch DVDs, TV, and play video games, the Monitor series will be plenty adequate. The silk tweeters give you decent detail, the 89db sensitivity means that you don't need some massive super-powerful amp to drive these, and the double-woofer d'Apollito (midwoof-tweeter-midwoof) design of the Monitor 50 and 40 will give you a nice full midrange and room-filling output.