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Rating: 
Summary: Pick A Cherry!
Review: A somewhat small floorstanding tower isn't supposed to outperform its bigger brethren...is it? Well...guess what...this one does...BIG TIME!!!
Comprised of a 6 1/2" composite woofer and a 3/4" silk dome tweeter the Polk R30 "cherry" finished speakers outperform anything...and I DO mean ANYTHING comparable to its size and price and just about any speaker system costing seven to eight times its price! The "bass" goes much deeper than most give it credit for while never being overpowering or interfering with the seductive detailed "midrange" and "highs".
In a small room...it is a giant killer! At its ridiculously low price and used with vintage Pioneer receivers and amplifiers this just under three foot high "cherry" wonder cannot be equalled by anything else! Not Paradigm, PSB, DefTech, Bose, Sony, BIC, Wharfedale, Vandersteen, Boston, JBL, Advent, AR, Magnepan or just about any speaker you can think of.
The transducer has a most uncanny ability to present a tremendously generous "soundstage" while reproducing subtlety and detail unmatched by most others at any price! It simply involves you in the musical performance regardless of genre.
The Polk R30 is now my reference system. It has taken me a long time to match such a proper speaker to my small room and ironically at a fraction of the price I was willing to pay! It is the last loudspeaker I'll ever own as all others are just plain overkill. Polk R30 Cherry...BEAUTIFUL!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good floor standing speakers
Review: Bought these to work with a CSi30 Center channel, two R15 surrounds and a PSW202 Subwoofer (it came free with a purchase of $X from a local electronics store, i bought an Surround Sound Amp and a DVD player). When running DTS or Dobly Digital they match seamlessly. When listening to stereo music with the subwoofer off, they sound good, low bass is a bit lacking, but nothing to lament over. My R30's get about 90% home theater usage. I would recommend them in conjunction with other Polk Audio speakers.
Rating: 
Summary: Polk Audio R30 spreakers are horrid
Review: I just had a pair of Polk Audio R30 towers delivered for $49.99 each + shipping from Outpost.com. I connected them to both a Harmon-Kardon HK 3480 receiver and Hafler DH-220 power amplifier and listed to them with a variety of sources including Scott Ross's classic Scarlatti harpsichord, acoustic Johnny Cash, William Clark, the Doors, and others.
In all cases I found the speakers to have an overly bright high end and midrange that sounds so strained it is as if it is coming through a tin cans on a string. The midrange imaging is all but non-existent because it is so strained, and the high end is grating.
After living with them for 2 days I find I can no longer listen to them because the bad sound irritates to no end.
I have a set of Creative Inspire computer speakers I bought for $50 that sound an order of magnitude better than the Polk Audi R30's. These speakers are tinny and unlistenable and are a waste of time and money at any price.
Rating: 
Summary: Basically a cheap bookshelf with a stand
Review: I tried out one of these at Circuit City, they had them for a hundred forty a pair on Black Friday and only at that price point these would be a decent purchase. When I see them retailing at close to three hundred regular price, my heart just goes out to the poor fools who'd pay that much for these.
See, the R30s are virtually identical to the R20, which (see my review on it) is a very disappointing speaker especially coming from a respected name like Polk. Well, this speaker basically just puts the R20 in a taller cabinet with a front port on the very bottom, which does create slightly better bass---though strong bass was about the only good thing about the R20 in the first place, the mids and highs were atrocious and the speaker distorts quickly at high volumes. It sounded slightly better with my receiver speaker settings on "small" and the low frequencies being handled by my sub.
For just a little over two hundred dollars shipped at ac4less dot com you can get the mordaunt short 906 towers which blows these out of the water. Use it with a sub and you'll be very happy, in this price range.
Rating:
Summary: Polk finally gets one of their tower models to sound right!
Review: These two towers are quite the showmen for small floorstanding speakers. The tweeters are 1" silk, and they sound nice!. The tweeters open up a little more than the usual sweet spot sound effect you'd get from others. The bass driver is fair sized, pretty tight firing, and not too clumsy. Front oversized porting for the driver helps ease the stress of any large 'boofs' of bass on these. I found a number of larger Polk 'R' series tower speakers to sound too beefy, and not very clean sounding when it came to detail. These smaller ones mop the floor with them when it comes to clean bass and detail, and still give plenty of power to boot! If you really want a fantastic speaker that's equally priced, but constructed better with superior sound (honestly), look into Paradigm, or PSB! Still, thumbs up for Polk. These are quite the little towers. Not the gold medal, but definitely a bronze medal contender!
Rating:
Summary: Polk finally gets one of their tower models to sound right!
Review: These two towers are quite the showmen for small floorstanding speakers. The tweeters are 1" silk, and they sound nice!. The tweeters open up a little more than the usual sweet spot sound effect you'd get from others. The bass driver is fair sized, pretty tight firing, and not too clumsy. Front oversized porting for the driver helps ease the stress of any large 'boofs' of bass on these. I found a number of larger Polk 'R' series tower speakers to sound too beefy, and not very clean sounding when it came to detail. These smaller ones mop the floor with them when it comes to clean bass and detail, and still give plenty of power to boot! If you really want a fantastic speaker that's equally priced, but constructed better with superior sound (honestly), look into Paradigm, or PSB! Still, thumbs up for Polk. These are quite the little towers. Not the gold medal, but definitely a bronze medal contender!
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