Polk Forum Giveaway!

My first Polk product was not a good one. The legendary PSW125. Purchased new, the amp plate failed one month out of warranty. It's legendary because no one has owned one where the amp plate didn't fail prematurely. The customer service rep felt my pain and gave me a discount on a new amp plate. Back then your customer service was also legendary.... for being outstanding.

I joined the forum years later, after buying some used Polk HT speakers and I needed some assistance. Every purchase since, whether it be speakers, cables or equipment is due to the recommendations from the members of this forum. A true gem. They try and get the best sound out of your speakers and they don't care how much of your money they spend doing it. I had to make some compromises, but I'm happy.

Currently own RTi8, CSi5, F/XiA6, F/Xi3, two pairs of LSiM703, LSiM706c and a couple of Polk subs, not currently in use.

Soundscape in Baltimore was Polk's first dealer. As an undergrad at Matt Polk's alma mater in the 1970s with no money, but good access to Soundscape, I spent lots and lots of time looking, listening, and learning. I still have a flashbulb memory of my first audition of a pair of "Monitor 7" loudspeakers -- the eponymous album by The David Grisman Quintet. A year or so of dedicated listening to comparable, cheaper, and (much) more expensive loudspeakers convinced me that, dollar for dollar, the "Polk 7" simply couldn't be bettered.
As soon as I'd scraped together enough money to buy a pair (demos), I did.
Still have 'em.
Still love 'em.

Geez, Polk origin story?

Polk Audio EX 402's in the dash of my 1987 Ford Ranger. I think I got them in 1995, maybe early 1996.

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/24517/i-think-this-was-posted-before-but-what-was-your-first-system

Those EX 402's are still there and they still work.

That only started the journey. I got a Thunderbird a couple years later and installed Polk Audio dB3065 components and a dB10 subwoofer and started competing in local audio events. Did well enough to get noticed but didn't really know what I was doing until I got my Lightning in 2001. I moved all the dB speakers to the Lightning and got myself a fancypants Kenwood eXcelon X650-D 5 channel amp. I bi-amped the dB3065 components and ran the sub off the 5th, D-class sub channel. Gave it a Kenwood eXcelon KRC-PS955 head unit. That was a mask unit where the face plate flipped around to a blank panel when off. All the shows everyone thought I had a "special order" because it had a "radio delete" panel. Blew people's minds when I'd start it up and it would just flip around and start jammin' out.

That setup won a few competitions. I built a DB Drag car with a Polk MOMO MM12 sub and a big Profile amp and stuffed it in a 1998 Taurus and racked up wins from Maryland to New York for it's class. I put a Polk Audio MOMO setup in a friend's Jeep. Stuffed 8 speakers, 3 amps and 2 subwoofers into that thing, hiding everything without impacting utility. He won awards for installation and execution.

Then I met George Grand here on the forums and the rabbit hole just got deeper from there. Way deeper! SDA 2B's signed by Matt Polk, hosted two Polkfests myself, built a home theater with the Vanishing Series of in-walls, donated a set of speakers to Polk Paul DiComo for his Polk Museum at HQ, I even have Polk Audio speakers on my computer right now that came with Silicon Graphics workstations and the kid's game room has a set of Polk R15's and a Polk C4 car subwoofer running off of a NAD stereo amp bridged to a single channel. I just repaired the plate amp of a Polk DSW MicroPRO 4000 subwoofer too. I think it'll be neat to set it up next to the Polk DSW Pro 550wi subwoofer I have and see which one can vibrate itself across the floor faster on test tones! I hope the house can hold up!

Ugh, I'll stop now. That's only half of the Polk Audio stuff that's passed through my hands too. There's DX series speakers, EXII speakers, DB2 speakers, there's Monitor 5's hanging around here with custom stands my dad built, there's MOMO series speakers, there's a Polk MiDOCK, several sets of headphones, an Omni S2R and a couple Omni S2's, several sets of headphones including the UltraFocus 8000's and a couple of those Sirius XM tuners, one signed by Matt Polk as well. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff too. Especially stuff I don't have anymore like a full RTi home theater setup and a a full RT5000 HT. I gave both of them away to families that wanted a home theater but didn't have a home theater budget. I wasn't using them so I sent them somewhere to get some use instead of collecting dust in my garage.

Stopping for real now before I start babbling on about the Mobile Monitors from the mid-90's and the 3-way components...

I think I might have a problem.

I used to drool over Polk Monitor 7 speakers in the Base Exchanges in Europe back in the mid-1980s, but the first pair of Polk branded speakers I owned were a pair of mid-1990s computer speakers with a curved cabinet design that were supposed to clip onto a computer monitor. I think they were designed for Hewlett Packard.

My first exposure to Polk was in the late 80’s when I walked in to Broadway Music in downtown Salt Lake City. I was in my late teens, and knew nothing of home audio (only car audio to that point). I walked into the main showroom and stopped dead in my tracks - there in front of me were the most magnificent speakers I had ever seen - the SDA SRS. Prior to that, the largest speakers I had seen were the Realistic Mach 2 pair that my friend’s dad had. Needless to say, I was awestruck. To the salesman’s credit, he didn’t ignore this young kid that could barely afford parking, he actually gave me a demo. He played track 3 off Telarc Time Warp (Star Trek score). When the bass hit about 3 seconds in, it scared the hell out of me - the depth, clarity and POWER just blew me away. Every pair of speakers I listened to over the next 20 years suffered by comparison to those big Polks.

Fast forward 6 years (1994ish) I had gotten my first big bonus. Not big enough for the SDA SRS, but I went back to Broadway Music and looked up that same salesman that treated me like an adult years prior. I purchsed a pair of LS70, a CS 350LS and a pair of LS/FX. My first real home theater. Those LS70 were my main HT speakers for 20 years, and when they were replaced in the HT, they served daily duty in my family room setup for another 15 years. I just passed them on to a young married kid for $100 last year - his first pair of real speakers (his words). I still have the center and surrounds…

Note: I take no responsibility for the various and sundry typos and misapprehensions reproduced in the vintage Gordon Miller Music catalog scan above.

Stereo Review magazine led me to Polk speakers back in my high school and college years. Bought a pair of Model 10Bs new from the local hi-fi store. That began a long-term relationship with the owner of the store and one of their salesmen. Spent more time in that store than I should've for the amount of money I ever spent there, but their graciousness with their time and demoing stuff they had a passion for whether they thought I could afford it, or not, really grew my interest in the hobby.

I upgraded to a set of RTA 15TLs from there in the early-90's, which I still have and use practically daily and which brought me to the forum a few years ago. That same dealer let @charley96 and me take a pair to other stores and demo those suckers against practically everything out there in the price range at the time and we kept coming back to the Polks. So, we both ended up buying them around the same time. (Maybe you can throw him in to the giveaway since I just told his story, too, and I think he is traveling this week?!) Feel like I should still have the original receipt somewhere, but it'd take me some digging to find it. Pretty cool seeing everyone else's, though!

I was totally out of the hobby for about 25 years due to my career, so it has been a lot of fun to come back into it with the 15s, rebuild them with much help from the forum and then upgrade the rest of my system around them!

My journey with Polk began via Crutchfield and two pair of db6901 component speakers that I bought for my Jetta. I loved them and the sound very much. When I registered them for warranty reasons it auto created me a forum name (HotSoup) which I hated.

From there I noticed that an online computer parts company I was using (NewEgg) carried Polk home theater speakers and I saw and lusted after the Monitor 70s.

My girlfriend (now wife) purchased a set of T90e’s (European Polk Monitor 60) for me for Christmas and I bought a matching Monitor CS1. This was back when there was no sales tax on online purchases which made the price more affordable for a kid living on his own making 23k a year.

From there I discovered that Fry’s had Polk LSi speakers and I realized I really wanted those, but since they were out of reach for me, I snagged just about every model in the Monitor series and ran a 7.1 setup in my modest 400 foot family room, a 3.0 setup in my bedroom and a 2.0 setup next to it on my desk.

I kept buying computer parts at Frys and used every opportunity to listen to the LSis. By this point I’d gotten involved in the forum (under this new better name) and was invited over to @nooshinjohn house for a GTG where I meet @indyhawg. I eventually acquired John’s LSI 15s when he moved and other various items between him and Jeff and some other local forum members and the rest is history.

Also shout-out to the RAS guys (@SCompRacer, @ALL212, @newrival and the others) for letting me crash their party with my gangsta rap and dubstep.

I’ve since met many many members over the years in IL, IN, TX, IA, NC to name a few and forged long lasting friendships with too many forum members to name.

I'm a bum who likes free stuff.

My friend took me and my crutches to a goodwill store to show me some odd shaped speakers. They turned out to be Ohm Walsh 2s. I bought them.

But before we went into the store, there was a set of Polk audio Monitor 10s w/peerless tweeters. They were like brand new and in plastic wrap and in their original boxes. As soon as I hobbled in, I asked the cashier if they were for sale. She said yes, 24.00 for the pair. I bought them FIRST.

That was about 22 years ago. Polks midrange prominence always sounds great to my ears. I own many Polk speakers now.

Good luck to all.

Thanks for this chance to win a newer set of Polk audio bookies.

I started out with a Polk RT800 and a PSW10 subwoofer a very long time ago. These suited my tastes for about a decade, may be much longer, until I decided that I finally wanted to upgrade my speakers. Seeing that I had had many speakers before the Polk's and given the longevity of how long they had stayed in the system, as other gear flew in and out, I decided that I would get another pair of Polk speakers.

Well, I didn't do any research and bought a pair of RTi10 3-way floor standing speakers. Great bass punch and mids, but no one had told me that these speakers were designed for HT, and I didn't read any audio rags, still don't actually. That tweeter ended up being way to bright for 2 channel music and I missed the overall sound of the RT800's. They were just a clean sounding speaker that were a great choice for 2 channel music. From parties, to background music, to background music to critical listening. Just a very enjoyable speaker. All great attributes that were factors in me keeping them for so long.

Anyhoo, a very long story short. In some ways, I wish I had never gotten rid of those RT800's, as replacing them sent me on an upgrade path that has lasted 20 or 25 years and cost me well more than my house is worth to get to where I am at now.

I had some other Polk speakers as well. Surround speakers from BITD that I don't even remember the model number of...I think they were some sort of Fx series or something like that, but decided that HT wasn't my thing, so out the door they went, along with all of my other HT gear. Had a pair of (at the time), the most highly upgraded 1C's that are still in the "family" here at Club Polk. I currently have a main listening room that unfortunately, does not have any Polk gear at all....BUT, I do still have Polk's in my house.

I have a humble LR TV/stereo setup that features LSi7's and those still get daily use from the entire family. Great little speakers for when the family wants to sit down and watch a movie, no complaints here.

BTW, there are some really great posts in this thread and (at least to me) it has been a very welcome and enjoyable read.

Tom

agfrost wrote: »

EndersShadow wrote: »

My journey with Polk began via Crutchfield and two pair of db6901 component speakers that I bought for my Jetta. I loved them and the sound very much. When I registered them for warranty reasons it auto created me a forum name (HotSoup) which I hated.

........

I kept buying computer parts at Frys and used every opportunity to listen to the LSis. By this point I’d gotten involved in the forum (under this new better name) and was invited over to @nooshinjohn house for a GTG where I meet @indyhawg. I eventually acquired John’s LSI 15s when he moved and other various items between him and Jeff and some other local forum members and the rest is history.

......

Whatever, HotSoup.

And so it begins lol

As a sophomore at the University of Illinois in 1991, I spent a lot of time in the dorm room of a hallmate listening to tunes through his Monitor 4's. At the end of the year we arranged to get an apartment together, and I went home and bought a pair of (bigger!) Monitor 5jr+, Series 2. Those took me through college and beyond, and they're still sounding good in use at my in-laws' house.

I later got my hands on pairs of RTA 11TL, SDA CRS, and the SDA 2Bs that are still in my rig. Countless hours spent listening to music through my Polks--No regrets!

SCompRacer wrote: »

...
And everybody I know prefers HotSoup to ColdSoup. The name suggestion could have been worse Dan, like Soup2Nuts or NoSoup4You!.
...

Piping hot gazpacho...

My first exposure to Polk was with a local group… Rockford Audio Rejects or some such here on the forum.

I’ve owned only bookshelf level with my first pair being RTI 6’s. Even after mods they were a bit screechy.

Since selling those I’ve bought l100’s (sold), R200’s (doing TV duty).

I still have and use the highly modded crossover version of the LSI7’s.