RT55i

by Carlton Simpson, August 13, 2007

Strengths:

Typically amazing Polk bass and midrange.Open,boxless(do i sound like a Polk ad yet?)sound as advertised!

Weaknesses:

Bit large for "bookshelf" speakers(i GUESS i HAD to put SOMETHING here)

Review:

I just bought a used pair of the somewhat older,but nearly identical RT55's.I put them in my bedroom system in place of my RT35i's.I wish i had just found the extra money and bought THESE in the first place 8 years ago!!!!Amazing the difference with the larger speakers.More detail and soundstaging capabilities with these.More bass,more-well-EVERYTHING.They blend better with the stereo pair of PSW-200 subs that i am running(see my PSW-200 reviews and also my PSW-303 review for more info on standing wave phenomena)since they have more bottom end.There is more apparent dynamic range as well.Still getting to know them right now,but loving the process.I'm sorta-kinda-pseudo bi amping/biwiring them using the speaker A and B outputs on my Carver CM-1090 Sonic Holography integrated amplifier.I need to get some matching speaker cables.So far so good though!

by ric, March 12, 2002

Strengths:

crisp mids and highs, great stereo imageing.

Weaknesses:

wouldnt be fair to note a weekness of low end.,for a book shelf its sufficient.

Review:

if your looking to save space but dont want to sacrafice sound quality, then the rt55i, is the speaker for you. crisp,direct,and a real presence!add a psw series sub and low and behold the sound is truly astonishing.BRAVO polk.

by frankie, March 15, 2002

Strengths:

They just flat out produce a great sound - life like reprodution - clean, clear, crisp sound.

Weaknesses:

NONE

Review:

These speakers are flawless - the sound is life like - no distortion - handles everything your receiver can dish out - the highs, the lows everything blends together to give you the feel that you are at the concert or movie - great speaker..

by Nickro, March 16, 2002

Strengths:

Very, very clear and crisp sound. Reproduces even the slightest sounds cleanly.

Weaknesses:

If there are any I haven't found them yet.

Review:

I have a relatively small listening area and thought a set of bookshelf speakers would fit the bill perfectly but was hesitant because of "usual" bookshelf speaker perfromance. I checked around, bought these and suddenly realized that someone had finally made a repectable bookshelf speaker. Way to go Polk !!!!

by Dom, March 18, 2002

Strengths:

Awsome bass response for a speaker this size. And the tweeter and mid/bass driver are awsome. All the engineers at polk Audio way to go!!!!!!!

Weaknesses:

there are no weakness about this speaker

Review:

Damn!!!! These things are awsome. They reproduce even the slightest sounds with ease . since the two 6 1/2 inch mid/bass drivers are tuned differently they weave together a aspaioush richly detailed sould stage.An obvious high end performer. I give them 5 stars.

by Bob, April 2, 2002

Strengths:

Crystal clear. Handles low and high ranges with great dynamics

Weaknesses:

As of yet, I have found none. Except maybe the fact that I should not have waited so long to buy these.

Review:

Crystal flippin' clear. These speakers "talk softly, but carry a big stick". This is a small profile speaker, but with the ability to competently handle a great deal of sound. I have packaged these with the Center c245i and the f/w 300i for surrounds. I now have these serving as a great pair of stereo speakers for everyday use, and chipping in their fair share for a home theatre package too. These speakers are worth every penny.

by Josh, April 11, 2002

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Review:

About 2 months after I bought a pair the titanium dome on one of the tweeters some how melted on one side. For the time being it did not affect the sound, but now 6 months later the sound is VERY distorted. Has this happened to anyone else?

by Ross, May 18, 2002

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Review:

These speakers are beautiful. I got mine off ebay for $350.00 and they were worth every cent. I have a conrad johnson pre-amp and two rotel amp i run them off. I am going to up-grade my front speakers to the enery v2.3 but these will definately be my back speakers. If running them to ensure you maximize full potential of speakers I recommend using bi-wire.

by Timothy Vinh Noecker, June 21, 2002

Strengths:

Great Highs, Mids, and Lows - Something You Don't Find in every bookshelf speaker.

Weaknesses:

Absolutey none !!!!!!

Review:

I wanted to upgrade my surround speakers for my Home Theater System and bought a pair of these RT55i from Crutchfield. I must say these speakers are "Off The Hook" !!!

by TONY PATRICK, July 8, 2002

Strengths:

STRONG TIGHT BOOMIN BASS, VERY, VERY CLEAR SOUND AND UNBELIEVABLE IMAGING!

Weaknesses:

CANT FIND ANY ON THE SET I OWN!

Review:

I HAVE HAD MY SPEAKERS FOR ABOUT 2.5 YEARS NOW AND THE ONLY THING THAT I CAN THINK TO SAY ABOUT THESE SPEAKERS IS THAT THEY GET BETTER AND BETTER. MY FRIEND IS A "BOSE" FAN AND HE HAS TWO PAIRS OF THE FAMOUS "901'S". I SET MY POLKS AND HIS BLOSE I MEAN BOSE UP THROUGH MY RECEIVER( A&B SPEAKERS ) WHAT A JOKE! IF YOU OWN ANY "BOSE" 901'S PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND REPLACE THEM WITH SOME "RT55i'S". DONT GET ME WRONG I THINK BOSE ARE GREAT(WHEN THEY AREN'T PLAYING)! SERIOUSLY, THESE SPEAKERS HAVE TURNED ME ON TO ALL KINDS OF DIFFERENT MUSIC AND THE WAY I WATCH TV AND MOVIES. GET THEM WHILE THEY ARE STILL MAKING THEM!!!!

by Felix M. Fontan, July 26, 2002

Strengths:

Great Midrange performance. Great Bass for a Bookshelf(they go deeper than most spearkers its size). Great Tweeter...

Weaknesses:

None so far.

Review:

Wow, I would have never guessed you could get such a great sound from such a moderately priced BOOKSHELF speaker. The details in music are incredible. There are details in my CDs that I had never heard, before I hooked up this pair. I used to own a Klipsch pair of Bookshelves, and these Babies(the RT55is) blew them out of the water. The heights are nice but none fatiguing(unlike the Klipsch) and the mids are great, smooth and flat; plus they have GREAT Dynamic Range. I am running this speakers as my stereo pair and main speakers for a HomeTheater system, along with the CS400i Center, the FX300i Surrounds, and the PSW650 Subwoofer, I am using Monster Z2 Bi-wire for the Main Speakers and the Center Channel. By the way I would recommend to anyone, to take advantage of the Biwiring capabilities...it makes a lot of difference. Use good speaker cable too, remember a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and if you want to get the best sound out of your speakers you SHOULD NOT use cheap wire...

by Dennis Moore, September 6, 2002

Strengths:

Clean and full sound (at all volume settings), good bass (especially for a speaker this size), nice looking pieces of furniture (cherry finish).

Weaknesses:

Treble is more directional than I expected. The speaker cabinet must be elevated so the tweeter is at ear level when you're seated in your regular listening/viewing location.

Review:

You can pay more and get better speakers from Polk and other vendors, but for the money these are pretty much top of the heap, in my opinion. (Caught a sale at Crutchfield, $400/pair new.) Great speakers, once you get them set up properly. Voice of experience: don't try to use these as floor speakers. The sound will be very muddy, as the treble will be directed at your knees. After my wife gave me some good speaker stands for my birthday, the improvement was like night and day. (Thanks sweetie!) Not sure how to explain it, but with these speakers the music is always "there". With some speakers, if you turn down the volume, you can't hear anything detail or get a sense of presence. Not these puppies. No matter how loud or soft you play the music, you can hear every instrument, vocal inflection, etc. Excellent.

by Alejandro Vargas, October 21, 2002

Strengths:

Ofrece bajos impresionantes para el tamaņo de parlante que es.No requiere de Subwoofer para escuchar Stereo normal.

Weaknesses:

Los agudos son de intensidad natural y muy direccionales .

Review:

Son un par de cornetas exelentes para un area de escucha como un estudio casero o living room. Las uso para escuchar solo Stereo y ofrecen un balance de agudos , medios y bajos exelente tanto a niveles de escucha bajos como a alto volumen. El timbre de sonido no cansa al ser escuchado por largos periodos de tiempo. Las recomiendo ampliamente , hace diez aņos tuve que vender mis 7C y hasta ahora pude adquirir de nuevo un nuevo par de Polk , de nuevo soy un feliz Audiofilo.

by Monty, December 30, 2003

Strengths:

Mid range that will knock you on the floor. Eat your heart out Bose.

Weaknesses:

None. Add a powered sub to finish the lows.

Review:

I use four of these speakers for my home theater, one in each corner. Along with a 10 inch polk sub-woofer and an additional 10 inch Velodyne sub, this setup has been fantastic for about 1 1/2 years. I'm considering putting two Rt800i's in the front corners, but I'm not sure that I would get much benefit?? The 800's go 7 Hz lower, but that's what the subs are for. I use a Yamaha receiver that puts out over 100 watts rms into each speaker and I've never heard the Polks flinch a bit. They do a good job on music from classical to hard driving rock. The movie experience is awesome. Thanks Polk.

by Rob McPike, December 30, 2003

Strengths:

Very good home theater speaker providing they are elevated to the proper level using stands. Provide crisp sound reproduction in that capacity.

Weaknesses:

Cannot take the power that my Harmon Kardon AVR 85 can dish out to them when playing music. Have "melted" the tweeter about 4 times. Would not recommend these to anyone that wants to use these speakers in a dual capacity.

Review:

These are decent speakers for a home theater set-up. They perform admirably in this capacity. Cannot say the same for using them in a music only capacity. They sound crystal clear until the power is applied to them. Have fried the tweeters at least four times while playing CDs. Was assured by Polk reps that these speakers could handle the power my Harmon Kardon AVR 85 could dish out. That is most certainly not the case. I have never had a speakers tweeter actually go up in smoke before(did I mention this has occured 4 times.) I believe there is a reason that I can no longer find these speakers on the Canadian market...they just are not up to par for the money they cost!

by Brent, January 4, 2003

Strengths:

Detailed highs, smooth mids, tight bass, great imaging. Room filling sound without being "loud."

Weaknesses:

The low end benefits from a subwoofer- for my purposes, the PSW 350 worked perfectly.

Review:

I began my search for the "perfect" home audio solution about a year ago. It's very easy to become inundated with the hundreds of brands of speakers available. Inevitably we all want the same thing; great sound (for our listening preferences)and we want it cheap. However, there are people that are absolutely convinced that you have to pay a ton for great sound- that is very true in many cases, but not with Polk speakers. I bought my RT55i bookshelves last December, and have enjoyed every moment listening to them. After bi-wiring them, the experience has dramatically improved. These, and most Polks I've listened to do an amazing job at recreating music. They image extremely well and are balanced throughout the entire dynamic range. All types of music will benefit from these speakers. I find that the details found in acoustic recordings such as bluegrass are well defined and accurate, something that is difficult to find in less expensive speakers. If you can find a pair, I recommend buying them. If you appreciate music as much as I do, and I'm sure you do, you owe it to yourself to check out what so many are talking about. Enjoy!

by Mohamed, September 30, 2003

Strengths:

very good highs and mid range,the power prts does make a big difference in the smoothness in low frequencies

Weaknesses:

little too brite hve to adjust tone

Review:

fantastic depth and definition out of a bookshelf of this caliber

by Nick, March 4, 2004

Strengths:

great sound especially for their size, bass is always tight

Weaknesses:

cant buy them anymore

Review:

These are great speakers. Their compact size makes them versatile in their placement yet they have tight bass (although a sub is necessary for true lows). I use these as mains and they have great imaging, making my DVD-audios sound awesome! I got a great price on them ($360) and couldnt be happier.

by james lipski, June 28, 2004

Strengths:

2 1/2 way design... Attractive looking (though cc only has black in polk speakers which kinda aggrivates me as I really wanted the cherry finish!!!) Sound wonderful and will sound even better with good amplification..

Weaknesses:

None that I have noticed yet... Polks get slammed due to their being sold at cc but I have heard that cc will soon not sell polks... Good for polk cause all the audio snobs hate them for that reason alone...

Review:

Bought them in 2002 for $400 from circuit city... Love them, beefy bookshelf speakers now paired with the rti-10's I recently purchased... As far as those who blew the tweeter, perhaps you should play the music at a more reasonable level and more importantly get a better amplifier. Less expensive amps tend to be overdriven much easier which results in speaker damage... I use a denon dra-685 and find it to sound thin and bright... I shall purchase better amplification in the near future (nad c162-272)... Warmer amplification which will bring out the best in the polks...

by Jeremiah Rae, July 18, 2004

Strengths:

Efficiant, great bass, decent build quality, super value.

Weaknesses:

Screwless woofers cause rattles on lower to upper midrange against plastic bezel, super bright highs may exhaust the listner over long periods.

Review:

An excellent bookshelf speaker for the money. I am running six hafler DH220 amps on six RT55i speakers for my home theater set up. Each speaker uses one amp for the tweeter and one for the woofers (bi-amped). I found using 3 pairs allowed better matching in sound and was less expensive then buying the center channel and surround speakers (CSI and F/X series) The highs are very bright and the bass is excellent for a bookshelf speaker. The cabnet is large and heavy for a bookshelf but the sound trade off is worth the extra weight and size. I bought all three sets at Fry's for 299.00 set plus tax and at that price they couldn't be beat. The only down side to their sound is a rattle at certain vocal passages, I found this to be correctable by bolting down the woofers (which Polk neglected to do) and using foam to insulate the plastic front bezel from the rest of the cabnet. This greatly enhanced the sound. Since I am bi-amping I turned down the gain on the tweeters by 25% which warmed up the sound and took the tin sound out of the tweeter.

by g_zet, August 8, 2006

Strengths:

Lower frequencies!!!

Weaknesses:

Can't play piano as clear i espected. Same thing with contrabass, it's kinda dull-colored...

Review:

First album I tested on those sweet things was Biosphere - autour de la lune. And i was amazed - just was looking at them and thinking where da hell this bass is coming from... They perform best at quite loud sound levels. Crisp and clear. Everything sounds just right.

by Steve Novejoski, June 19, 2009

Strengths:

Detailed sound and plenty of bass. Not too bright. Sounds incredible with lower powered tube system.

Weaknesses:

None

Review:

I had been using a pair of (95db sensitive) Acoustic Research 310HO speakers as the mains in a 2 channel system. I was using a 32 watts per channel tube amp. Sounded good. Was worried that the(91db sensitive) Polk Rt55i's might not be up to the challenge. WOW, was I wrong. These puppies stepped up. They sounded so much better than the AR's; loud, crisp and detailed sound. Never fatiguing or too bright. Tons of bass, not rolled off or never loose (sloppy). Highly recommended. I bought these speakers new in the year 1999 and still sounding great over a decade later. Couldn't be happier with these products.

by jvilla, April 7, 2010

Strengths:

everything: sound quality, sound staging/imaging, dynamics, etc.

Weaknesses:

size (only now that many home theater electronics are moving towards sleeker/slimmer design), but they do sound better than most speakers of the same size and many that are even larger.

Review:

I bought 4 of the original RT55s and an original CS400 (yeah, not the "i" models) way back in 1999 I think. These guys have cranked nearly everyday since then. Classical, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Rap, the occasional Metal, all kinds of movies, and even video gaming; these speakers do it all, and do it exceptionally. I sold audio equipment at CC and Tweeter for nearly 8 years, and I have never found anything better worth spending my money on. Just recently I have begun auditioning new speakers for the sole purpose of finding something smaller and wall mountable to go along with my flat tv, but I'm finding that to get anything even comparable, I'd be spending close to $4K retail. I've heard literally hundreds of speakers, and can honestly say it's hard to find a speaker that comes close in performance for the price.

by JCW, December 24, 2012

Strengths:

Quality build, quality sound. CAN definitely take some power for their size!

Weaknesses:

Slightly on the bright side. Not a "big" speaker, but perfect in a surround setup or a medium sized room.

Review:

I just wanted to put in my 2 cents for those who say these speakers can't handle a lot of power. I bought a very well used pair of these speakers off of CL cheap and used them as my mains in a 7 speaker surround. My amp is the Yamaha RX-Z9 behemoth (170 watts per) and I have the RT55i's set to "large" so they get the full wattage, even though I have 3 subs. I like to listen to heavy metal at earthshaking volumes, and these babies don't blink an eye! (I do shave the tweeters down 1db because they are a little bright.) The rest of my system consists of other matched Polks. Even the RT28i's (Rated for 150 watts) that I use for rear speakers don't seem the least bit stressed by my irresponsible listening habits. One of the most enjoyable experiences I can think of is to sit in the sweet spot of this system and play a selection of my favorite bands while slowly increasing the volume. At low volumes, you can pick out every nuance of every instrument clearly. If you close your eyes and slowly increase the volume, you can almost "see" the sound fields as they blossom out from the speakers, combine, and then reach towards you from all directions until you are completely enveloped in a cocoon of sound, similar to actually being at a concert, but the quality is much clearer and cleaner. I love that Yammy, and I love me some Polks!

by Steve, January 24, 2013

Strengths:

Clarity, effenicy, imaging and bass response

Weaknesses:

None

Review:

I bought these speakers new back in 1998. They still rock the house. They are also subtle and refined. I have thoroughly enjoyed my babies for 15 years now and don't plan on replacing them anytime soon