Polk Reserve R200 Bookshelf Speakers Black

Product Information

If you want to make a speaker that will sound great to most people, there are two things you really need to optimize: frequency response and directivity. The frequency response tells us the basic tonal balance of a speaker before the influence of reflections, and it should be mostly flat. The directivity tells us how that frequency response changes in different directions; the speaker should change smoothly as you move off-axis. Speaker Stands: Stands bring your bookshelf speakers to ideal height (rule of thumb is to have the tweeter level with your ear in your listening position), helps stability and acoustical isolation.

Now let’s delve into the data to better understand these observations. The impedance data shows that the speaker is close to a 4-ohm nominal load, so it is recommended to use a 4-ohm capable amplifier to drive it properly. The frequency response data indicates that the speaker has a mostly linear response within a 1.5 dB range up to 10 kHz, with peaking above that frequency. There is a resonance around 1 kHz that could explain the perceived glare in vocals and instruments in that range. The Pinnacle Ring Radiator Tweeter’s unique waveguide delivers broad, high-frequency dispersion. It offers sound reproduction beyond 40kHz, as well as extremely fast and ultra-accurate transients, resulting in sonic clarity throughout the room. Here the R200 shines: it is ridiculously flat. The listening window is one of the flattest I’ve measured, especially for a speaker without any kind of DSP processing to help it out. The treble is combined with a 6½-inch for midrange / bass, and this in combination with a larger cabinet volume gives experience and naturally greater depth in the bass than with a 5¼-inch that the kid brother R100 is equipped with. On the other hand, there is often a very smooth transition between treble and midrange with a five-inch than a larger midrange / bass in a two-way speaker, so one should be a little careful about making solid assumptions about what is the better speaker of R100 and R200. And then of course we have the price factor, where a price difference of a couple of thousand kroner means that R100 must rather be defined as the upper part of the budget class. There is every reason to expect that Reserve will be a great success for Polk Audio, because these are speakers that give a rudely good sound in relation to the moderate price tag they have.

Polk Audio Reserve R200 Review: Connectivity

The speakers also come with USB for easy connection, and there is also an integrated Chromecast for even easier streaming of your favorite music and other audio. Additionally, you can use an optical input for TV and game consoles, or you can connect the speakers to your home network via Ethernet. This makes it easy to integrate the speakers into your existing multi-room setup. The acoustic instruments in the arrangement of Missy Higgins’ Nightminds became almost recessed, such was the prominence and crispness of her vocal. On Sweet Arms of a Tune it was the acoustic guitar which was thrust forward, with Higgins’ vocals almost too insistent; the R200s don’t forgive an edgy production. But when she is more truthfully captured, as on Greed For Your Love, the realism was tangible. At AXPONA, the speakers were in a setup with a Denon PMA-1700NE integrated amplifier (140 watts per channel) and a Denon DCD-1700NE CD/SACD Player, resulting in a stunning, surprisingly affordable system that filled the room with realistic, clear sonics and deep bass. (Masimo Consumer owns the brands Polk, Denon, Marantz, Bowers & Wilkins, Definitive Technology, Classé, HEOS and Boston Acoustics, which allows it to provide customers with a wide variety of products and price points.) The bass sport is also one of the most important elements in the Reserve series. And here we have to distinguish between the floor models and the stand speakers + the largest center speaker. In the latter models, there is an X-port that takes care of the bass tuning, and has an incorporated Eigentone Filter EFT, which are closed tube absorbers that are tuned to reduce traditional speaker distortion. The original PowerPort was all about bass performance and to avoid port noise,” Polk personnel apprised us at a special presentation to EISA editors. “The port on a loudspeaker helps to get more lower frequencies and to increase sensitivity of the speaker – but maybe nobody told you that this comes at a price.”

This is why most A-class brands (like SVS, Bang & Olufsen, etc) often come up with room correction features, adjusted either manually or automatically. The EQ adapts itself to the placement (room, corner, center, etc) for a better (deeper and more accurate) sound. Which is great. With understated elegance, the Reserve line has a minimalist design with universal appeal. Inheriting Polk’s flagship transducer array, the R200 produces exceptional sound that rivals competitor speakers that sell for twice the price. R600: The impressions from the bookshelf model are retained, but of course with even a little more bass.

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R600: Although Ketil Bjørnstad's piano is a bit light, it is well balanced by the other instruments. Not least Arild Andersen's bass. The Polk Reserve R200 bookshelf speakers deliver a bold sound from a compact cabinet, performing equally well with both 2 channel stereo and home cinema surround sound setups. A one inch Pinnacle dome tweeter provides crisp highs for detail, with a finely tuned waveguide to improve the wide dispersion of sound across the whole room. The 6.5 inch Polk Turbine cones deliver clarity in the all-important midrange, combining a foam core with moulded turbine geometry to dramatically improve stiffness and damping, without adding extra weight. The Turbine cone lets you experience a smooth and detailed midrange and bass. Breaking things down further, we can see how the R200’s response changes in 10-degree increments horizontally: These Turbine Cone drivers have also been adopted in the unaltered version from the Legend series. That is - it applies to the 5 ¼ and 6 ½-inch versions - the four-inch in the R350 and R900 is not available in the Legend series. POWER PORT + X-PORT In the bookshelf models and the smaller floorstander of the Reserve range, Polk has applied the same principle to this torpedo-clutching new X-Port; this uses a set of closed-pipe absorbers tuned to the internal frequency of the cabinet, acting as an eigentone filter (the port itself is labelled ETF) to maintain the bass output while aiming to reduce traditional speaker distortions, clarifying the upper bass and midrange. Listening

R200:A little extra weight and depth in the bass compared to most tripod speakers. At the same time, it is liberating to drop the treble boost that many other bookshelf speakers serve. In my experience, a side step, is never the answer to anything, as soon enough you will end up exactly where you started from and regret spending the money. R600: The qualities from R200 are taken care of. And at the same time, this sounds like the speakers are being pulled by a subwoofer. The Early Reflections curve is an estimate of all single-bounce, first-reflections, in a typical listening room. The models in the Legend series have prices from NOK 13,000 per pair for the smallest tripod speakers to NOK 70,000 per pair for the top models L800. POLK AUDIO RESERVE

The Polk Audio Reserve Series R200 2-Way Bookshelf Speakers have many features that make them a great choice for enhancing your sound experience. The speakers are capable of handling 30 to 200W of power from your amplifier and are each equipped with a 6.5″ polypropylene turbine woofer and a 1″ Pinnacle Ring Radiator tweeter. They have a frequency response of 51 Hz to 38 kHz for enhanced treble and midrange reproduction and feature a rear-firing X-Port bass port. Ohms is pretty much the standard nominal impedance amongst stereo speakers and amplifiers so Polk Audio Reserve R200 is not considered a difficult to drive speaker from nominal Impedance perspective. Below the tuning frequency, the output of the port and the transducer become out of phase with each another so that the bass drops off faster than for a sealed-box design. Above the tuning frequency, also, the open-ended pipe creates what are often called pipe-organ resonances that can cloud the midrange. So Polk’s new Power Port 2.0 works also to clean up the upper bass and midrange.

After tons of research, I have finally decided to build a new stereo system around the Polk R200 speakers (since the Wharfedale Denton 85th are no longer available). External and internal waveguides control the dispersion of such high-frequency energy, aiming to deliver a wider sweet spot and more consistent sound across listening positions. The Pinnacle tweeter also enjoys its own sealed cavity filled with damping material, which Polk indicates removes a ridge of internal resonance at 2.5kHz, slightly below the 3kHz crossover point in this model.Designed and engineered in Baltimore, the Reserve R200AE is fueled by a 1-inch Pinnacle Ring Radiator Tweeter and a 6-and-a-half-inch Turbine Cone Woofer. The speakers—which looked and sounded particularly great on stands at AXPONA—have a gorgeous, cherry wood veneer that gives them an understated elegance.