Polk Audio Monitor 30 Main / Stereo Speaker

I used to be a die-hard audiophile always in search of a better more powerful amp, bigger speakers, that perfectly balanced room. It got to the point that I was spending more time playing with the equipment than enjoying the music. Working Uncle Sugars spook equipment for eight years really put a damper on my desire to play with electronic equipment though, so I eventually started ignoring it altogether.

Then a few years back I was asked to look at a friends old tube amp radio and that brought back some of the enthusiasm. It also set me onto the hobby of fixing and eventually building tube amplifiers in my spare time. It's just a hobby so I try not to get too wound up in it. Recently I finished building a little fifteen watt dual channel hybrid amp of my own design for my work office. I didn't have decent set of small speakers to use with it so really couldn't tell how good a job I did. Enter the Polk Audio Monitor 30's.

The Monitor 30 seemed like the ideal speaker for the application. Tube amps have a very open, some people call it soft sound, to them. These amps need a stiff, less reflective cone speaker to produce the optimum sound. Celestion, JBL, Klipsch and few others make very good woofers for this application, but for a small monitor size speaker Polk is still probably the best. The now popular long throw soft cone speaker produce's tons of Bass that can sound unnatural and must be very well controlled by a powerful, fast response solid state amp to achieve best sound quality. They are not well suited for tube amplifiers, therefore the choices were narrowed down pretty quickly.

Iv owned Polk Audio speakers before and knew exactly what to expect. I went by my local audio shop for a listen and found the monitor 30's, although small, to be perfect for this application. I ordered up a set and waited for the shop to call with the delivery.

In the meantime I connected my amp to a set of older Japanese made speakers. I was a little worried at first because I seemed to be getting a lot of Bass distortion and the overall sound was just too hollow. My hybrid amp theory was going out the window. But I held tight and waited.

Then the big day came and my little Polk 30's arrived. The speakers felt solid coming out of the box. At nearly five pounds each these are heavy for their size. 11" H x 7" W x 8-3/8" D. Small for most home or large room applications, but just right for my 8' X 12" office stacked with papers, books, and computer equipment. My office is a throw back to the 1960's with old steel desk and file cabinet as well as well worn coil spring seat, four caster, brown leather spring back chair. The speakers come in modern black or brown wooden cabinets. I picked mine in brown to match the ancient decor.

When I got the call my first stop was the house where I tried them out on my powerhouse solid state amplifier. Hooked up to my Onkyo 506RS, 150/400 watt per channel amp, I knew a week of Willie Nelson, AC-DC and that modern stuff my wife and daughter listen to would be a good break in. Burning the speakers in on that amp wouldn't take long. There is no way I dare to pass the 100 Watt rated max input of these, but I could certainly bring them up to it without deadly distortion occurring.

Next stop the office. I used to stress out about speaker placement, but no more. With the rear mounting holes already in place, I found the first open spots available on the walls and hung them up, that was that. I pulled off the raised dust covers "probably not too smart considering how dusty it gets in there" to reveal the five and quarter woofer and one inch tweeter. Ah, quality speakers at last! I connected them to the amp with plain as pie 18 gauge speaker wire "I can hear the gasps now" and got ready to test my amp.

After a moment watching the amplifier tubes go from black to a nice warm glowing orange, I slipped a Gypsy Kings CD into the little Sony disc player and pressed start.
The Spanish guitar, the hand clapping, the vocals, it was unbelievable! I must be dreaming, lets try some U2. The drums, so tight, so right. Wait, let's try something that will give me a point of reference. The High School winter recital. That's still fresh in my mind. It was recorded. So here it goes. Oh my god. The reproduction of that imperfect cello performance is incredible, the cymbals clashing down and flute. If you close your eyes… I can pinpoint every instrument. Granted a tube amplifier has certain advantages in spatial separation, but the speakers bring out the best "and worst" in your components.

The beauty of this speaker is its ability to play crisply at very low volume settings. Although its rated as an efficient 89db speaker, that is really not an extremely efficient level. Most modern efficient speakers are in the 91 to 93 db range, but I see the 89 db level as an advantage. To get an equivalent volume you have to expend more wattage with this speaker. This allows the amp to keep pushing those odd frequencies that you loose at lower settings on really efficient speakers. Therefore even at low volume settings you still get crisp accurate sound. In realistic continuous use, they very seldom see over a single watt of input. When you do want to crank them up, they do perform. I can get to very loud volume levels with no distortion and still produce extremely accurate sound.

To shorten this up, I'll just say that the Monitor 30's performed flawlessly. Just remember that this is a monitor speaker, not an all "frequency spectrum" encompassing dance hall or surround sound speaker. If you love deep rumbling Bass sounds then these are probably not the speaker for you. For proper sound reproduction without any hardware generated noise and false reverberation these speakers are just the ticket. Hooked up to a good amplifier there is no distortion and they are a very satisfying speaker to listen to. The midrange and highs are definitely this speakers forte', and that's fine with me. They make the Allman brothers come alive as well as Neil young, so I'm happy.

Manufacturers Specifications:

Mid/Woofer 1 - 5-1/4" Diameter (13.34cm)Dynamic Balance Bi-laminate composite cone driver, magnetically shielded

Tweeter 1 - 1" Diameter (2.54cm)Dynamic Balance Silk/polymer composite dome, magnetically shielded

Electrical
Overall Frequency Response 55Hz - 25kHz
Lower -3dB Limit 63Hz
Upper -3dB Limit 24kHz
Nominal Impedance 8 ohms
Recommended Amplifier Power 20 -100 w/channel
Efficiency 89 dB
Crossover 2.3kHz, second order high and low pass
Inputs Dual (bi-amp) 5 way binding posts

Dimensions
Cabinet Size 11" H x 7" W x 8-3/8" D(27.94cm H x 17.78cm W x 21.27cm D)

Enclosure Type Vented via rear panel flared port

Shipping/Other
Product Weight 9.00 lbs. (4.08kgs)
Shipping unit: pair
Total Shipping Weight 22.00 lbs. (9.98kgs)

Speaker Warranty 5 years parts and labor (original purchaser)