Polka Polka Polk! RT55s

Ah, some of my favorite speakers in the world. The venerable Polk Audio RT55. Similar (actually almost exactly the same) to the RT55i, except it has black cones, not blue, and the veneer is vinyl not real wood.

Otherwise the drivers are exactly the same, and the specs as well.

Dual 6.5" woofers, a 1" trilaminate dome tweeter. 35hz-26khz.

Up to 200watts each!

Why do I like them so much? Well my dad has a pair, and has had them for well over ten years now. They have always impressed me as a "bookshelf" speaker, as they give the fuller sound of floorstanders. At his house they were set up in his bedroom 5.1/7.2 system for a number of years, on stands for his Yamaha powered system. They're biampable/biwirable so you can hook them up with some serious power, yet choose the type of amplification for high and low if you want a preferred sound.

I drove all the way out to Blanchard, OK to get these. The crazy guy selling them only wanted $50 for the speakers, or $100 for the whole setup - a 5 disc Sony CD changer, some cheap Sony DE-197 receiver, and the RT55s of course. I thought about buying the whole setup but decided I already have like 5 cd changers and an equivalent amount of receivers so I just took the speakers.

Taking them home was exciting, as it was almost an hour drive from the middle of nowhere, and the weather turned bad. Well I got them home and hooked them up, oh boy do they sing. Currently they sit attached to my Sony 555ES receiver with a healthy 120watts per channel powering them. There's a matching Polk CS-250 as the center and a Klipsch KSW-10 to round it off. No 5.1 in this room, our bedroom is too small and I sure as hell am not climbing up in our attic to run rear speakers if not necessary. I had a pair of Polk RT25s in tow for that job but decided to give them to my dad instead since he wanted an all-Polk 7.1 system (with the same RT55s mentioned earlier).

Music is definitely punchy as these are renowned for their bass response from such a small cabinet. Treble is well rounded and not too harsh. You can set these as large speakers if you want, however I let the receiver do the bass management and set them to small. They do 80hz on up and the rest goes to the subwoofer.

Ever since my dad got a pair, I wanted one. They ran well over $700 a pair so I never had the opportunity to buy them myself. At $50 for the pair I didn't drive, I floored it to get them. It is doubtful I will get rid of these any time soon, and when we move into a new house they are definitely coming with.

Ratings:

Price: $50
Status: Keeper
Condition: 5.00 Stars
Cost: 1.0 Stars
Flippable: 3.5 Stars
Potential Income: Unknown