Polk Audio Monitor 10 Speakers Made in USA

[Durr3]

Has anybody listened to a pair of Polk Audio Monitor 10 studio speakers? Made in the USA.

[jimbo1421]

Before I found pairs of Polk SDAs the Monitor 10s were my favorite speaker. They are a nicely balanced 2 way with passive bass radiators instead of ports. They are a great match for vinyl and can be found at good prices. The Monitor 7s (Matt Polk's favorite in the Monitor line) have better imaging but I preferred the lower bass extension of the 10s. The ones with Peerless tweeters are more sought after; later models use Polk's SL-1000 or SL-2000 tweeters. These have spike at about 13kHz which can make them shrieky as they age. Fortunately Polk makes a replacement RDO-194 that fixes the problem. Join up at Club Polk (http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/) for a discounted price of about $50 each.

Since these speakers are over 30 years old it is a good idea to rebuild the crossovers with new caps and resistors. You can get lots of detailed help for this at Club Polk, also.

I paid $90 for a pair with the SL-1000 tweeters and Polk stands, replaced the tweeters with RDO-194s for $100 and so had a great pair of speakers for under $200. For another $100-200 I could rebuild the crossovers for even more improvements.

Hope this helps.

Jim

[jnjansen]

My wife and I are trying to sell our house, and our agent convinced us to get rid of my Polk 10a's with the peerless tweeters ("they're so ugly"), so they went into storage and the more "tasteful" EPI 100s came out in our living room setup. It's been two months and it has been killing me. I have never pined for something so much as for getting the Polks back into circulation! I agree with what has been said: they sound excellent with vinyl, esp. acoustic music, Jazz, and classical. They have such smooth high end and very low bass response (but if they are hidden away in the corners they can sound boomy). I paid $150 for mine and have seen others on Craigslist for that price and they seem to disappear very quickly. If you have the space for them, get a pair: you'll not be disappointed.

[dsthornberry]

I wonder what they would have said if you had my 2.3tls taking up 1/2 the room

[jnjansen]

My wife would have divorced me the minute I brought them into the house!

[beacher6]

I owned the Polks Monitor 10 speakers for 10-15 years. I sold the 10s but kept the smaller Polk 5jr (without the radiator) which are one of my favorite speakers for a small room. The 10s are Ok and I would recommend them. They can handle a variety of music without getting tired listening to them and for 150-200 they are better than the newer speakers at twice that price. I also had the Epicures 1200 at the same time but the sleeper speakers are the Technics Sb-5000a which in my opinion sounded better.