Customer Reviews

Polk Audio Monitor 70 AM7022-A 3-Way Floorstanding Speaker (Single, Cherry)

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Upgraded my Monitor 50's to these and what a difference. More bass resonance, great detail in the highs and bi-amping brings the fullness out of them. Thank Goodness my neighbors are friendly as they will rock the house. Polk does a good job with all of their Monitor Series as I moved the 50's to the back of the system and it all sounds wonderful with a good SACD cd or THX DVD movie.

Not able to afford much more, but I feel that I have gotten a lot of bang for the buck.Paid a bit more at Amazon but with Amazon Prime the shipping was free and fast for those who want immediate gratification.

I've seen some reviewers question the adequacy of the Monitor 70's bass response. I have these speakers hooked up to a modestly powered Onkyo receiver, and I find the bass more than adequate for all types of music. I like a deep, rich bass in my tunes, and I have felt no need to attach a subwoofer to my system. In fact, I've turned the bass down a bit on my receiver to allow the midrange to shine through. As others have noted, the midrange and highs are crisp. Be aware the speaker is almost 16" deep, so it tends to stick out from the wall.

I purchased the Polk Audio Monitor 70 speakers 3 months ago.I use them for listening to 2 channel stereo.After listening to them extensively and considering what I paid for them,I should have felt like I was STEALING when I bought them.When paired with the right power source these are just unbeatable for the price.With the NAD C325BEE integrated amplifier these speakers put out an INCREDIBLE BASS response:clean,deep,powerful and tightly controlled,displaying great detail.Yes,DETAIL in the bass response.With this amp and Polk M70 speakers there is NO NEED for a sub-woofer.The mid-range is awesome and the high frequencies are crystal clear with no hint of harshness or stridency.After hooking these up to the new amplifier I was just FLOORED at the quality of the sound that leapt out at me.The human voice is reproduced faithfully with every sibilant and subtle expression captured.It sounds like the singer is in the room with you! These are beautifully balanced in tone and sound NATURAL.They sound crisp and have great punch if you have the power to push them properly.There are many speakers out there that cost much more that don't sound as good as these Polk's.These Polk speakers have been a revelation and I am tickled sonically pink.Want the most bang for your buck? BUY THESE!

I'll start out by saying these are budget towers, but sound very expensive. What makes them different from other Polks is their complement of drivers. That would be 2 upper midrange 6 inch drivers in an MTM arrangement. This places the tweeter in between which has many sonic advantages. Also included are 2 lower frequency drivers (6 inch also) which give the speakers better bass response and lowers intermodulation distortion in the upper midrange drivers. (An uncommon arrangement at this price point).

What you get...

Bass response approaching small subwoofers.
Clear and clean upper midrange with stable imaging.
Good headroom and dynamics. (can play a large range from soft to loud well)
Tall slender cabinet and attractive grill with good binding posts in back.
Typical smooth Polk sound, never harsh, and voiced for music as well as movies. Decent cabinets with good quality vinyl with good resonance control.
Good efficiency (90db) for flexibility in equipment matching.

What you don't get...

Fancy curved rock solid cabinets.
Real wood veneers.

If you are "frugal" and like quality then these are for you.
If you are an audiophile on a budget then these are for you.
If you like smooth nonfatiguing sound, never in your face then these are for you.
If you like to buy online and love cheap prices then these are for you.

I have owned some very well respected and expensive speakers over the years and these speakers challenge all of them. They rival Polk's more expensive Rti A series in driver quality and sound. (I own them also in another system).

The best feature for these speakers is for home theater you can go without a subwoofer and still get an acceptable level of bass. Or turn off your sub for general television watching and still get a full sound with out booming and disturbing others in the house.

If you don't care about vinyl covering, there is no reason to choose a more expensive speaker. There are no compromises in these speakers other than that. They are simply a steal. There are great matching speakers in the line.
Note; the vinyl is wrapped very well. The speakers have a plastic face protecting the leading edge of the vinyl in front. The grill fits snuggly into this. Nice idea. They come in a cherry or black vinyl.

BUT BEWARE: They are tall and imposing height wise, be sure you want towers this tall. Then go for em...

Note: my review is for the series II version, which I believe has just cosmetic changes. (Such as dark facing under the grill and dark feet)
This is what others are saying but I can't find any confirmation on this. It appears to be the case. The series II do look better in my opinion dropping the silver faceplate and feet accents.
Also, these will perform good with good electronics and very well with high end electronics. In other words, I think they could grow with you, uncommon with a budget product. Good job Polk.

I just finished upgrading my home theater monitor series fronts from the m50s to the m70s. The first thing I noticed was they produce a decent amount of bass just on their own. Still recommend a subwoofer with these but the low range is better than I expected. The second thing I noticed was I had to turn up the volume more than with the m50s to hear the full range of sound. These babies definitely need a good receiver to push them. I have an onkyo 605 and they sound great with it. Right now I'm auditioning them out of the box with John Mayer's blu-ray live concert release. All the notes are crystal clear and the mids and highs are perfect. To be honest I recently auditioned a pair of $400 klipsch floorstanding speakers at best buy and these sound just as good or better than those.

I bought these to use with a Cambridge Audio Azur ver 2 reciever and a Marantz CD player and they sounds really great. I got them to replace a pair of Mission 774's and feel that these exceeded my expectations quite admirably. Not using for surround or with a sub and find that they sound quite balanced, the mid and low range is even and tight without the sort of boominess that I find annoying and the high end was not too bright but clear and open. Sure, you could pay as much as you want for high end audio but for this price these speakers are a great buy. I found them to handle all genres of music admirably. I did find that they sounded a bit harsh out of the box but they warmed up considerably over the course of about a week. My only complaint is that when you take the grills off they look cheesy but I do not like grills on my speakers so am trying to learn to live with it. Highly recommended for the price range.

I have had these speakers for about three months now and after tuning them for a while now they sound phenomenol. Excellent for hard rock, hip hop, orchestra and reggae. But where they really excel is high definition audio via blu ray. One word "WOW" they sound great! With adequate power you should have no problems with these speakers. I am running them with an Onkyo TX-SR805 that puts out 130 watts per channel.

If you can find these at a good price they're just about the best bang for the buck you're gonna get. I've owned Polk products for at least 10 years and they make up my 5.1 system. I know they're not nearly the be-all end-all of speaker brands but I've always been impressed with their performance and appearance. I wasn't even shopping for new speakers when I came across these Cherry Monitor 70s on some kind of promo sale for $163 each on another site. The price sounds ridiculous, I though it was, but this was from a very legitimate vendor. You tell me; how is an amateur home theater enthusiast supposed to pass up that kind of deal? I couldn't.

So, I've had a set of these for 3 or 4 weeks now and thus far I'm pleased. Like all the other Polks I've owned they were a little bright for the first couple of hours but quickly mellowed out. After about 90 hours of use, I'm happy. I've got them bi-amped to a 105 watt receiver. Sound quality seems to be such a subjective category that it's nearly pointless for me to really go into detail and normally your best bet is actually listening before you buy. I didn't because I know what to expect from Polk speakers.

The basics:
-Bass: My sub handles the low frequencies, but I did shut it off long enough to size these up. Not too bad. They're not going to vibrate your house off its foundation but they're certainly an improvement over most 2-way towers. I did notice that the little 6.5" drivers don't do well with a poor source signal, not that any speaker does well with a poor signal, but larger drivers can be a bit more forgiving. Within reason, the bass is clean and tight. They're probably adequate for a small HT setup but they're no substitute for and amplified 12" bass driver.

-Mids and Highs: This is where Polks really shine. The frequency separation between the tweeter and mid drivers is great, while, at the same time being entirely seamless. Voices sound great. Action sounds great. Music sounds great.


As far as appearance; I didn't buy these for their looks. I own a set of Cherry Monitor 50s so I knew what to expect. The wood grained vinyl isn't terrible. It just happens to look like cherry colored, wood grained vinyl. Better, in my opinion, than having big black boxes in my living room(and these speakers are big), but not what I'd call "furniture quality". I've got an old set of Polk RT600i cherry towers that have real wood veneer; they are beautiful. My Monitor 70s are the series 2 so the front bezel is black instead of silver. With the grills off all those drivers look good.

The only thing I dislike about these towers is the lack of floor spikes. I've got mine sitting on carpet. They aren't unstable, I don't worry about them moving or falling over, but they aren't quite stable enough for my liking. But this is a small gripe and I knew the feet were lacking before I bought the speakers.

So, I'll finish as I started; If you shop around, these are about the best speaker for the price. Happy hunting.

I purchased these speakers based soley on Amazon and other reviews. I never listened to them in a store. The reviews were right on the money. These speakers sound great, much better with a sub-woofer, although alone they don't sound bad either. I would highly recommend these speakers great value as well as aesthetically pleasing.

I was one of those folks with bose speakers as my front speakers. I am not going to bash Bose, however I now hear instruments that I did not even know were there!! These are very well constructed speakers. I give these 5 stars and you will be happy with them. Well done Polk Audio!! Now after almost a year I completed my system with 4 FXI 3,s for surround and rear surround, Along with a CSA4 Center and polk ps 10 sub The thing that strikes me about polk products besides and more than great sound, is the impressive build quality. Polk speakers like power I am running all this with a Sony E.S 5300 with plenty of power.