Customer Reviews

Polk Audio RC80i 2-Way In-Ceiling Speakers (Pair, White)

5 star:		(131)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased 4 of the RC80i for surround sound in my living room, lefts and rights for both front and back speakers. My rationale in purchasing in-ceiling speakers was the desire not to have a room filled with visible speakers. The mounting was very easy. Just cut the holes via the template and slide them in. The grilles fit snug and I'm sure will be a challenge if I ever have to remove them. The directional tweeter design is great and a must with in-ceiling speakers. Unfortunately, I was hoping for a little better fidelity. The speakers lack the high frequencies. They're good when listening to movies but you can hear the difference when listening to music. I set my expectations too high and have to remind myself of the price.

These speakers are great. Installation was much easier because the large, 8" opening you cut into the wall/ceiling makes it much easier to fish speaker wire. The mounting brackets securely fasten to the wall so there is no shaking or rattling. The tweeter can easily pivot to aim at your listening position. These are voice matched to the Polk "Monitor" series speakers, so match with any other RC series in-wall speaker, CS1 or CS2 center channel speaker, and PSW10 or PSW12 subwoofer.

My only 2 complaints, which were not enough to drop the rating, are:
1) The speaker cutout template turned out to be a tad small, and I had to go around with a keyhole saw again to make it 1/8" larger to fit the speaker all the way. That made it a little messier, but it ended up fine.
2) The speaker grill is pretty hard to remove, but you only have to do that once, and you want it to fit snugly anyways.

I installed a pair of these in the kitchen, after which my wife and I both had one of those mouth-open, "wow" experiences. They flood the room with deep, rich sound: crips highs and full, round lows. You can angle the tweeters to "aim" them better, but I didn't want one particular sweet spot in the kitchen, so I left them pointing directly downwards. Awesome.

The installation is quite easy as well. I found that with a carefully cut hole I had no problems at all with speaker insertion. As with the other reviews, I had a devil of a time getting the speaker grilles off, and was afraid I might pull out one of the tiny holes with the paperclip. Polk would do better to package these with the grilles off so that the installer can skip that step. However, I found that putting them back on was easy - you just have to make sure you put them back on with an even insertion on all edges and then work your way around little by little...you can't fully insert them on one end and make the rest fit, they are that tight.

Bottom line: I love these and highly recommend them.

Bought as ceiling surround-rear drivers for a 7.1 home theater. Very good timbre for such a price point. Good match for Polks RTi series. Be careful removing the steel grilles. DO NOT do what Polk suggests by using a paper clip. I did and spent time with a body-buck and hammer flattening out the distortion the paper clip caused. You might as well use an axe! There are four clamp-screws that need to be accessed from the front. Use these four screws to gently push the grill out from behind. Once you get the grill out a quarter-inch, you can peel it out the rest of the way from the front. Hope this prevents the a little aggravation. Buy these speakers.

I mounted these in my ceiling just behind my sofa. I intended these to just be rear channel speakers, but I they sounded good enough that I am sending my stereo through them now.

Installation was simple and I had them out of the box and playing music in under 20 minutes. The biggest hassel was cutting the hole and trying to avoid the insulation!

I am considering buying another pair to put on the back patio and would recommend these to even my best friends.

I shopped around for similar speakers at local shops and places like Best Buy and Circuit City. All others were way over priced. The Polks were a great buy. I use them as the rear speakers in a surround sound. They sound great. The speakers come with a cutout template and a template to mask the speakers if you want to paint them. They were very easy to install. A very nicely designed speaker. I'm very glad I purchased them from Amazon.

We installed these in our master bedroom and bath; sound is awesome. We also painted the speakers to match the walls - the blend right in.

I purchased these last December, 2007 from Amazon and after all these months I have been completely satisfied with the Polk Audio brand. I will agree with the others that the included templates make a tight fit. It is not to much more work to slowly chisel away to get that perfect fit though. I never did anything like this before and I'm completely amazed of the outcome. You can't go wrong with the template, just make sure you go in the attic and clear out any insulation that might fall on you.

This was my setup for the home theater and my wife and I are completely happy with the sound, look, and would purchase Polk Audio again.

Front: RC80i
Surround: RC60i
Back Surround: RC60i
Center: CS1
Sub: PSW505

sound great in large room. Installed four in 18x20 room. very difficult to get grill off without damaging it. only gave it four stars due to grill difficulty. polk needs to think about packaging without grill attached.

My buddy told me these were very easy to install. He kept telling me what a smart design the locking mechanism is. They sound great. The Omni directional tweeters make up for any problems that might arise from less than ideal speaker placement due to shape of your A/V room. My ceiling is textured white, so these speakers almost disappear until you turn them on.