Customer Reviews

Polk Audio TSi500 Floorstanding Speaker (Single, Black)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Exterior Finish - Got the speakers and unpacked them to an amazing sight of cherry finish with the high gloss back top. My wife absolutely loved it. They are one of the bigger towers and will dwarf even a 40inch TV.

Sound - Listened to a lot of speakers..Paradigm studios, klipsch Icons, reference series, Polk Rtis, PSB image towers and Infinity towers....to me the paradigm studios were the best in sound but they were astronomical in terms of price. Finally it was between these and the PSBs, the klipsh Icons and the polks RTis sounded bright to me. Did a lot of listening with my own cd at Frys, my friends place, bestbuy and a whole list of places. The psbs seemed to have the best mid range but lacked the clarity at the highs these provided. The klipsch Icons were ruled out as even the TSI400s sounded better than those. Since i was looking for beefier mids I went with these and have not looked back since. Running them using an Emotiva amp. I have pushed them to a true 100 watts and they were wanting more. I could not go past this point as I dint want cops at my door...:) needless to say these performed like champs.

For HT these are beasts...provides an in theater experience once the lights go out. Pair them with a CS20 and you will have an extreme front sound stage.

Value - Must buy for the sheer value provided at this price range. An absolute yes to an audiophile who knows the law of diminshing returns or a practical person who wants most from his purchase.

Much has been written about the acoustical qualities of this speaker so I just wanted to add a comment about the cherry exterior. First off, it is beautiful. It looks like quality wood furniture and the high gloss piano black accents are very sophisticated.

I want to assure you that the color of the cherry is not nearly as orange or shiny as it appears in the picture. The photograph makes it appear almost garish in my opinion. It is a classy muted cherry and the finish has a fairly flat hand rubbed appearance.

This may be good news to you or not depending on your taste, but at least now you have something to help you decide.

I bought my Polk Audio TSi 500's from Amazon and had it shipped direct to my home. The shipping was handled very well and was delivered by a local carrier that handled large packages for Amazon. The speaker came direct from Amazon's warehouse in Southern California.
Before I chose the Polks, I auditioned several speakers from Frys Electronics & Best Buy. I had a limited budget of less than $1,000 for a pair of speakers so I listened to speakers that fell within this price range. I listened to Klipsche's offerings, the Polk Audio TSi 400, Bose 301 and Accoustimass system, B&W, & Definitive Technology. They all sounded good enough but there were only a few standouts. The Bose 301's were cheap at less than $300 each but they sounded weak--just wasn't in the ballpark of the others. These speakers should be in the $200/each for their sound quality. The Accoustimass 2-channel stereo speakers sounded better and definitely would present a very small footprint in my living room. However, their sound was just ok and did not impress all that much. The Klipsche's I auditioned all sounded very sharp and too warm for my taste, all lacked bass response even with their large cabinets. The B&W's were better balanced but still weak in the bass response. The Definitive Technologies were impressive in the showroom and had ample bass response. They had the largest soundstage of all the speakers in my price range and sounded loud and clear thanks to their bipolar design (speakers firing to the rear of the cabinet to bounce from the rear walls). The DT's also had very strong bass thanks to their side firing woofers. However they cost a great deal more and pushed my budget to beyond $1,000 for the pair. It was the Polk Audio TSi 400 that wet my appetite for really well balanced sound with strong bass response. The 400's impressed me with their strong bass even for their relatively small footprint. However, it was the TSi 500 that blew me away because these speaker had the great balance of the TSi 400 but had the bass punch I was looking for. The TSi 500's have the four 6.5" drivers that really helped pump up the midrange and bass. The highs and mids were crystal clear without overwhelming the bass like the Klipsche did. With the right music material and the right amplifier, the TSi 500's can really rock the house without the need for a subwoofer. Then, when the front grilles were removed and the four 6.5" drivers were exposed, the speakers become even more visually impressive. Mine are the Cherry wood finish and they are beautiful! I resisted going with the all black because they just looked boring, too much like a large, black brick. The Cherry finish added some real class to these large, floor standing speakers.
The Polk Audio TSi 500's are not the largest floor standing speakers around but they are rather tall and deep. They are narrow in profile so that helps. Nevertheless, these speakers will NOT disappear in any living room space! Although these speakers would not dominate the space, anyone walking into your living room will not miss them. That is just fine because when you turn on the music or movie soundtrack, the sound coming from the TSi 500's will make their visual presence make perfect sense. They sound as beautiful as they look. For the price I paid, which was $800 delivered to my door, these Polk Audio speakers are winners. I gave it 3 stars for ease of use simply because of their sheer size and not all rooms will have space for them. I gave it 5 stars for performance simply because for their price, nothing comes close.
Side Note: I originally wanted to purchase these speakers locally from Fry's Electronics or Best Buy. Although I was able to audition them there, when I was ready to buy, nobody was around to help. At Fry's nobody had any clue about these speakers and the guy that did come to help had a heavy accent that I could barely understand. When I went to Best Buy, I had someone help me audition them and was helpful and easily understood with no heavy accent. But when it came time for me to purchase, the same guy could not tell me if Best Buy had the Cherry wood finish available. He even looked online and seemed to have problems navigating in Best Buy's website! I was really puzzled by this and in the end I walked out of both these stores without buying anything. Later, I went to Best Buy's website and found that they did indeed have the Cherry wood finished TSi 500's. But since their own employee could not find what I was able to find, no deal. I gave the business to Amazon instead.

I bought these from Fry's and got ripped on the price. They are not cheaper on here but you can get them on eBay for cheap sometimes, even the Rti series. I was set on these and didn't want to get scammed somehow so I bought them there.

They look amazing. The top is the piano black gloss, the front screen is very nice and soft to the touch. The box is typical mdf wood so no surprises there. They can handle up to 275 watts each and are able to be bi-amped. They are bi-wired from the start so that is how I have them running since I don't have another amp to bi-amp. My Onkyo TX-SR705 is running them in my 7.1 system. Meaning each one is only getting 100watts peak so they are way underpowered right now. Eventually I will get a larger receiver or another amp to really get some decibles out of them.

But don't be fooled, even with them getting just the mid range of their power handling they sound great. Take off the grill for an awe inspiring view of the 4 6.5" mid drivers and 1" tweeter EACH. Have great highs and lows. I have a Klipsch 650 watt 12" sub so I have the towers running higher frequencies but they sound great. I will be setting them up in a 2.1 system soon to see how they sound then.

I have been using some vintage Sansui and Pioneer speakers for some time and finally decided to purchase some high end speakers. What a difference! I used to think my SP-2500s sounded good until listening to the TSi500s. They bring out the detail in all of my music. I was afraid that with 6.5" drivers the bass might be lacking. Not the case. Bass response is outstanding. My only regret is that I didn't make this move sooner.

I bought these to replace some very old (but wonderful) Pioneer speakers. I prefer speakers that have sweet clarity for the midtones and high frequencies. I don't like rumbly bass covering that up. I use my powered Infinity subwoofer to provide the amount of bass I prefer. These TSI500's are just perfect my my listening preferences. There is no cloud of bass covering up the sweet sound of those mids and highs. Polk makes a great speaker inside and out. The finish for mine is black with the black gloss tops. Goes perfectly with my all-black home theater equipment. You won't go wrong with this speaker choice. White glove delivery from Amazon made this a wonderful buying experience. No worry about your speakers arriving with big holes in the boxes as some buyers have complained about.

I'm very happy with my Polk TSi500 speaker pair. They look as good in real life as they do in the pictures, although I prefer the look of the exposed cones to the speaker grille. The sound quality is about as good as you can expect for speakers priced in this range. They sound fantastic for music and as the fronts in my home theater. There is very little noticeable distortion until you're really blasting them, and that can be mitigated by shunting the extreme lows to a good sub. I use them paired with a Polk PSW125 powered sub, and the system sounds fantastic.

For under $1000, you really can't go wrong. Using these & the PSW125 it's entirely possible to construct an excellent home theater system for under $2,000. Not including media players, speaker stand & the like, mine cost a little under $1800 and I'm very satisfied.

I bought these speakers without listening and comparing - I couldn't find a store in town that carried them, so I bought them refurbished from Polk Direct for a screamin' price. If I had to pay full price, I might have gone out and listened to some first. Polk is a very, very nice company in terms of customer satisfaction and I highly recommend them - the speakers came by Fed Ex in about 2 days with free shipping.
They sound great, and they are quite beautiful. I'm still working on getting the proper placement in the room for optimum sound.
I'm driving them with a Harman Kardon HK3490 I just got on Amazon. I have only had them set up for a few days, so I have not explored their full range of greatness, but I listened to some old Jethro Tull and heard things I haven't heard before (and I've been a Tull fan my whole life)
I don't have a home theater set up (it's not important to me) but for music these are great and if you get them for a good discount, they are superb!
More to follow as I get them set up and broken in properly.

I bought these from Polk direct through their website back in Feb. 2010. Since tax return time was around the corner, I went ahead and bought out almost an entire 5.1 set-up. I bought 2 TSi500's which was quite expensive, + an additional pair of surrounds (TSi300's). Since I bought directly through their website, just for buying a pair of 500's they threw in a $300 sub-woofer, "8 inch (PSW111) for free. Which was a step-down from my old JBL "12 sub. Which had died on me 4 years ago after a good period of use. While these speakers lack the (mid-range) driver that my old Sony's had, I have to say these Polk Speakers sound top-notch for what they are. I could've gone up for a higher priced speaker from polk that had the mid-range but was a little too much more for my blood. All-in-All no complaints a side from that. I also put them to the test watching a dvd that had a DTS Surround Soundtrack which is twice as loud, sharper, and crisper than Dolby Digital. They held up well during that ballistics test of a Loud Car Crash scene from David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. Which is extremely LOUD in DTS. Music sounds as if you were right in the studio with the recording artist. Very rich detailed clarity through these speakers. I have them hooked up to an old outdated Pioneer VSX D-711 (5.1 Surround) 2003 A/V Receiver. Which I am fixing to upgrade to a 7.1 or even a 7.2 adding an extra sub-woofer & two additional extra side surround speakers. I bought these in black finish, as I like all of my components to blend that way. Hopefully these speakers will last me for years to come. I hate it that almost everything you buy is obsolete the very next day, especially in this day and age, with technology rapidly changing. Buy a pair of these and you'll be hooked! I promise. Not having much knowledge on any high end brand names from a first time buyer myself, Klipsch, JBL, Paradigm, etc. I think I made a good choice, choosing Polk.

I listened to just about every speaker in this price range and bang for the buck these things took the cake. They sound better than mayny speakers costing much more (Bose did not even come close. Bose are great for the size, but lack midbass and their subs are not great. I tried the Klipse, Energy, and just about every other brand carried at the big box stores. All the following sounded good, but to achieve the same sound quality as the polk they were typically priced higher and I personally preferred the sound of the polk. They have very clear high to mid range and are very responsive. They do not really produce any bass, which they are not designed for. They clearly need to be paired with a subwoofer, but any seaker in this size would. I have them as my rear seakers in a 7.1 system with a Denon 1911 receiver, OWM5 sides, CS20 center, PSW 505 sub, and the tSI 500 fronts, and it sounds amazing. A couple of my firends that spend far more are very jellous, which is always nice. At first I was disapointed, but apparently they require a break in period and after playing them for a few days fairly regularily, they came around nicely. I am very happy with my purchase decision. As I said, you can get better speakers, but you will be paying far more.