Customer Reviews

Polk Audio OWM3 On-Wall Speaker (Pair, White)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Produces lots full sound for rear channels. Can be mounted in most any position to give that custom installed look. Had expensive B&W 805's for rears and decied to move the 805s to front for another seperate room setup. Put these in place and did not notice a change at all. Thundering choppers flying from front to rear still sound great. Also handles the subtle sounds of crickets in the outdoor scenes very cleanly. No need to spend more on super expensive rears -- save the money for your center speaker or a big subwoofer. Great performance and good value.

Being audio-conscious, albeit not an audiophile, I bought these to replace my old JBL sound effects speakers as my front left and rights. The tweeters on both drivers broke, and I needed something new. Since I needed speakers in a pinch I went to the old two stores in my area: CircuitCity and the Bose outlet. The Bose outlet had their 301s for $219, which was a decent price. Because my CircuitCity was closing, these were discounted to only $100. I bought these impulsively (knowing that Polk is a good name in audio) and I have been impressed. The mids are not as clear as in my JBLs, but the treble is much more audible than my JBLs were (when the tweeters worked). Although they're wall-mount speakers, I use them with the included stand things and they work just fine. If you're looking for some speaker replacements and want something good, small, and relatively inexpensive then these speakers are a great choice.

PROS:
These are some great sounding speakers. More than great, they sound spectacular. It has a very clear, full, rich complete sound that can sound as awesome as the front and surround sound speakers. I chose the white speakers and the color blends perfectly well with a nice limited edition picture resting between them. You would not believe how well they look on the wall over my sofa and how many compliments I get on their appearance. The speakers were easy to put up and the picture on the net does not do them justice. I can put these speakers anywhere that I want to. I can corner them between two walls, mount them on a stand or just sit them on a table. How sweet is that? Also, the shape of each speaker affords an easy blend into any decor. I know. I'm a woman.

CONS:
Barring someone receiving a lemon, I don't think that anyone could find a legitimate con to these, or for that matter, any of the Polk speakers in this series.

OTHER THOUGHTS:
My receiver is the Onkyo TX-SR706. I have the Polk Tsi300's floor standing speakers as my front left and right speakers. The Polk CS10 is my center speaker, the Polk Tsi100's bookshelf speakers are my surround sound speakers and The Polk OWM3's are my rear back speakers. They are all made to go with one another and are voice matched. Alas, my sub-woofer is a Yamaha SW315 10" powered sub.

All of the speakers are black except the center speaker, which is cherry wood and the OWM3's, which are white. The colors work well since the rears are on the wall above the sofa. Since they are each others matches, I'm able to set my crossover to 80hz and sit back and enjoy the show. It is A LOT OF FIRST RATE SOUND. I've been a music lover my entire life and I have never, ever had a system that sounds as wonderful and first rate as this.

It's my first time building a system and everyone that's comes to my home is super impressed with the way that it sounds and the way that it looks.

These speakers are about as average as you get. Mostly designed for ease of use, Polk clearly put sound quality in the backseat while designing the OWM3's.

I will start by giving these speakers credit for what they do well. If you need to wall mount speakers and don't have a ton of flexibility, these speakers may be a good match for you. With 8 different mounting positions(including side and front standing configurations)these are about as versatile as you can get as far as placement goes. The OWM3's are very sturdy and seem to constructed quite well. With a matted black finish and a removable cloth grille, these speakers do look pretty nice. However, performance is not on par with the Polk name despite the somewhat steep price tag considering what these speakers can do.

Sound quality on these speakers is average at best. I would not suggest these as front speakers or even rear speakers in a 5.1 setup. You may be able to get away with these as your rears, but I feel that these should be used solely as front height or back rear speakers in a 7.1 setup considering the strengths of this particular model. When using in a 5.1 setup as rears these work ok, but you will definitely notice some of the fallbacks. These speakers don't have a very good frequency response(reaching down to 80hz, and that may be a stretch considering you cannot actually cross them at 80 or even 90hz without straining them considerably)and the mid frequencies can sound somewhat hollow at times. The high end frequencies are ok for the most part but begin to strain a bit in the very high end(20 KHz or so). Like I said above, these speakers would probably work great in a 7.1 setup when they are utilized only to fill in background effects but if you plan to use with a 5.1 setup you can find better speakers than these in this price range.

Overall these speakers offer great functionality but seemingly at the expense of sound quality. Do they sound bad? No, but there are certainly better speakers out there for a similar price.

The speakers sound great for the money, but the mounting options aren't as good as the description makes it seem.

Yes, you can hang them on the wall a lot of different ways, or in a corner, but I think a typical way people will want to mount these is relatively high on the wall pointing at an angle downward to the listening area. In order to do that without a mounting bracket, you'll need to use two screws positioned horizontally about 2 inches appart. The problem is that unless you're a master craftsman, you're probably not going to get those screws at exactly the same height and the speaker won't hang straight on the wall. If you're going to hang these high on the wall angled downward, do yourself a favor and get mounting brackets that allow you to adjust the angle and rotation to go with them.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the mounts I used. They did the trick and were really easy to install.
Premier Mounts PSPK-2W Universal Speaker Mount for Walls and Ceilings (White)

These speakers are every bit as good as they are advertised. One thing has to be kept in mind that they are for home theater application.

I bought these speakers as part of an ongoing upgrade of Onkyo TX-SR605 system and have slowly been replacing the factory speakers. I currently have four of the OWM3's paired with the following:

Polk TSi CS10 Center CH speaker
Polk PSW10 (Cherry) Sub-woofer
Sony SSF-5000 Floor Standing 3-way Speaker
Monster cable 14 gauge speaker wire
Vizio 55" XVT TruLED

What's great about these speakers and one of my deciding factors is how versatile they are. You can mount them in pretty much any direction (corner mount, flush mount, down angle from ceiling, bookshelf) or if need be buy directional mounting brackets and aim the speakers wherever you want.

As for the sound, they are fantastic as most Polk speakers commonly are. Upon setting them up and watching a movie with my wife, we had to stop the movie 4 times because we thought someone was breaking into our house from the front porch. Fortunately for us it was only the speakers.

I used these as my left and right rears in my 6.1 system. Everything else is high end Yamaha, but I decided to give Polk a try, and I am very satisfied. They are very easy to hang on the wall, and sound great. I've been using them for about a year now and have no complaints.

I got these speakers to finish my home stereo/theater system. I have a yamaha receiver, equalizer, tapedeck, and cd player with 2 Klipsch tower speakers, 2 Jamo bookshelf speakers, and a yamaha center speaker and subwoofer all kinected in to a Sony 40" Google Smart Tv. Currently im just using the polks as rear satellite speakers but I did run them as mains for a few days to see how they preformed and I was actually impressed on well these speakers reproduced music as well as hometheater, good clean bass and nice highs not to mention that polk made these speakers to fit/work with about any setup with their design. These are well made speakers that fit about anywhere and are a great addition to a 5.1 or 7.1 system or by themselves. Buying them from amazon was half the price of other sites and they arrived quickly.

I have a 7.1 sound system so I am using these speakers for the back channel. For that purpose they are excellent. I can't vouch for how they would sound as front speakers. They appear to be well made and have a nice heft to them. They are inexpensive but not cheaply made. I bought the white speakers and that color is actually ever-so-slightly off-white which I find attractive. It is not a brilliant white like a sheet of copy paper.

I mounted these in the corner of the back and side wall. The mounting template is frustrating as it does not accurately give the distance from the corner to fastener location. Once you get the first hole in the right place you can place the second hole using the template. At least it does give the correct distance between the fasteners. I have never seen a speaker with so many options for mounting. If you have shelves at the right height, you can just attach the little weighted stands to the speakers an they stand up nicely.

Note that one of the mounting positions shown in the Amazon photos requires a swivel stand that is not included.

The instruction manual is nicely printed but all the different languages it supports are interspersed with the English making it very difficult and annoying to read through. The first half of the manual is taken up with warnings and cautions. I guess there is always somebody who will find a way to cause damage with a tiny speaker like this but I'm pretty sure the world has gone crazy. I would prefer each language had its own section as I just feel like throwing this thing at the wall every time I try to learn about the product I bought. Read one sentence in English and the adjoining sentence is in French or Norwegian and so forth. I won't downgrade the score for this, since at least they did provide instructions.