Polk Audio RTIA1 Bookshelf speakers
What is the finest sort of hifi merchandise? The sole problem with a dreamy vision of 'the-one-that-gets-you-closest-to-hifi-paradise' is the painfully high cost or, worse still, a speech bubble that reads: "if you must request the cost, you can not afford it". Life's unkind. Fortunately for most of us, there are engineers and more hi-fi designers tasked with wringing the past drop of performance out of every pound you spend than those pursuing ShangriLa at any cost that is sonic. As Ross Walker, son of Quad creator Peter Walker, once told me: "Any fool can design a great-sounding amplifier for GBP30,000, the trick is to do it for GBP300."
Precisely the same goes for speakers. Who wouldn't need to hear a seven-foot 20-driver behemoth that costs as much as a Ferrari 458 Speciale? What the world really needs, though, is a GBP299 budget two-way standmount that, out of the park, hits the money for it. It's why superiority past the call of duty in the affordable end of the loudspeaker market combat so challenging for our attention. And it is why, much from rushing to receive a better pair of speakers, folks often end up hanging onto their GBP200-300 purchases through several front-end upgrades.
Although comparatively new to the United Kingdom, Polk's GBP299 RTiA1 bookshelf model - the lowest two way in its mid-priced variety - has been wowing American customers since 2008, which will be an extended bout to get a loudspeaker design today plus a sterling endorsement of its own layout. True, you will not find a fashionably flush and screw- less driver demo, but the curved cheeks of the cabinet and glossy hardwood veneer are rare at the cost and give the Polks a typically classy look and feel.
The tapered back is a function of what Polk calls Damped Asymmetric Hex Laminate Isolation - in other words, a more rigid, acoustically inert cupboard that affords fewer panel resonances.
The bi-wireable two way driver complement constitutes a 25mm silk/polymer-composite dome tweeter along with a 130mm polymer/mineral-composite bass unit that is mid. Both units were designed with all the help of Polk's Dynamic Balance technology, which works on the complete-field heterodyning laser interferometer system to analyse and minimise driver resonance. Additionally chasing unwanted contributions down, the Power Port technology in Polk attempts to reduce port noise 'chuffing'. A dispersing cone was created to increase the air flow in the same manner that the long, flared port would do on a bigger floorstanding speaker, and is put at the mouth of the port on the back. The claimed result is lower turbulence in the mouth and also a comparable decrease in distortion.
Afterward there's Acoustic Resonance Management technology, which demands another port on the front to resonate at the same frequency as the enclosure's internal depth resonance. As the radiation of the rear and front interfaces are out of phase with all the drive-unit output, resonance peaks must be suppressed.
The RTiA1s sit atop my Slate Audio 24 but their rear panels are fitted with wall brackets in the event you would like to liberate the floor space and do not mind inevitably giving some of the sonic possibility of the A1. Toe them in a few amounts and, even though the speakers 'warm up' after a couple of hours of play, the results directly from the carton are strikingly good.
Sound quality
I'll try to describe what I think Polk has done to make the A1s sound the way that they do, which - in several respects - is quite distinct to British price rivals from the likes of B&W, Monitor Audio and KEF. Whatever benefits amassed by the different anti-resonance measures - and I suspect they're essential - these loudspeakers are voiced with extreme ability to get a specific effect. The mid range is beautifully presented and subtly highlight to attain a tremendous awareness -through clarity and detail. Tonal colours appear somewhat saturated, giving tactility and a fullness to instruments and vocals you simply do not anticipate from a speaker of this size or cost. Similarly, the expressive and speed reach of the dynamics are almost scarily great. Better still, it is all securely grounded with the agile, supple bass performance that, while far from visceral, is taut and tuneful.
The A1's capacity to present fine detail in a musically coherent yet uninhibited fashion while avoiding the type of forensic investigation that will often let structural aspects of the music dominate in the expense of tonal texture and timbral shading is a rare joy. Here you get it all in a way that appears to be natural and totally unforced. For example, jazz pianist Joe Sample's muscular two-fisted keyboard runs on the classic track Carmel always sound impressively tidy, clear and focused on my ever-engaging Monitor Audio Bronze BX2s. But through the A1s, the rolling notes look pacier and punchier, more immaculate more replete. It is simply a more powerful existence.
The speaker's imaging skills are of an equally high order. Given a bit of space to breathe (at least a foot from back and side walls, preferably) soundscapes are convincingly proportioned as they are broad. Musicians, singers and instruments have easily discerned a feeling of palpable physicality that is difficult to credit given the A1's small size as well as cost, spatial relationships and, yet again. In a nutshell, they're a bit addictive.
Decision
Could you know if I said the Polk RTiA1s enjoy having fun, what I meant? Unusually uncoloured, but far from neutral in the sense that was muffled, they have been righteously even handed with sound expansive, all types of music and, despite obvious physical limitations and expensive with great bass and dazzling midband insight. Crucially, they're endowed with a keen instinct for nailing the pulse of the music's beauty that is necessary and alive to it. Ever so slightly hyped in a good way that draws you in and entertains if their presentation is it.
Real wood finish tasteful layout, simple drive and general unfussiness about positioning only add to my feeling that the best kind of merchandise that is hifi is a bargain. I urge a listen.
