October 2008 Reviewed by Vince Hanada	Polk Audio RM95 / DSWPro 400 Home-Theater Speaker System

Description Model: RM8 main and surround speaker Price: $699.95 USD for four RM8s and one RM8C Dimensions: 7.5"H x 4.25"W x 4.25"D Weight: 2.8 pounds each Model: RM8C center-channel speaker Price: See above Dimensions: 9.4"W x 3.8"H x 3.75"D Weight: 3.7 pounds Model: DSWPRO 400 subwoofer Price: $524.95 USD Dimensions: 14.6"H x 13.75"W x 13.75"D Weight: 30 pounds System price: $1224.90 USD Warranty: Five years on speakers, three years on subwoofer

Features Speakers: 2.5" composite midrange drivers 0.75" silk-polymer dome tweeters Composite enclosures Three-sided cabinets minimize depth Magnetically shielded Optional floor stands Available in gloss white or black Subwoofer: 8" polypropylene woofer 360W peak (manufacturer rated) class-D amplifier Front- or down-firing design MDF enclosure Remote control

Polk Audio has been a leading innovator in American speaker design for the better part of three decades. Founded in 1972 by Matthew Polk and three graduates of John Hopkins University, Polk Audio has an extensive speaker line that includes, it seems, something for every budget, from entry-level to audiophile. One theme evident throughout the Polk Audio line is value -- their most expensive speaker tops out at a reasonable $3000 per pair. At $1224.90, the home-theater speaker system reviewed here, the RM95 along with the DSWPRO 400 subwoofer, is at the entry-level end of the scale, but has more features and offers better value than the typical budget surround-sound system.

Description

Looking at the Polk Audio RM8 main/surround speaker, it became evident that it wasn’t part of that typical budget system. First of all, its cross section is triangular rather than the usual square or rectangle. The drivers are arranged asymmetrically on this wedge shape, with a 0.75" tweeter below a 2.5" midrange on one face, and another 2.5" midrange on another face. This constitutes what Polk calls its "wide dispersion array" -- their version of a bipolar speaker, in which much of the sound is directed away from the listener. The midrange cones are made of a rigid composite plastic, the tweeter of a flexible silk-polymer.

The RM8 measures 7.5"H x 4.25"W x 4.25" D. Its removable grille covers the drive-units; the third face is finished in high-gloss black. As this speaker is intended for wall mounting, the bottom has a screw hole for attaching the included wall bracket. Also located on the bottom of the speaker are the spring-clip binding posts.

The RM8C center-channel speaker, at 9.4"W x 3.8"H x 3.75"D, is slightly longer than the RM8 is tall, but has the same wedge-like cross section, with a 0.75" tweeter and two 2.5" midrange drivers in the midrange-tweeter-midrange driver array seen in most center speakers. However, all of the RM8C’s drivers are on the same face, to fire sound more directly at the listener for more intelligible dialogue.

Nor is the DSWPRO 400 a typical budget subwoofer, and its credit-card-sized remote control is a dead giveaway that Polk has included some nifty features. Not only does the remote turn the sub on or off, it has controls for setting the volume, phase, night mode, and mute. And the Polk Room Optimizer (PRO) presets can be invoked with buttons for equalizing the sub for different placements in the room: in a cabinet, corner, mid-wall, or mid-room.

The DSWPRO 400’s cabinet of MDF measures 14.6"H x 13.75"W x 13.75" D and weighs 30 pounds. To maximize its placement options, Polk has provided bolt holes on one side for remounting the feet and turning this downward-firing sub into a forward-firing design. The single 8" woofer is flanked on one side by a long, narrow slot port. The 360W-rated (peak) class-D amplifier has the usual speaker-level inputs and outputs, LFE channel in, volume level, and Auto/Off/On controls, as well as L/R RCA inputs and outputs (rarely seen these days), to allow the DSWPRO 400 to be easily incorporated into multi-sub or two-channel-only systems.

Performance

There’s only one trick to setting up Polk’s RM95 system, and that’s to get the mirror-imaged pairs pointed in the right direction. According to the instruction manual, each should be aligned so that the two-driver side faces inward, the one-driver side outward. Oriented this way, the imaging should be correct, each speaker’s third driver expanding the soundstage to beyond the speakers’ outer sides. For best results, the speakers sound best when placed against the wall, preferably with no hard surface close to the outside of the speaker. I mounted two RM8s on the wall behind and to the sides of my 40" LCD TV, about 6’ apart; and the RM8C on the wall directly above the TV. The surround speakers were mounted on the wall directly to the sides of my listening seat. I placed the DSWPRO 400 subwoofer in the front corner of my room, and set PRO to Corner.

Once the Polk system was set up, I put it through its paces by watching the HD DVD edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which has a decent 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack. Dialogue through the RM8C center was clear and smooth, even at high volumes; the tweeter never sounded harsh or biting at any level. It’s often difficult to mate a small center-channel speaker to a subwoofer, but the RM8C center blended well with the DSWPRO 400. With deeper male voices, such as the narrator in this film, the sound didn’t jump from sub to speakers, a sign of good design. Another good trait was the RM95’s sound off axis -- when I sat to one side of my room, the high frequencies weren’t dulled by comb filtering.

The bipolar main and surround speakers enveloped me in sound to an excellent degree. Throughout Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the setting changes from the cavernous spaces of the chocolate factory to such small, intimate spaces as the Wonka elevator; the RM8s and RM8C conveyed all of these spaces convincingly, building a continuous surround environment all around me.

Overall, the DSWPRO 400 was a good subwoofer, and a good match for the RM95 speakers in a room of small to medium size. In the musical sequences featuring the Oompa Loompas, such as in chapter 16, this sub really rocked. The percussion boomed forcefully in my room, the brass and woodwinds blaring loudly through the RM8 main speakers. The rhythm and pacing of the RM95 system was infectious enough that I got up and boogied. The silk-dome tweeters of the RM8 mains didn’t sound gritty at all, though not as airy as far more expensive speakers. Occasionally, the integration of the outputs of the RM8 mains and the DSWPRO 400 was disjointed -- I could hear a little jumpiness from sub to mains that I didn’t with sub to RM8C center.

To get a better sense of what the DSWPRO 400 could do, I watched chapter 9 of Superman Returns on SD DVD. The electromagnetic pulse in this scene really hits the bottom notes, and the Polk sub did well, but didn’t have larger subwoofers’ power to overwhelm my room. It shook my floors and made the glassware rattle, but gut-thumping, liver-jiggling bass was missing. But given the Polk sub’s modest price of $524.95, I wasn’t too concerned.

Comparison

A close competitor to the Polk RM95 speaker system is Mirage’s Prestige Nanosat, at a list price of $1398, including Prestige S8 subwoofer. The Mirage Nanosat has a similar speaker complement, with four compact main and surround speakers. Mirage calls the multidirectional design of these speakers Omnipolar, to emphasize their spherical radiation pattern. A slight difference from the Polk RM95 system is that the Mirage center-channel speaker is Omnipolar as well, whereas the RM8C center is a conventional direct-radiating design.

One audible difference between the two systems was in image specificity. The Polk RM95 threw a conventional soundstage with good side-to-side imaging that lent itself well to two-channel music. When I played "1234," from Feist’s Reminder (CD, Polydor A&C023), Feist’s voice emanated from a point dead center between the two front RM8 speakers, and the various instruments were spread across the front of the soundstage. I could pick out individual instruments: banjo, piano, trumpet. While the Nanosat Prestige couldn’t match this image specificity, they provided a deeper soundstage.

The Nanosat is similar to the Polk RM95 in that the Mirage system’s surround-sound envelopment is excellent, and better than that of most surround systems based on direct-radiating speakers. Where the Nanosat Prestige differed was in imaging height, which the Polk RM95 couldn’t match. When I watched the Blu-ray edition of The Prestige, the Tesla Transporter just sounded bigger through the Nanosats, the zapping noises shooting up to my ceiling.

The Polk DSWPRO 400 subwoofer has many more features and more flexibility than the Mirage Prestige S8. With its remote control -- rare for a sub -- and ability to fire downward or straight ahead, the DSWPRO 400 can be fine-tuned to match any setup it finds itself in. Still, the Mirage sub performed slightly better than the Polk DSWPRO 400 in my room, with greater output when pushed hard.

Conclusions

The Polk Audio RM95 is a good all-around home-theater speaker system whose strengths are its surround envelopment and reproduction of two-channel recordings. The DSWPRO 400 is one of the most versatile subwoofers I’ve seen, with unprecedented placement flexibility and a built-in equalizer to match. This system is suited to anyone who wants a home-theater speaker system to match their flat-panel TV and doesn’t want to spend a lot of money to get great sound.

Manufacturer contact information:

Polk Audio
5601 Metro Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
Phone: (410) 358-3600

Website: www.polkaudio.com

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