Customer Ratings & Reviews

Listening to speaker after speaker in the various showrooms is a hassle. Once you get the speakers home they all sound good. I am over 60 and I’ve lost some hearing over the years, all of the conversations about hearing highs and lows are beyond me… I like what I like and I like these speakers. I bought the Polk S20 as my main L/R speakers and the Polk S30 for my center channel. I purchased the Polk PSW-108 for my subwoofer and I love this setup. As you can see I have a 3.1 speaker setup. If I’m missing something I don’t know it, in my home this system sees TV and movies; music is rarely played. Everything I have listened to sounds GREAT. All the comparing was grueling and I’m very satisfied with my choice.

While not high end speakers, they do produce a well balanced sound for a midsize room. I bought them as an upgrade to my previous sound system and am pleased with my choice.

I replaced my 14 year old Energy encore center channel with the S30, and i like it. It's larger than my other center channel. However, it's clarity is very good, and it adds a little bass as well. Over the holiday's i pick up a couple Polk S55 tower speakers as well. I would recommend the Polk's S30 if you have the space to add this large center channel. Polk always has made good quality speakers at a reasonable price point. I would give them 4.5 stars overall.

I tried both the s35 and s30 center channel with S20 fronts and S15 rears. I was not impressed by either of the two center channel speakers in this lineup. The S35 lacks any lower frequency given it only has 3.5 inch drivers, while the S30 covers a bit more base it sounds hollow and has poor dialogue, which is the main purpose of a center channel. For what it is worth, I returned all the polk speakers and went with Klipsch RP150m and RP450c. Once you try a higher quality center channel speaker, such as the RP450C or even the RP250C you will immediately hear the difference. Spend a bit more money (its not that much more) and you won't be disappointing!

To give some backstory: I am upgrading from an Onkyo HTIB system. It was the HTS-7800 system that I also purchased a couple of years ago. Best Buy was awesome and allowed me to do a price match that helped me get a fantastic deal on this speaker. I spent a lot of times in forums and reading reviews to come to this buying decision. Several people go with the S35 over this because of the size, but I am so happy I chose the S30 instead. I played close to 8 different scenes from several different movies. I played them on my Onkyo Set up, then moved the speaker wires over to the S30 and repeated this process. Every single time I played the same scene on the S30 I was surprised. I was hearing details that I couldn't even hear with my Onkyo set-up. The room felt more "full" the sounds felt more natural and less like a speaker. I literally couldn't be happier with my choice. After running the AccuEQ calibration it literally changed my entire Home Theater Experience just from one speaker. There is a downside though. The speaker did expose my others. It gave me the itch to want to upgrade everything else as well. The S15's are the next item on my list and I can't wait to add them to my system. Beautifully made speaker, affordable price, and excellent upgrade from my HTIB set-up.