Polk Monitor XT70 Speaker Review

The Polk Audio XT70 is the flagship speaker in the company’s Monitor speaker line. It has an impressive front speaker array and is intended to act as a multi-use floor-standing speaker capable of handling movies, games, and music. In this review, I want to test the XT70 in all those environments and compare it to other similarly priced speakers and the more expensive ES60 from Polk’s Signature Elite line to see if it’s worth upgrading.

The Concept

The XT70 is, as mentioned, part of the monitor line. The Monitor line is not intended to be audiophile focussed speakers but multi-role speakers with a versatile sound capable of use in multiple scenarios. The line includes many other speaker styles, including floor standing, bookshelf, soundbar, and subwoofer types.

You can either use the XT70 alone in a pair or add additional speakers to create 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound systems.

One thing you should keep in mind when reading this review is that the XT70 look to have been designed with the full frequency spectrum in mind. The huge 8-inch woofers on the front specifically target low-end performance, so unlike speakers with smaller drivers who usually recommend purchasing an additional subwoofer, that will not be the case here.

Specification

• Model: Polk Audio Monitor XT70 Floorstanding Speaker

• Drivers: 1” Terylene Dome Tweeter / (2) 6.5” Bi-Laminate Paper Woofer / (2) 8” Passive Bass Radiators

• Sensitivity: 89dB (1 watt @ 1 Meter)

• Frequency Response: 35 Hz -> 40,000 Hz

• Power per Channel: 200 watts

• Colors: Black only

• Dimensions: Width9.25" (23.5 cm)Height40.4" (102.6 cm)Depth12.5" (31.8 cm)

• Weight: 35 lbs (15.88 kg) (Per Unit)

Aesthetic Impressions

The Polk Audio XT70 is a massive monolithic hunk of speakers. This thing is seriously imposing in any room it is placed in. It only comes in one color, black, so it isn’t trying to be a piece of furniture; it looks very much like a speaker and a big one at that.

The cabinet is a fairly basic design. Moving up through the range brings you to the Polk ES60 we reviewed, which has a far more stylized housing. The XT70 is a large rectangular box with no curves and no soft lines, and the woofers and tweeters are inlayed to the cabinet as opposed to on a separate faceplate.

Yet, for all its aggressiveness, this thing looks seriously cool. Five drivers, and not small ones at that, dominate the front and tell you from the get-go that they will go loud and hit hard. I have become so accustomed to using refined audiophile speakers with a simple tweeter and single woofer design that I forgot how bonkers some of this lower-end stuff was.

Build and Finishing Impressions

The Build quality is good, certainly not on par with more expensive speakers in Polks line, but the cabinetry is so simple it’s kind of hard to flex in this area. The finishing is generally pretty good, with no defects or misaligned hardware.

The veneer finish is, I think, a bit too basic, with the wood grain looking a little cheap, and I would have loved to have seen this speaker finished in a flat white or black vinyl.

Sound

Ok, this speaker is not for purists. It has some coloration but does exactly what it was designed to do. It is an all-in-one mammoth-sounding speaker that gets really bloody loud. Not just loud, actually, this speaker bangs in the low end and displays such ample quantities of sub-bass response that it will save you money having to buy a separate dedicated subwoofer.

As mentioned, the sound portion of this review will be split into two categories, first for watching movies and used as a home theater system and the other analysis as a hifi speaker for audio-only. Let’s do this.

Polk XT70 For Movies

The Polk XT70 performed very well in movies requiring the listening level from my amplifiers to be around 60/70% for a cinematic volume experience. This keeps them in their optimal sweet spot because distortion is observed at listening volumes of 80+ %.

That’s not really a problem for movies, though, given you are likely to be sitting directly in front of them, and when listening at such volume, performance is very good in this area. Most notably, the bass gives more than ample grunt that you can both hear and feel the rumble coming off of them. Sub bass on explosions sounded massive, and the mid-bass surprisingly punches in a tightly controlled manner to follow along nicely with soundtracks.

The mids and highs aren’t forced and instead sound father natural with ample clarity for vocal separation.

The biggest draw of the speaker as a whole is when using it in this manner. I never felt like I was missing additional speakers. As I have mentioned multiple times in this review, there is no real requirement to add a subwoofer, but additionally, when you toe the speakers inwards to the listener, they also sound good without needing central channel speakers.

It’s really good for movies and very well rounded.

Polk XT70 For Music

Music is where they get exposed to more expensive audiophile speakers. Even some speakers that are cheaper and smaller, like the Emotiva B1+, significantly outperform them in detail retrieval and technicals. But that’s kind of the rub; it has to give up something in pure fidelity to be able to work as a multi-use speaker, and in this case, it’s the “sound quality” when listening to music.

That doesn’t mean it sounds bad, not in the slightest, just that speakers that are better suited to that solo task exist on the market. Two areas exist where there is degradation. Mid performance and bass. This is both in regards to listening to the XT70 at higher volumes which I mentioned earlier.

With the volume pushed, the bass becomes more bloomy, whereas the mids become slightly more confused. The test of good equipment is how it scales with volume increases, and from mid-volume listening, there is a small degradation.

Now, does it sound good? Yup, it does; anything with a bass line bangs; again, sub-bass thumping surprised me, but the sound's overall smoothness and fullness are going to impress as long as you don’t push the levels too far. Even at the higher volumes, it doesn’t sound bad, just slightly less refined, so I still consider this a good-sounding speaker for music.

Final Verdict

Looking at the Polk XT70 as a music speaker is wrong. Polks Signature line is where they start catering to that audiophile audience. These are instead do-it-all speakers in regards to their ability to work for movies and music, but it goes further than that. They are a do-it speaker in regards to cutting down on additional hardware.

At no point during the testing did I feel it worth adding an additional subwoofer into the mix because the bass hit so damn hard. Additionally, the speaker is set up with the ability to add soundbars and satellites down the line, which could make for a very good 5.1 sound system for around $1000 or a 7.1 system for around $1500, depending on the various sales you will find them on throughout the year.

I think this is a very good speaker that I can recommend if you do a lot of mixed listening, but I think there are better options for purely listening to music.

Official Website of Polk Audio XT70: www.polkaudio.com