Polk and others now produce a lot of really good budget-tier tower speakers, but, bigger loudspeakers that are decent will always tend to be more expensive – most choices will still have spending at least $500 for a pair.
While there are plenty of choices for decent bookshelf speakers for less than $100 each, for a while there just wasn’t any such tower speaker… until the T50: solidly decent floorstanding tower speakers that are ridiculously cheap.
Specs
Speaker type: passive, 2 way
Nominal power handling: 45 W (approximated*)
Peak power handling: 150 W
Impedance: 6 ohms
Sensitivity: 90 dB/W/m
Frequency response range: 38 – 24,000 Hz (+/- 3dB)
Unit weight: 20.5 lbs
Unit dimensions: 7.75 x 8.75 x 36.25 inches (width x depth x height)
Warranty: 5 years (does apply to purchase from Amazon.com)
User manual: click here
*When nominal/RMS power isn’t specified by manufacturer, we use an approximation of ~30% of the specified peak/dynamic power for comparison purposes.
Review and Discussion
While high end loud speakers can of course be really great, one thing we always emphasize here is not paying for any more than you actually need to, and if you’re looking for a mere decent enough pair of inexpensive floorstanding speakers, as a starter set or otherwise, the T50s seem to be the pretty clear choice currently.
And we don’t want to discount that these are actually good quality loudspeakers – all Polk products are – when we say “decent enough.” 45 W of continuous power handling is plenty to fill a small to medium sized room, and a 2 way design that features 3 separate woofers in addition to a tweeter with a response floor of 38 Hz is honestly excellent if you’re possibly spending as little as $150 for a pair. If you want a great reproduction for music, these will benefit from a subwoofer, but that’s usually the case for budget-tier floorstanding speakers, most of which are more expensive than the T50s mind you.
The black washed MDS cabinet and front covering foam grill is pretty boilerplate looking, certainly not the slickest design ever, but chances are those who are reading this don’t really care. Polk’s standard five year warranty is outstanding for speakers that are this cheap, where you’d otherwise be lucky to get at least one year of coverage. The speakers are pretty light, for floorstanding speakers at least, and rest on an extended platform, so placement should be easy enough.
Our Overall Take, As Compared to the Competition
The T50s are obviously focused on the consumer who wants tower speakers while spending as little as possible, and as we said these are solid speakers that will suffice for many and are really cheap.
If you’re more concerned with speakers that will be solid standalones, you might consider Polk’s Monitor 70s (reviewed here), they’re a little more expensive (but sill very affordable) and have build in subs, so you won’t have to worry about getting one separately.
Get the T50 floorstanding tower speakers on Amazon (affiliate link)
See our current picks for the overall best budget floorstanding tower speakers
