Review on Polk Audio TL1 Performance Entertainment by Laurie Thomas

Center channel speakers don't sound very good together. Audioholics pitted a $2,500 super-deluxe center channel against a modest $100 bookshelf speaker, and the Bookshelf beat out these expensive competition and smoked out the cheaper ($500) speakers. The problem is that the three-speaker design, which is meant to spread sound over a large listening area, also pollutes and distorts the sound, and it costs a lot of money to fix this problem. So that brings us to Polk's central channel. It has all the issues inherent in the breed, but it's a really good center channel. He clarifies dialogue in films, but that comes at a price. It has a fairly harsh mid-range that helps with dialogue but ruins the surround effect. I found this compromise unacceptable and bought a pair of bookshelf speakers, one of which now acts as my center channel. works for me