Polk AudioReserve Series R400 Large Center Channel Loudspeaker, 1" Pinnacle Ring Tweeter & Dual 4" Turbine Cone Woofers, Hi-Res Certified, Dolby Atmos & IMAX Enhanced, Wall Mountable, Black

First off I never leave reviews. I just received my r400 I bought on sale for 435. I have a pioneer vsx lx-305. When I hooked up the r400 I was blown away. Dialog is no longer an issue. The clarity, detail, and bass is incredible. I have never had a center this good. My other center i always had trouble with Dialog. It was also no where near as clear and detailed and never had this good of clean crisp bass. It is a big center as well. I put my 65" LG oled on top of it on top of my stand. I wouldn't put it in a confined area as it needs room to breathe but damn is it worth it. If you've been looking for a center with Dialog you can actually hear. Dialog and vocals that are crisp, clean, and detailed look no further. The bass is pretty damn good too to boot. I never thought a center could sound this good let alone for 400 bucks. Polk you did an incredible job and my hats off to you guys. I highly recommend you get one on sale. I'm referring to straight out the box as well. Some say it gets better upon break in. If it gets better than this that's insane. I tried music movies and gaming. This thing will blow you away. Again, if you want a damn good center look no further.

Massive Size and Sound, but Beautifully delivers music and movies with accurate detail. Coming from a Polk Signature Series S30, the R400 is breathtaking in its delivery. It brings everything to life. No really, live recordings sound like small room sets being played live. This is the first speaker that reminded me that the piano is a percussion instrument, and that drummers use a variety of instruments. Each one can be heard distinctly and perfectly balanced. The artists voices are so pure, and movie dialog is clear and effortless for the speaker to produce. Make sure that you have the space for this unit, and that your AV unit/amplifier delivers the power to each channel necessary to get to most out of the R400. I personally recommend the textured black color since it is less reflective. It's the absolute best center I've hear under the $1,000 price point.

I was upgrading (?) from a 20 year-old Polk CSi5 center channel, and even though they share almost identical physical dimensions, the R400 is 7 lbs. heavier and seems so much bigger. Seriously, this is just an absolute solid brick of a speaker with a build quality reminiscent of my Monolith subwoofers. Unfortunately, I was not overly impressed with the sound quality, which is less of a criticism of the R400's capabilities and more of a praise for just how good the CSi5 still is, so back it went. Ultimately, I decided to purchase a pair of ES20 bookshelf speakers and use one as my center channel in vertical orientation to match my ES60 mains and ES15 surrounds. Even though one of the ES20s will just sit in a closet (backup center!), this is a cheaper route and I avoid all the pitfalls of the MTM center channel design. I love Polk speakers, but, for being the flagship center speaker of the Reserve line, I'm not really hearing any improvement from what they built 20 years ago, and the fact that they opted for a 2-way design instead of 3-way makes me feel a bit shortchanged at this price point. As they say, "ignorance is bliss", and I had been quite content with horizontal MTM center channel speakers, but now that my eyes (and ears) have been opened to the improved dispersion and clarity of the single bookshelf center channel, there is no going back. Not even for this magnificent beast.

I got to test this speaker in a 5.1.2, My R600 are still being delivered, so my fronts are two 10 year old 4-way sony towers, I have 2 sets of Polk OWM3's as surrounds and celling mounted atmos. Onkyo receiver and I ran the room eq before playing them. This setup is primarily as a home theater for movies.First movie I tested was The Batman on 4k Blu-ray, The Dialog was incredibly clear and crisp. I had always had problems with this movie because the dialog was always low. Other than dialog these speakers completely outperform my old sony fronts to the point I forget they are even there. It blends well with the OWM3's as sound is moving around the room. We also watched some shows on the apple tv and Spiderman 2 4k BRKeep in mind how large this speaker is, and how heavy it is. it's going to be hard to get a better center at this price point. Can't wait to get the R600's going.

This is a big and full center speaker with a neutral full sound. Along with the R700s and R200s for a full sound. Money well invested.

If you only hooked up this speaker to an avr it would be way too loud for 90% of people. I love it myself. I've had a Polk Audio CS400 which is the same quality level as this one but 20 years older. They absolutely crush the sound. Parts are unavailable for my old speakers which is understandable since I bought them in '99. So I'm upgrading one pair at a time. It's all reference series for me going forward. They have the ability to produce some really deep bass, and really nice highs. They have PUNCH.

False advertisementSent damaged productWaste of time, money and efforts

Excellent center channel. Crafted with typical Polk quality.