Напольная акустика — Polk Audio Monitor 60 Series II

The Monitor 60 Series II is a slim passive tower from the Monitor range of Polk Audio, sold as a single speaker, meaning two must be bought for stereo, and finished in black with titanium-coloured accents on the front. Polk now lists it among its archived products and names the Monitor XT60 as the current version of this line. The design puts three bass units and one tweeter into a narrow MDF cabinet with a port on the front baffle. The price is USD 378 per pair.

Key specs that matter

Drive units are three 5.25-inch bilaminate woofers of Polk's Dynamic Balance type and a 1-inch dome tweeter with a cloth diaphragm, described as a fabric and polymer composite. Nominal impedance is 8 ohms, sensitivity is 90 dB, the frequency range is 38 Hz to 25 kHz and the suggested amplifier rating is 20 to 200 W. The cabinet measures 20.64 cm wide, 98.74 cm high and 35.56 cm deep, and each tower weighs 14.06 kg. Its footprint is under 0.1 m2.

Engineering and use context

Both the woofers and the tweeter carry the Dynamic Balance label, a patented Polk technology. The woofer cones use a bilaminate composite, a layered material chosen to be light and stiff at the same time. The enclosure is made from MDF with a baffle about 19 mm thick, and it is braced internally both from front to back and from side to side to limit panel vibration. The bass reflex port is flared at its mouth and critically tuned to reduce noise from moving air, and it opens on the front of the cabinet. In the crossover, Polk adds Mylar bypass capacitors alongside the main capacitors of the filter network. Two sets of five-way binding posts on the rear let owners feed the woofers and tweeter from separate amplifier channels. Wide stabilizer feet are fitted at the base of the narrow tower.

Pairing

High sensitivity and a steady load make the Monitor 60 Series II an easy match for modest stereo integrated amplifiers and for AV receivers. For home cinema the towers suit left and right front duty, and a receiver with spare channels can use the split terminals for bi-amping.

Alternatives

The Polk Audio Monitor XT60 is the newer tower of this family, combining one 6.5-inch woofer with two 6.5-inch passive radiators in a 92.5 cm cabinet rated at 86 dB.