I have been a Polk fan for as long as I can remember. These were an upgrade to a very long running pair of Polk RTi4’s, replaced in the Surround L/R positions. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the RTi4’s, I just wanted to upgrade and see if Polk could improve upon a sound that was still excellent after many years.
Polk managed to do it. Starting from just the unboxing experience it was like no other. The boxes are top quality and look sleek, overpacked to the perfect degree, down to the speakers that were wrapped in a black cloth bag, sealed at the bottom with a heart sticker.
The design is aesthetically pleasing, and cabinets feel study and well designed. Magnetic grills are a lovely touch with the perfect amount of gripping force. The woofer and tweeter are works of art.
These things are all easy to improve on, but how about the sound?
The first thing I notice was how much better the tone (timbe) matched my existing Polk Monitor II speakers. The RTI4s were nice sounding, but the tone was obviously very off. These Reserve speakers fit right into a classic Monitor series set like they are right at home. They operate quite well on my old Onkyo TX-NR787. Feels like they can drive louder as well. There is an improvement in the richness of the sounds, which again may be more related to the tone of these speakers, but they have more of a far-reaching range as evident with certain music and movies. Considering the specifications are identical to the RTI4’s, there is a definite improvement in both the highs and lows.
I recommend the Reserve series if you are looking for a premium line that is still fairly reasonable on pricing.

In my opinion yes. After listening to the Q150’s for over 3 years, replacing them with the R100’s several things stood out as an improvement to my old, not so good anymore hearing. In a nutshell these brought back the music for me.

The cabinet while much smaller in size then the Q150 has in room bass that is surprising low, rolling off in the mid 40’s with solid initial attack and proper tonality. Most of the time I run them in pure direct not using my subs. My seating position is a little too close to the back wall anyway where it starts to border on nulling with the subs. Switching back and forth only on the deeper notes do the subs make a difference. And as good as my 2 Elac 3010’s are, the speakers are better on that initial thwack of the kit. Tight! If one has the room I’d bet up sizing to the R200’s would be all you would need for 2 channel listening.
The top end of the bass into the mids has good weight and body but perhaps not quite in there with the Q150 detail wise. That’s still high praise though. I call a tie on male vocals, with neither adding anything unwanted.
I’m running out of time so I’ll get right to it. The upper mids, treble presence range is where the magic is for my worn out ears (I’m 69 yo) and why I was starting to get bored with the Kefs. The R100’s for lack of a better way of stating, are forward in a good way with amazing detail and great non fatiguing treble. Simply said, the Polk R100 bookshelf speakers liven up the sound in a way that I can enjoy my music again.

Great neutral sounding speaker. Punches well above it’s price.