Polk Atrium 4 Review (Outdoor Speaker)

[Helicopter]

Thanks for the review. I wouldn’t buy these myself but I do have outdoor speakers (PSB CS1000) on my deck and at my cottage.

I know 10X as much about speakers as I did when I ordered these. I figured lots of people probably order them and an ASR review would be valuable to others. Of course I was also curious how they perform objectively since I am running one pair, and have another pair that I had originally intended to install. Now I know the speakers are a big part of what I am hearing, versus the outdoor space, and that different speakers would sound better in the same space.

On third thought, what I might do is install these since I have the wires run already, the amplification in place, etc., and then get party speakers for more serious events, like pool parties. They are fine for a little low-volume Rippingtons or other background music. They don't really cut it for a listening session or a party though.

 

[SKBubba]

Thanks for the review. I wouldn’t buy these myself but I do have outdoor speakers (PSB CS1000) on my deck and at my cottage.

How do you like those?

Been thinking about replacing some 15 yr old patio speakers. Was considering Polk based on "reviews" (v. measurements - always look at the measurements!) but the specs on the PSB CS1000 look pretty good.

Are the ports a problem with insects or nesting birds? I see they have plugs, but at the expense of some bass.

Never mind about the ports. I see they come with grills. Duh.

So anyway, how do you like them?

 

[Rottmannash]

Who is using such speakers? I would never buy this system, maybe, when I don’t like my neighbor I would give him this gear

Many people on their decks, near their pools, on their porch, etc. I have a pair of good sounding Klipsch's on my side porch and they can get quite loud. I can hear them in the street about 80 ft away. Pretty good bass and the horn doesn't hurt outdoors.

 

[Helicopter]

Can we really apply a Harman house curve to an outdoor application?

You want a speaker which, against an outdoor wall 5 or 6 feet above ground onto an open space, sounds like the Harman curve says a good speaker should sound in a normal room. That will not match a speaker that the harman research suggests will sound good in normal room.

I guess you might want a bright speaker too if you want the sound to get absorbed before it goes through the outside of the neighbor's house. On my double lot, I don't really have to worry about the neighbors.

 

[RobL]

How do you like those?

Been thinking about replacing some 15 yr old patio speakers. Was considering Polk based on "reviews" (v. measurements - always look at the measurements!) but the specs on the PSB CS1000 look pretty good.

Are the ports a problem with insects or nesting birds? I see they have plugs, but at the expense of some bass.

Never mind about the ports. I see they come with grills. Duh.

So anyway, how do you like them?

I like them a lot. There is a review with measurements at
https://www.soundstagexperience.com...enu/222-psb-cs1000-outdoorindoor-loudspeakers.

I think they sound as good most bookshelf speakers I’ve listened too. I have some Def Tech AW6500’s as well which sound almost as good but I prefer the PSB’s. Better mount and a little more balanced sound I think. They come with port plugs if you want to use them depending on your mounting location. I have them under the eaves and leave the plugs out. They will play pretty loudly without straining if you want them too. They werea little cheaper when I got them, I think I paid about CAN$550/pair. A good buy if you can find them at that price.

 

[RobL]

Also I’ll add that I have a couple of JBL control 30’s in my shop, and while they will play much louder, I prefer the sound of the PSB’s.

 

[SKBubba]

I like them a lot. There is a review with measurements at
https://www.soundstagexperience.com...enu/222-psb-cs1000-outdoorindoor-loudspeakers.

I think they sound as good most bookshelf speakers I’ve listened too. I have some Def Tech AW6500’s as well which sound almost as good but I prefer the PSB’s. Better mount and a little more balanced sound I think. They come with port plugs if you want to use them depending on your mounting location. I have them under the eaves and leave the plugs out. They will play pretty loudly without straining if you want them too. They werea little cheaper when I got them, I think I paid about CAN$550/pair. A good buy if you can find them at that price.

Thanks! Was also looking at the Def Techs. Sounds like the PSBs might edge them out and they are about US $600/pr which seems competitive for the performance in this price range. Thanks again.

 

[MediumRare]

You want a speaker which, against an outdoor wall 5 or 6 feet above ground onto an open space, sounds like the Harman curve says a good speaker should sound in a normal room. That will not match a speaker that the harman research suggests will sound good in normal room.

I guess you might want a bright speaker too if you want the sound to get absorbed before it goes through the outside of the neighbor's house. On my double lot, I don't really have to worry about the neighbors.

Agreed, so the question is really if the Klippel algorithms for PIR are relevant for outdoors, against a wall but no ceiling or sidewall reflections at least.

I have heard that treble is more reduced by distance but not sure that really applies in a typical patio/deck application. I'm thinking of what to use for a garage-top deck, 20' x 20', so front wall and floor reflections might be strong, but that's it - plus they'll be considerably below ear-level. Of course must have very wide directivity for a group situation.

 

[Prana Ferox]

Considering how niche and fashion-oriented this market is, I suspect if you really cared about sound you'd be better off with PA speakers.

 

[Helicopter]

Agreed, so the question is really if the Klippel algorithms for PIR are relevant for outdoors, against a wall but no ceiling or sidewall reflections at least.

I have heard that treble is more reduced by distance but not sure that really applies in a typical patio/deck application. I'm thinking of what to use for a garage-top deck, 20' x 20', so front wall and floor reflections might be strong, but that's it - plus they'll be considerably below ear-level. Of course must have very wide directivity for a group situation.

No, I agree the in room response curve algorithm is not optimal for an outdoor speaker. It does seem to describe the sound of this speaker acceptably on my deck though.

I wouldn't recommend these speakers. The pair on my deck are acceptable for background music, but don't sound impressive or refined. They are good enough not to replace, but not good enough to buy.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Okay, now do outdoor subs. This one's ready for jungle ops:

 

[Hawko]

How do you like those?

Been thinking about replacing some 15 yr old patio speakers. Was considering Polk based on "reviews" (v. measurements - always look at the measurements!) but the specs on the PSB CS1000 look pretty good.

Are the ports a problem with insects or nesting birds? I see they have plugs, but at the expense of some bass.

Never mind about the ports. I see they come with grills. Duh.

So anyway, how do you like them?

If you’re looking for some really good outdoor speakers then you should check out Amir’s review of the Revel M55XC. When I finally get round to installing some outdoor speakers I’ll be giving these some serious consideration.

 

[enricoclaudio]

While not great sounding speakers, I think they put out good sound for the money. I used to have a pair outside in my pool and they did a good job. For outdoors, they are just OK. I wouldn't use these indoors for sure.

 

[Scrappy]

“All tweeter” makes some sense for a speaker meant to mount under an eave with “2” boundaries, listened to at a distance. I’ve been lookin at these for a bit, always held Polk in decent regard. However, I’m lookin for outdoor near fields essentially. Have a Dayton 8” + 1” + huge passive radiator for lowend, so I’m not worried about low extension. Gonna buy a Dayton dsp amp board to drive anyhow, so I can kill em dead with dsp. Sounds like that Al tweeter is not gonna be good for nearfield (~5’) so back to searching..

 

[Ginger Penguin]

Sorry to revive a few years old thread but I was wondering how these would fare in use as Atmos height speakers ceiling mounted? Reading through the thread, there's definitely concerns about sound quality but also in general people not hating the sound. Based on what I've read here, I'd never use them as my fronts or anything but for Atmos use case perhaps?

I've seen the Atriums mentioned for this in other places but they often seem to be talking about the 5 and 6. In Australia, however, they and other options are just either too expensive to justify for Atmos usage or don't have enough reviews to make a call (Kicker KB6 and Yamaha AW392 have been mentioned but have no discussions like this to go off).

 

[enricoclaudio]

Sorry to revive a few years old thread but I was wondering how these would fare in use as Atmos height speakers ceiling mounted? Reading through the thread, there's definitely concerns about sound quality but also in general people not hating the sound. Based on what I've read here, I'd never use them as my fronts or anything but for Atmos use case perhaps?

I've seen the Atriums mentioned for this in other places but they often seem to be talking about the 5 and 6. In Australia, however, they and other options are just either too expensive to justify for Atmos usage or don't have enough reviews to make a call (Kicker KB6 and Yamaha AW392 have been mentioned but have no discussions like this to go off).

I would rather invest a bit more and get Revel’s M55XC. I have 2 pairs of those as ATMOS speakers and they sound amazing.

 

[Ginger Penguin]

I would rather invest a bit more and get Revel’s M55XC. I have 2 pairs of those as ATMOS speakers and they sound amazing.

I've seen those mentioned too. It really seems like options in Australia are limited because a pair of those are $1000 here vs I can get a set of 4 Atrium 4s for $330. A difference of nearly $1700 is a bit of a yikes.

 

[enricoclaudio]

I've seen those mentioned too. It really seems like options in Australia are limited because a pair of those are $1000 here vs I can get a set of 4 Atrium 4s for $330. A difference of nearly $1700 is a bit of a yikes.

If you read a post from me back in 2021, you can see that I owned a pair of ATRIUM 4s that I had in my pool area. They sounded pretty decent for an outdoor's speaker. However, compared to the Revel M55XC, there is no comparison. You would have to listen to both and make a decision.

 

[pablolie]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Polk Atrium 4 speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $177 from Amazon including Prime shipping.

As the saying goes, you have seen one outdoor speaker, you have seen them all:

View attachment 116733

I don't know if the owner had it outside or not but there are a few specs that seem to have lost their color or started to rust.

Binding posts point down so take that into account when deciding where to mount them relative to your wires:

View attachment 116734

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 500 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 2%.

Testing temperature was around 58 degrees F but speaker however was kept warm indoors prior to measurements.

Reference axis was that of the tweeter.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Polk Atrium 4 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 116736

The elevated highs stand out as does sudden directivity error around 4 kHz. Polk specs this as 89 dB. That is only true of the peak output of the tweeter. Bass response at best is 85 dB dropping to 82 dB so quite insensitive. We see the response variation in near-field measurement of each driver:

View attachment 116739

Perhaps they are counting on back wall enhancement of the bass region.

Our early window and predicted in-room response don't quite apply to a speaker mounted to a wall outdoor but here they are anyway:

View attachment 116737

View attachment 116738

Beamwidth is uneven:

View attachment 116740

View attachment 116741

It is not too bad up to 10 kHz though so maybe in practice, it would be better than it seems.

Vertical directivity is typical:

View attachment 116742

Impedance is low:
View attachment 116743

I was surprised at low level of distortion at 86 dBSPL:

View attachment 116744


View attachment 116745

Polk Atrium 4 Listening Tests
I first had them on a stand away from walls, i.e. same place I test all speakers. The sound was almost all tweeter. So I placed it in front of my LCD TV and that brought in much needed bass response. On some tracks it was a bit boomy but otherwise, what you heard was exaggerated highs but pretty clean. I think this is due to the exaggeration being at the top of the frequency range and distortion being low. Try as I did, I could not hate the sound.

A lot of power was required to get good volume. Good news was that the sound was clean with no break up when I was pushing it. Sub-bass did not impact the speaker due to its sealed design.

Conclusions
Clearly this is an imperfect design both objective and subjectively. It might however work better in its intended application of being mounted on a wall and not listened to necessarily on-axis. It definitely sounds better than a driver in cheap plastic box.

I can't bring myself to put the Polk Atrium 4 on my recommended list but per above, I could not hate it either.

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I used to have Polks like these (seemntonrecall double the price tag) in the patio of my pre divorce home. They didn't work fine for the job, nobody does critical listening in their patio when grilling or drinking outside.