Polk Audio Legend L100

LOUDSPEAKER

- KEN MICALLEF

Summer!COVID-19 not-withstanding, summer—warmth, flowers, leaves on trees—has descended on Greenwich Village, my New York City home for the past 30 years. What hasn’t descended are tourists, belching motorcycles, behemoth sports cars, beer drinkers, and the usual summer hell-raisers, the sort that would’ve sent legendary Village bohemians Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs running back to their cold-water flats.

With these absences comes something unique to my downtown experience: peace and quiet. As I write this, in early June, the streets are mostly empty, birdsong seems pleasantly amplified, and my neighbors seem more relaxed and convivial. The famous 93-year-old Caffe Reggio, whose customers have been moved out to the street in obeyance of the city’s Phase 3 reopening rules, can breathe.

This diminution of noise and increase in quiet makes high fidelity listening to a more relaxed indulgence. I can immerse myself in listening, for work and pleasure, to a degree that seemed impossible here a few months ago. Into this solace and sanctuary comes the Polk Audio Legend L100 book shelf speaker ($1199/pair).

When Polk Audio was founded, in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1972, I was barely a teenager, but I already considered myself an audiophile. My audio buddies lusted after (and occasionally possessed) brands such as NAD, KEF, Phase Linear, Bang & Olufsen, and JBL, including its famous L-100 studio monitor. In those days, Polk Audio’s hyphenless L100 loudspeaker was still decades in the future, but company founders Matthew Polk, George Klopfer, and Sandy Gross (who later founded Definitive Technology and GoldenEar Technology) began their company by designing a PA system for a bluegrass concert.