loudspeakers consumer electronics founded 1972 founder matthew polk george klopfer and sandy gross headquarters baltimore maryland slogan listen to innovation website www.polkaudio.com polk audio is a manufacturer of audio products best known for their home and automobile speakers . the company also produces a wide range of other audio products such as amplifiers and fm tuners . the company is headquartered in baltimore maryland and in 2006 was acquired by directed electronics . 1 contents 1 background 2 see also 3 references 4 external links background edit polk audio was founded by matthew polk george klopfer and sandy gross in 1972 . matthew george and sandy met each other while attending classes at the johns hopkins university in baltimore . after graduating in 1971 the team collaborated on producing a sound system for a local bluegrass convention . matthew designed the speaker system while george built the cabinets . after it was discovered the producers of the convention could not afford to pay for the system george designed a logo for polk audio and attached it to the speakers . sandy was behind the marketing of polk audio and also helped create polk s worldwide dealer network . after spending a short period of time dabbling in professional audio polk audio turned its attention to high end home audio . with the release of the first successful model in 1974 the monitor 7 polk audio started to become a recognized name in audiophile circles . polk used a two way configuration on the vast majority of its speakers like the popular monitor 10 and monitor 12 typically with high performance 6.5 mid bass drivers with rubber surrounds and passive radiators . the monitor 12 was quite capable for its day having bass response to 18 hz a free air mounted tweeter and 500 watt rms power handling . later polk speaker models used arrays of drivers called sda for stereo dimensional array to modify the crosstalk from the left speaker to the right ear and from the right speaker to the left ear so as to expand the stereo image beyond the space between two stereo speakers . the sda concept is still used in some current polk branded speaker products . polk has also ventured into automobile speakers . 2 see also edit ip speaker references edit phillips wes polk audio acquired by directed electronics stereophile retrieved 2007 05 05 polk matthew soundstage interview with matthew polk retrieved 2008 01 12 external links edit polk audio official web site polk audio australian web site polksda.com a fan site listing many vintage models lasareath.com 20 year old polk sda srs 1.2 tl s rebuilt to new condition . polk srs 1.2 tl s in action lasareath s polk srs 1.2 tl s in action polk pswi225 subwoofer review review of the pswi225 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title polk audio & oldid 743279804 categories companies based in baltimoreloudspeaker manufacturersaudio equipment manufacturers navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 8 october 2016 at 23 20 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view