Polk Audio RTA-12C (1984–1988)
The Polk RTA-12C was a loudspeaker. It was the flagship conventional model of Polk's Monitor Series through the mid-1980s. The period record is thin, and what survives is mostly Polk's own advertising rather than independent reviews or full spec sheets. The essentials are still clear. It sat above the rest of the Monitor line on price, and Polk positioned it as the "serious" version of their affordable-speaker philosophy.
Polk's advertising in Audio (October 1987, p.17) listed the RTA 12C at $479.95 each and stressed its phase-coherent, open-air design, the company's pitch for accurate, time-aligned sound at a practical price. An earlier Polk ad in the same publication (1986, p.17) went further and claimed the RTA 12C was the finest conventional speaker available for the money. A 1984 Audio spread (October 1984, p.166) pictured it with the full Monitor family: the Monitor 10B, Monitor 5jr, Monitor 4A, Monitor 5B, and Monitor 7C, with stands optional. That puts it firmly in the range, not in a separate product line. A price list in HiFI-Stereo (February 1988, p.6) still showed the RTA 12C at $479.95, next to the Monitor 10B at $329.95 and Monitor 7C at $259.95.
So the RTA-12C appears to have held its spot as the top conventional Monitor for several years, from 1984 into 1988. Beyond that, little hard documentation has surfaced. The record consulted here has no confirmed driver complement, cabinet dimensions, or frequency response figures.
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