Polk Audio SurroundBar w/ Wireless Sub

Amazon has less than impressive reviews with 2.5 star avg

Pretty good reviews (4 out of 5 stars) over at crutchfield.com

I’ve got this soundbar above my fireplace, connected via toslink cable from my TV. It puts out much better sound than my TV ever could. I’ve got to turn off the sub at night because it disturbs the sleepers.

PROS: I can control it from my Dish controller (programmed to AUX, set as my default volume control). Sub is wireless and sets about 20 feet from the soundbar.

CONS: I had about 20 people over for the Superbowl, and at times, the soundbar output couldn’t overpower my guests.

I actually own this and used it for about 5 months before buying a larger bar with integrated woofers.

The wireless woofer is the downfall of this thing, and even though it can be powered off and removed from the equation, you still have the issue of WIFI interference from the outgoing signal from the speaker bar. Huge problem. This thing cripples your WIFI signal.

Additionally, you’d then be left with no bass, which isn’t all that bad when you consider the sub woofer has problems of its own. It occasionally just makes a loud rumble. It can be at power on, and you have to cycle the power, or during a movie, and you have to cycle the power.

Lastly, there is a firmware problem with the sound bar that Polk will fix for free if you mail it to them. It isn’t user serviceable. The firmware was necessary for me because among many things it fixes, one of them is the toslink signal with Samsung TV’s. You have to use PCM unless you upgrade the firmware.

I don’t know if these units on Woot have the newer firmware, but just be prepared to mail it in to Polk. The turnaround is about a week.

I want to add that I paid $300 for mine. For <$200 I might live with the problems it has.

wireless sub…does it operate on alot of batteries like the old mega boomboxes?

It’s AC powered from your wall outlet.

I was hoping Woot would have a tax theme today. Maybe sell genuine medieval ball and chains, maybe a Grim Reaper outfit, or George Orwell’s 1984.

I own this and it is okay. The only issue I have is the base rumbles off beat from the input sometimes. I don’t have any issues with wi-fi signal when using this like others have experienced.

Hi all,

Have this same unit in my bedroom. I wanted something that would give the illusion of surround sound without having to run wires all over my room (wifey factor). So I purchased this bar with that I mind.

Definitely not surround sound, no where near it. At best its a better speaker than your stock TV with a tiny subwoofer you can put under the bed right under you to make your bed rumble while watching the Fifth Element.

The optical link will not work with the FIOS box. So check for compatibility.

The remote is a joke. Its the size of credit card. It will get lost. Just found mine, a year later! :slight_smile:

It’s loud enough for a bedroom. You need four walls, open spaces will make this a dud.

I don’t think this will even cut it for a quality center speaker (not sure it’s even technically possible) with your 5.1 system.

Bottom line, if you want a crisper speaker than your TV speakers, go ahead. But if you’re looking for a surround sound alternative, look elsewhere.

Its wired to the outlet but wireless to the main speaker.

I have this soundbar. My goal was to plug it into an Apple TV and get good sound in my bedroom without the mess of surround sound. For this price, I’d say it is the best thing you can do, since you can’t get anywhere near the convenience of this configuration for this price. I paid significantly more than this for mine, and still considered it a good value.

It does not simulate surround sound, it just gives you much better sound from the front. The wireless sub works well and allows you to put the sub somewhere else in the room besides next to the TV. I’d recommend putting the sub the same distance from the listener, however, since it does not have distance configuration.

I bought a mount to hook mine to the VESA mount on the back of the TV.

Does anyone know if this unit has bluetooth capability?

This guy has it right. I had exactly the same issues with this soundbar. I have a Samsung TV and can confirm that this unit does not play nice with it out of the box using toslink (optical). After about 5-10 mins of listening, audio would become more and more distorted until it was just digital squealing. Polk was less than helpful in this regard and said send it to us at your expense and we’ll fix it. Nope.

I didn’t give up on it at this point, instead opting to use the analog input. This addressed the distorting sound (toslink issue) but another issue with the wifi sub finally ultimately forced me to return it to Costco. For those interested, voice-only TV sounds awful with the sub turned on. The sub would basically cut in and out depending on vocal tone (hi-sub off, low sub on), which got really annoying. Since returning the sub, I can also confirm that my wireless network performance seems more stable…maybe a coincidence, maybe not.

Anyway, even at less than $200, I’d probably still pass based on my experience.

I owned this unit, it does not.

I got this unit from Best Buy’s ebay outfit a couple years ago. Been quite happy with it, for the price. The random rumbling freaks out my dog but a quick powercycle fixes it. I too lost the remote but it has a handy autolearn feature that allows it to work with just about any remote (I’ve tried it with Comcast, FIOS and a Logitech Harmony).

This guy has it 100% correct. I too had purchased this from a big box retailer, only to have to return in days later.

I read the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere about people having WIFI issues and figured ‘oh yeah, it’s just these idiots using the same channel or doing something else wrong.’

NOPE. This thing crippled both my B and G networks regardless of channel (the primary symptom being the sub wouldn’t work, although I did have other wireless client issues as well).

STEER CLEAR if you use WIFI at home.

Is it compatible with a MAC?

I bought one of these locally a couple months ago. I also read a lot of reviews with folks talking about the WiFi issues, but I never had problems with it.

I did eventually return the setup because I just wasn’t very impressed with the sound (hollow/tinny). It was only marginally better than the built-in TV speakers. I also had it hooked up to the audio output on a Zotac ZBOX Nano (running Windows 7 for Media Center) and the volume level just wasn’t high enough.

I have heard that they higher end models in this same family are better. I ended up picking up the Audio Solutions TV mount with the built-in sub & speakers here on woot! and I’ve been very happy with that. Especially for the price.

It uses either an analog 3.5mm audio connection or an optical (spdif) cable. So pretty much it works with anything that has an audio output.