Polk Audio - MagniFi Max AX 5.1.2 Ch Soundbar with Dolby Atmos and VoiceAdjust - Black

After remodeling our family room, I did want to go through the hassle of re-running wires of our original home theater system. I know Polk Audio has a good reputation, so I decided to give this system a try. I’m glad I did. The sound bar sounds great, and subwoofer puts out wonderful bass. I LOVE the fact that I can put the sub behind our couch. The subwoofer had no problems connecting even with it being about 20 feet away from soundbar and behind the couch. Have no problems with it cutting out. Easy set up.

The sound is excellent, the price is very good for the sound system.

This system works great in our 20 X 30 family room. The 10" Sub delivers excellent, clear bass. The sound bar is crisp and clear. It fits nicely over our 50" TV. We are looking at getting the surround speakers in the future.

The Polk audio sound bar and sub are excellent. Would highly recommend.

If you want bass then this soundbar will give you that plus the great atmos sound for the price compared to high end soundbars out there. Buy it! Will not be disappointed. Plus and rears to make it near perfect.

Great buy, amazing sound. I had to purchase the added surround sound speakers, and it really came together.

Polk has been around for a while and has delivered some amazing speakers and other audio hardware in the past. Let's see how their new high-end sound bar, the MagniFi Max AX, turned out. The first thing you should know is that it's big. And heavy. The sub-woofer with its 10" speaker is massive. Almost twice the size of my previous one (which was already quite big). The bar itself fits under our 70" 4K TV, with barely any space left on each side. This is really something to take into account. You can opt for a wall mount (a drill guide is included as well as rubber spacers) if you don't have a TV stand. Since the sub is wireless, make sure to have 2 power outlets available before setting everything up. The installation and setup is easy and all the cables you should need to get things up and running are included, alongside an easy to follow visual guidei. Polk Audio recommends using ARC or eARC to connect the sound bar to the TV using the HDMI cable that is provided. I went down this road as our TV supports it. And all in all, it didn't take much longer than 15 minutes to get everything going. ARC support is one of the most interesting features of this sound bar, with advantages such as reducing the amount of remotes you will require to control your media center. Once the TV was connected, I switched to the XBox Series X and well, I was quite literally blown away by the sound. The MagniFi Max has a deep, booming bass. The treble is crisp and the voices are clean and clear. Frankly, I wasn't expecting that. If you activate Dolby Atmos (your TV or attached device needs to support it), you're in for a treat. The sound just hits you from everywhere and you truly feel immersed. You can tell that the sound bar is equipped with speakers that cover all frequencies (11 in total). The sound can be adjusted to your liking using the remote and the different presets or the EQ. Note that Apple AirPlay is supported which is good news for iPhone/Mac users. Of course, it wouldn't be a modern sound bar if it only supported HDMI. You can add 3 more regular HDMI devices, an optical/SPDIF port (which I use when listening to music) and a USB port are also present. Bluetooth and the good old audio jack are also available. As mentioned before there is support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. This allows for even better sound in movies and games. The sound quality in movies is excellent, the sound comes from every corner of the room. It really adds to the overall immersion. The remote is minimalistic, but works well. I don't really like the feel of the buttons but that might just be me. It feels a bit "cheap". To be honest, this might be the best sound bar I have ever owned. And I've had quite a few from major brands. Not one of them can beat the MagniFi Max in terms of functionality, ease of use or sound quality. Not to mention how versatile it is thanks to all the available connection options. The bottom line: As an audiophile, a cinephile and gamer, I can only recommend this sound bar, you just can't go wrong with it. It's one of the best in its class. Great Product, Polk Audio!

The Polk MagniFi Max AX Soundbar and Subwoofer came packaged in a huge and heavy “L” shaped box that was bigger and heavier than I anticipated. Opening the box revealed the following items: The Polk MagniFi Max AX Soundbar A massive wireless subwoofer. HDMI cable Wall mounts Nice small remote along with 2 AAA batteries Two AC power cords Quick Installation Guide The large soundbar feels nice and is covered by a cloth mesh with buttons on top. While somewhat slim, It is tall enough where it might block a smaller TV’s infrared sensor. It is at the borderline edge case with my 50 inch TCL 4K TV. Any taller and it would have blocked some of the lower screen. The setup was super easy. You just plug in one end of an HDMI cable to your TV’s ARC/eARC port and the other end to the Polk soundbar’s eARC port. Then you plug in the power cord to the soundbar. Plugging in the wireless subwoofer automatically connects the subwoofer to the soundbar (although there also seems to be a button on the subwoofer to help you manually connect to the soundbar in case automatic connection goes awry). To set up WiFi, you can use either the Alexa or Google Home app. I used the Alexa app and Alexa automatically found the soundbar and easily allowed me to set up the soundbar’s WiFi. For music playback, I used Bluetooth to playback the opening theme to the Superman: The Movie soundtrack, “Whenever You’re on My Mind” from Marshall Crenshaw and “Kandy Krush” from Kim Wilde and thought the Polk MagniFi Max AX was able to handle different genres of music well. The soundstage was wide and Instruments and vocals came through crisp and clear along with some punchy bass. The Polk soundbar was equally excellent for watching TV shows and movies. It was able to provide a nice full movie theater experience with a nice wide enveloping sound stage. There were actually times when I thought that sounds were coming from my side even though I do not have any physical surround speakers. It’s not as good as having actual physical surround speakers but it was pretty impressive. What’s nice is that this system is expandable in that you can later add physical Polk Wireless SR2 surround speakers for even better surround effects. Audio quality is crisp and precise. The enormous subwoofer is able to provide movie theater quality rumble but it was not overpowering despite my fears because of its enormous size. I generally don’t want overpowering bass that might disturb my neighbors. Dialogue clarity was fantastic. The remote allows you to adjust the volume of the bass, treble, height and surround speakers (if you have them). It also allows you to switch inputs from TV, HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, Optical and Bluetooth. You can also switch to using preset sound modes such as Auto, Music, TV, Movie, and Night Mode. I was extremely impressed with Night Mode as dialogue clarity is still excellent while maintaining a lower volume so as to not disturb your family or neighbor. There is also a button that allows you to get playback information. I used this to verify that I was actually playing back Dolby Atmos content. I can confirm that this soundbar is able to process Dolby Atmos content with TVs that only have an ARC (not eARC) HDMI connection. My TCL Roku 4K HDTV only has ARC and not eARC so to be able to play back Dolby Atmos content, you need to set up the TV to use Dolby Digital Plus instead of just Dolby Digital. When playing back Dolby Atmos using the TV input on the Polk, the info button will say that it is playing back Dolby Atmos: DD+ which means it is playing back Dolby Atmos using the lossy Dolby Digital Plus codec. Still sounds fantastic. The really nice thing about the Polk MagniFi Max AX soundbar is that it comes with 3 HDMI ports. This allows you to get the highest playback quality possible even if your TV only has HDMI ARC instead of eARC.. To get the highest audio quality you can connect your playback device (4K Blu-ray player, Apple TV, Firestick etc.) into one of the Polk soundbar’s HDMI ports. When you play back Dolby Atmos connect, the info button will say that it is playing back Dolby Atmos: TrueHD which means it is playing back Dolby Atmos using the lossless Dolby TrueHD codec. Overall, I can recommend the Polk MagniFi Max AX soundbar for anyone that wants a Dolby Atmos soundbar. It has been great for playing music, TV shows and movies and has been rock solid. I love the dialogue clarity it provides and Night Mode. It’s also expandable with the Polk SR2 surround speakers when you want to get even better surround effects. The only possible drawback for me is that I think the subwoofer might be physically a little too big for my living room. I think it's one of the better values out there because it is as good as other more expensive sound bars that don’t include a subwoofer.