Customer Ratings & Reviews

Not as good as my previous SAMSUNG soundbar. Regrets

This is a nice soundbar that takes up little room, is wall mountable. Excellent choice for a bedroom or smaller living room. I auditioned this bar in my Theater room. Those dimensions are 12Wx28Lx8H. The bar was positioned at ear level and front center. Placing the Sub to the front right side. Setup was very simple - just plug in! Power, HDMI, Sub/Power And off we went! The sound was decent for a soundbar. This particular bar provides 4.1 audio - 4 speakers and 1 sub Overall the volume was PLENTY loud. Although it seemed to really pick up rapidly around 70% with a gradual rolloff below that. The sound quality was good - I would describe it as great highs, decent mids with a higher crossover. I think the crossover was around 120hz. Sub was smooth and had a little punch but nothing crazy. Tested with Spotify and some Xbox games. All were clear and distinctive. Although I did find it a little fatiguing. The sound stage was OK. There is a clear separation in the speakers with 2 centers on the bar and then 2 wide. Utilizing the sidewalls of the room for reflection. This broke up the staging for me in a bad way. But for casual viewing, it works. You do have control of the surround levels. So you can spend some time to better refine for movies vs games. But I would suspect this would be hard for TV shows. i did reduce this to 4 stars for the following reasons: 1. remote is not backlit - it's a good and simple remote. But with selecting input and adjusting anything but volume I needed light! 2. No staging - I could easily tell where the sound was originating. It simply came from the speaker or the sidewall. Clear and loud but directional. Best for a smaller room/bedroom/curio! 3. For my room - the larger MAX! (At time of review they are the same pricing!) OVERALL, Very Good soundbar. Simple, does it job, has 3 HDMI(I have a more expensive ATMOS bar with only 2). LOUD and CLEAR! I would recommend as a buy, if in your main room. Consider the larger size available.

Absolute worst piece of garbage I’ve spent money on. Sound cuts out intermittently as well as the hdmi inputs often don’t pick up a signal. Polk should stick to budget speakers and stay out of the receiver game

Purchased this item as open box excellent. Did not include all parts and didn't look new. Packaging was not good. This was a waste of my time and effort for a misrepresented product.

I have been using the Polk Magnifi 2 for 30 days now and have formed an opinion on it that I will share with the reader. If you are here reading this you are either deciding on whether to buy this soundbar system, or you are here to justify the purchase you already made. In either case I hope my review helps you stay informed and make good decisions. The BIG question: no pussyfooting around, the one question that always must be answered when reviewing a product is “would you buy it again?”. I am sorry to say my answer is a resounding “NO”. Why? I do not like writing a negative review about a manufacturer that I have held in high regard for over 30 years. I am a huge fan of Polk Audio; I have been aware of them since I was a teenager that could only read about their amazing audio products. I could only dream about owning them back in those days, I could never have been able to afford them. Now that I am an “old-guy”, I can afford to buy high-end electronics and purchasing a Polk Audio system is as much about owning the brand as it is the audio reproduction itself. To my dismay, the former proved far more worthy than latter. Having the brand ‘Polk’ on my entertainment center looks great! I feel good about owning one of their products, given that I drooled over them back in the 80’s. But the audio reproduction itself does not reflect the reputation and high regard that I hold Polk Audio in. I was, and am, disappointed. I replaced a Samsung Sound bar in favor of the Magnifi 2, and much to my surprise it was a step backwards in audio quality. The Polk soundbar has many things going for it that are a positive, but its Achilles heel is the subwoofer. The soundbar produces good audio, impressive really (better than the Samsung it replaced). But when you add the subwoofer into both systems, the Samsung is just a more refined system that ultimately sounds better. Aesthetically the Polk soundbar wins in overall looks. It is a discreet soundbar that is not too flashy, in fact I would say minimalistic. But has just enough pizazz and shiny bits to make it look interesting. But that is just the soundbar part. The subwoofer does not carry on these characteristics. The subwoofer is a goofy looking shape that is made primarily of plastic. It has few controls on it, essentially you power it on, and it connects to soundbar through Bluetooth. The pairing was very straight-forward, and I had no problems at all connecting. Let us do some pro’s and con’s and then wrap this up: PROS - Polk name brand - Easy setup and connection - Multiple HDMI inputs, including ARC and Optical - Classy and subdued aesthetics. - Material quality on the soundbar is particularly good. - Audio quality out of the soundbar alone is particularly good, I’d say better than the Samsung it replaced. - Most of the functionality can be performed at the soundbar without the need of the remote control. - Google Chromecast is a good feature to have when you want to pipe audio throughout multiple rooms. Cons - The bass reproduction is sloppy, unimpressive and becomes boomy when pushed. - The buttons on the remote control are unlit and are not tactile making it difficult to adjust easily – particularly in a darkened room. - The LEDS on the soundbar are minimalistic and require the user to refer to the owner’s manual to understand what they mean and how to adjust them. It would be far better to have a simple LCD readout on the soundbar to provide useful information. Or even better – push a setup screen through HDMI onto the TV monitor. If the use of single lit LEDS was to save a few pennies, in my opinion I would rather spend a little more to get a better designed interface. - 3D audio simulation is also under-whelming. It works for what it is but it is not as good as it would be with a set of satellite speakers positioned behind me while watching a movie. It is okay for what it is, but to me it sounds fake and manipulated. - Loudness consistency is frustrating… I experienced louds and lows while watching various media. One minute I cannot hear the audio well, so I crank up the volume. Then a commercial comes on and I get blasted out of my chair. The Samsung system I had before did not have this problem. I played around with the settings available to me, but alas I could not overcome this annoying behavior. - The sound equalization controls are also minimally effective, they work – but it seems like the ranges are limited. You have some control, but not enough to my liking. Design Defect? The most annoying characteristic I found about the Polk Audio system is a loud popping/clicking/scratching sound that is made when switching modes (hard to describe the exact sound that is made). I believe this is a bug with the design, and there is a work around which I will share. But I should not have to be looking for work arounds on a shipping product. If this is a design defect it should have been caught before the product was released. The example I will give is while watching a YouTube video through the YT app that comes with the Roku box, I have in my home theater. I will be watching a video, and all seems fine. Then the video ends and the next video in the que starts up. As soon as it does and switches the loud scratch sound is emitted. I have learned to mute the audio when this happens, but I am not always fast enough. This only happens when I am using ARC through HDMI. I can work around this problem by using the fiber optic cable instead of HDMI for audio. When I do this the problem disappears. I have rerun the exact same steps on my Samsung soundbar system, and I could not reproduce it. It is 100% reproduceable on the Polk system, however. It must have something to do with switching audio streams or video stream or media resolution, etc. It occurs in YouTube frequently as most videos are short. It probably occurs in other media too but switching does not occur as much in those formats. As far as I can tell this is a design flaw, and maybe Polk will be able to address it in a firmware update. I wish I had better things to say about the Polk Audio Magnifi 2, I really do. But I must report exactly what I encounter during testing. I am sure having a set of surround satellites would greatly improve the overall experience. But in a 1:1 comparison with a Samsung system (which cost less), I found the Polk to be a disappointment. I really hate having to constantly adjust the volume level and hitting mute on the already clumsy remote control. Polk – you can do better than this!

Great sound, has clear highs and deep rich bass. Setup was a snap using eARC on my TV and included hdmi cable. Bluetooth connectivity works well for streaming music from the smartphone or tablet. I was really impressed by the unit’s ability to create realistic surround sound quality audio with only the under tv sound bar and subwoofer. I have literally looked behind myself at times because it somehow simulates the sound coming from behind you even without using rear surround speakers. The wireless subwoofer connected automatically and was really nice to be able to place anywhere in the room without an audio line going to it, just need to plug it in to a wall power outlet. Sub and sound at both have a very nice aesthetic look to them as well. Tremendous audio quality upgrade compared to tv’s speakers.

Not worth the money. Samsung 2.1 is much better. I had lots of polk audio in my car years ago. I had high expectations, what a let down.

Very disappointed in this set up!! The sound is terrible and muffled, my tv speakers sound better than this unit.

I've owned a few soundbar/sub-woofer combinations in my day, always looking for the that you will own until it breaks, you know, like a purchase of a car or other big purchases you make during your life. As a family especially right now your spending a lot of time in-front of your TV. Sound is everything when watching ER or Mask Singer, right, you want to be transported to the action and feel like your helping the doctors save Sally from rare disease or identifying a washed up celb with a mask on (really, who thinks this stuff up). Well, sound is going to get you there and here is why Polk is putting you in the middle of the action. Out of the box this system looks ordinary like most soundbar/subwoofer combs on the selves. But, Polk has put there mid-range speakers on the end caps of the soundbar, which actually is a brilliant idea! Push the sound out to bounce off of the walls and into your earholes making the sound more of an immersive feeling, like your there kicking the terminators butt with John Connor. Anyway, my room where I placed mine is small 9x16 which in my opinion is perfect size for this type of setup, now if you have a large room you might go with a full surround sound system BUT I seen where Polk is possibly going to make 2 midrange speaker add-on for this unit. Making it a true 4.1 surround sound system so watch for that. Connecting was fairly easy, I already had google home on my phone so just pulled that app up and follow direction and all done there. I did have one issue and it was with my Xbox. I can't control with my Xbox remote which means won't power on with the press of Xbox button, Polk needs to send an updated list of remote codes to Microsoft. If your TV is controlled by your Xbox the power on/off does not work right now with this system so just have your soundbar remote handy. My experience with hookup 4 stars. Now that everything is connected and powered on, the first thing that was on my radar was the NFL games last weekend. So, I turned it up and hit the "sport" button on the remote and MAN did it deliver! Rich and life like my heart pounding, cheering like I was a 15yr old school girl. Felt like I was there until geico insurance commercial ruined it! It was a little echoy at times but not to bad. After the games we watched some streaming movies so grab the remote I hit "movies" button and again really immersive sound the bass hits really nice which you can control on the remote. There are adjustments for bass level and voice level and that for me is big because some movies you can barely hear the voices so you turn it up to hear and the rest of the movie is to loud. With these two adjustments they have fixed that problem huge problem. My experience with the sound was off the charts 10 stars from me. Bluetooth was easy just hit the button on the remote and follow your phones recommendations on Bluetooth setup. set back and enjoy the richness of the keyboard playing or Eric Clapton shredding a guitar. Added bonus with this unit is it's casting ability, which it allows you to connect to other google speakers so you can keep moving from room to room hearing the music or podcast broadcasting threw out your home. My experience 5 stars BONUS not many others have! There are 3 HDMI connections. On my TV the ARC connection only works with HDMI 2. My other two HDMI won't go thru soundbar (ARC). Polk has given me the ability to play my PS4 and Nintendo thru the soundbar (ARC) input which is just a really good idea. My experience 5stars

Not worth the money.. The sub is horrible and it’s no where near 5.1.. DOES NOT DESERVE THE 1 STAR I GAVE IT!!

The Polk MagniFi 2 is a feature-rich soundbar and subwoofer combo that delivers solid audio, but doesn't quite hit there with the "wow" factor. In particular there seems to be a chunk of sound spectrum in the bass that underwhelms, while at other times the sub struck me as a bit harsh. The soundbar itself, however, gives wonderfully clear audio, particularly dialogue, and measuring just 2" tall, it easily fits in front of just about any TV without obstruction. Setup is pretty easy with the included instructions--I ran into one hiccup with the Google Home setup which I was able to resolve by having another go at it. Home gives you some limited control and Google integration, but there is not a standalone app for granular configurations. Google setup also allows for the soundbar to be used as a GoogleCast audio device, and using Spotify with the soundbar was as easy as any other Googlecast device. Just select it as your output device and the audio starts right afterward. If you have multiple speakers in your Google Home, you can output to multiple rooms as well. The soundbar is generous with connectivity, with 3 HDMI ports (one with ARC, but not eARC), optical, and Bluetooth. Included in the packaging was an HDMI cable and an optical cable, which are both appreciated. Across the top are the power, input, and volume controls, and a multicolored set of different status lights emerge across the front to indicate levels, or even what type of audio you're listening to (e.g., green for Dolby Digital). The remote feels solidly built, and when connected via HDMI, CEC allows for control between soundbar and TV. However, the remote isn't backlit, and the keys require an inordinate amount of pressure to activate. The remote includes adjustments for dialogue boost and bass levels, along with 4 presets: movie, sports, music, and 3D. The latter is a separate setting that attempts to give a sense of height in the audio, but my house has such odd ceilings I've never had a convincing height effect in any speaker setup. Those with more normal flat ceilings may have better luck. Movie is what I defaulted to for most content, as it serves TV and movies well. There is also a compressed dynamic range Night mode, good for late nights or apartment complexes. Across a variety of films: Star Wars Rogue One, Quantum of Solace, Into the Storm, and War of the Worlds, the Polk shows itself solid but lacking a bit of oomph. As said before, I was very impressed with the easy clarity of the dialogue in all titles. The bass could definitely provide a bit of thunder here and there, but it just seems like it can't quite fill the whole gap in the sonic spectrum up to the range where the soundbar's speakers are. So you get this feeling like there's just a bit missing from time to time. Overall, this is a good choice for movies, but not if you want room shaking bass. Needless to say, it makes for a vastly improved experience over any TV speakers though. Music was a bit more of a mixed bag as I think it draws out the sub's flaws a bit more. I think the sub can do some booming explosions decently, but not much music goes that low, so that lack of punch is felt more acutely in music than in movies. Overall, it's a good soundbar for upgrading your TV speakers, particularly for movies and TV shows. Like most soundbars, it won't make you forget a dedicated and properly configured 5.1 or 7.1 system, but it can definitely get you closer to a theatrical experience. The feature set here is rich with connection options, the speakers seem solid and well-made, and you do get pretty good sound with solid if unspectacular bass. The Google integration is a nice bonus if you are inclined to use those services (and the soundbar works fine without it). I think most people would be pleased with it.

Doesn't want to connect to the Bluetooth any more.

Maybe I had a defective one, but stopped working after 24 hours.

The system could not be installed as it was faulty

Great sound. Decent price. Purchased open box within missing remote. Polk audio provided me with a new one. Been sounding great.

Horrible. Sub is big. Lacks bass. Sound bar is ok. HDMI arc issues

Polk Audio has made some pretty good soundbars over the years. I know because I have been using the big brother to this new model, the Magnifi Max, for years. And it has been great. Good sound. No major issues But the nwely minted Magnifi 2 is an entirely different animal. A bit of a Jekyl and Hyde story. It clearly has the potential to provide decent, even steller sound in some situations. But is saddled with raft of technical flaws that make it impossible to recommend. First the good. This is a full sized four-speaker soundbar with a pretty hefty 8-inch wireless subwoofer and provides much better sound that any TV speakers. In default "movie" mode, it generates what Polk calls a "stereo dimensional array, which widens the sound field, adding depth to movies, music and even some TV programs. More notable is a new "3D" sound mode, which might best be describe as Polk's version of Dolby Atmos. The effect is quite remarkable, especially on movies with good surround effects, pushing the sound envelope up and out on both sides. It is a pretty convincing effect given you are only working with front speakers. It's a little startling at first. Very immersive. But it does not work well in every case. Use the "music" mode for music, since it provides a cleaner unmodified stereo sound. There is also a "sports" option for sports and news since, which makes the voice stand out over everything else. Bass response is quite good, especially if you take the time to play with the bass control on the remote. I found it sounded best by pushing it up a few notches over the default setting. That gave me plenty of punch, boom and rumble. Also try make sure the subwoofer does not sit direction on carpet, which reduces has the effect of deadening the sound. Put a piece of wood or tile underneath to allow the bass to reverberate Sadly, that is where the good news ends. Because of the overall functionality of this soundbar system is quite frankly, not very good.. There are so many problems, it is hard to know where to start. Consider the remote. Not only does it lack a backlight, it is covered with tiny low contrast markings that make it hard to see even in the best of lighting conditions. Even worse, , the remote seems to have trouble functioning in bright rooms, which is a fatal flaw if the room where your TV resides is flooded with sunlight. Basic setup also proved to be problematic as well. HDMI ARC worked with my TV but the soundbar did NOT turn on and off with the TV, as my older Polk soundbar did. So you are forced to juggle two remotes. Polk says the soundbar works out of the box with the remotes of major TV brands like Sony and Samsung, if you are using HDMI ARC or optical connections with CEc enabled. (Volume and mute anyway) That proved to be the case with my older Polk soundbar but not this one. At least not all the time. Sometimes if worked. Sometimes it didn't. Not sure why. Speaking of HDMI, I had problems getting anything to work correctly by connecting them to the soundbar's three HDMI inputs. My state of the art Sony 4K Blu Ray player initially failed to connect at all using a modern high speed HDMI cable I had been using for years without problem with my other soundbar. So I switched it out with the HDMI cable that came with the soundbar and, for unknown reasons, it partially worked. I got a picture but no sound using the blu-ray player's AUTO audio setting, which, as before, always worked flawlessly with my other Polk soundbar. Isn't the whole point of an HDMI connection to allow the two devices to talk to each other and sort out these issues? Apparently not with this soundbar. Instead, you must waste lot of time digging into arcane choices like bitstream or PCM (and lots of other settings) and then manually forcing the correct one, which must be determined through trial and error. Ugh. No thanks. In case you are wondering, yes, I did update the firmware (which must be done using Google Home, since the soundbar has Chromecast built in) And did multiple system resets. None of that really provided much improvement and in some cases, made it worse. So unless you have a very simple setup, don't mind juggling multiple remotes and only watch TV in a dark room, you be well advised to avoid this soundbar. The more capable and better sounding Polk Magnifi Max would be a far better choice (I have had no major issues with that one) and costs about the same.

The sound from the bar is rich with crisp mids and highs, the bass is strong from the sub woofer. The setup was very user friendly. I enjoy that you can listen to a bluetooth source while watching a different video source. It has 3 HDMI ports, Optical Audio, and stereo inputs as well. The remote is very simple and straight forward. The remote also has selections for different pre-loaded setups (Music, Movies, Sports) to optimize the experience. I'm so glad I got. Watching movies and listening to music has been an exponentially better experience with the Polk sound bar.

I have had issues for a while now with the audio quality on my 4K TV, but this baby really solved all of those issues. The soundbar is really easy to set up and has detailed instructions on how to go about it, which is pretty simple for most users in my opinion. The audio settings give you an array of sound quality options to best suit your needs, but for me I wish there was a better voice option as I have that turned up to the maximum and still feel like voices aren't as clear in certain show situations. While this is a good system as it is only a 4.1 it is good but not the best out there as options for 5.1 and 7.1 exist but if you're like me and the audio is the only really lacking feature of your 4K TV I would definitely suggest this soundbar system to help bring you closer to what real audio feels like.

It took a week, but I am in love with this soundbar now. I got this soundbar because I wanted something without satellite speakers that would still capture 5.1 sound - even if it's not doing the same job as 5.1 speakers - at least I wouldn't have to resort to simple stereo signal and waste all the DD signal. This does a decent job at still utilizing the different surround sound channels - probably as good as you could expect from something that doesn't have satellite speakers. You can still hear and enjoy the satellite channel sounds - you just don't hear them coming form behind you. However, this soundbar does create a very spacious experience. The 3D mode is great, too, but I don't always opt to use it at this point. The overall sound quality on this is great and feels balanced. It's not going to do everything amazingly, but it is great with everything. I really fell in love listening to music with it. I'm particularly impressed with the Voice button - especially since this has to dedicated center channel. But it does even better at segregating and increasing voice volume than other systems that do have designated center channels. A sort of digital magic I guess. The simplicity that you don't have to play around with different speaker volumes and EQ's - you just turn up the voice button and literally get all the designated voice that you want - seemingly even if the original source is not segregating the voice all to one channel anyways (i.e. stereo or poorer 5.1). Just for example, I was watching The Office on Netflix, and I put it in Game Mode (which also has less spatiality than movie mode) and boosted the voice all the way - in all the main scenes that don't include dominating sounds like music or specific sound effects (like a chair falling), you literally only hear the voice. All white noise and background noise is gone. Sounds like you only got the voice tracking playing for the show. This, of course, is not ideal but when switching to the 3D mode, which has an over-abundance of spatial noises, boosting the voice really sounds great and increases the 3D effect. 3D mode with voice at +4 and bass at -2 really creates a great, dynamic sound for me but your room acoustics may be different. However, as much as I loved it, I had a big complaint in the first week - the sub was constantly putting out a loud, low rumbling that was annoying and over-bearing in particular parts of my room. Think an action movie that has that low, suspenseful sub frequency, except that it didn't sound nice and was over-bearing (and seems to play 50% of the time in modern action movies). Even in low-key dramas, this frequency would pop up and really bother me. I was ready every day to return the sound bar over it. (the only reason I didn't return it was because there was nothing else at Best-Buy I was sold on yet). And other than that, I really liked the sound-bar overall, so I kept trying to work with it - adjusting settings, putting the legs on foam. Then moving the sub to all different spots in the room. Nothing was fixing it. Then I read on a discussion board somewhere about breaking a subwoofer in. I had been running my bass usually lower than normal to try to get rid of this noice. So now I did what they suggested on the discussion board - play sub-heavy music and leave the house for a while. Wow, what a difference! I really doubted it would do anything and still had my coat on to pack int up and return it. But once that sub broke-in, it plays everything perfectly.