42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
Great Surround Sound
I got the SurroundBar 50 last week after a few days of research. If you're researching for single speaker surround sound solutions that means you cannot run wires in your room thanks to the landlord or your wife (welcome to my world hehe).
You have couple of options when you're looking for a single speaker solution for your home theater project, and I was...
Little or no surround sound
The Surround 50 bar by Polk provides little or no surround sound. I installed it with my Pioneer Elite Receiver and a Polk sub-woofer. All sound seemed to come from the sound bar. I then played the same movie with individual Polk surround speakers. They provided true 5.1 sound. I am returning the bar to Electronic Expo as a result.
I got the SurroundBar 50 last week after a few days of research. If you're researching for single speaker surround sound solutions that means you cannot run wires in your room thanks to the landlord or your wife (welcome to my world hehe).
You have couple of options when you're looking for a single speaker solution for your home theater project, and I was down to Yamaha and Polk Audio. Between the two I chose Polk Audio over Yamaha because (A) Yamaha requires a perfect 4 wall room so that sound can bounce back off the walls and create the surround sound effect, which I don't have (cathedral ceiling, staircase in the middle of the house so no back wall and side walls are far apart.) and (B) Yamaha costs way more. Don't get me wrong, Yamaha is awesome from what I read on Amazon and on other sites, but SurroundBar/SurroundBar 50 plus a decent subwoofer cost less than a Yamaha (which has an integrated subwoofer).
To pair with my SurroundBar 50, I bought a Velodyne Minivee 10 subwoofer. It was a bit of an overkill in my situation. But I wanted to spend a bit more and get a great sounding sub in case I wanted to build a better home theater one day. You can pair SurroundBar 50 with any Polk Audio sub out there. PSW111 is a good one for example. I have an Onkyo A/V Receiver and an Onkyo DVD player. The setup was fairly easy. SurroundBar 50 comes with the audio cables ready to be hooked up between the bar and your receiver. Everything is color coded so you can't really go wrong here. I hooked up an RCA audio cable between my receiver and my sub's line level inputs. Total setup = 1 hour or less.
After configuring my receiver to use the new bar and sub, I tested the surround sound with Matrix, Gladiator and Pitch Black DVDs. SurroundBar 50 produces the "enveloping sound" as promised. I still need some adjustments to do later but so far I'm pretty impressed with what I have. The SDA technology Polk Audio offers does a great job. This product will NOT give you a true 5.1 surround sound experience, so if you're an audiophile this is not for you. This product performs really well in creating the 5.1 effect. In Pitch Black you really hear those flying creatures moving around and in Matrix it's a pleasure hearing bullets flying by and ricocheting.
Overall I'm very impressed. I'm just happy I was able to setup a surround sound system under an hour and without running wires going through walls and furniture and carpet etc. Your experience may vary from mine so go to your local electronics store and give this a test. If your wife is like mine who is against speakers and wires around the room then SurroundBar might be the solution for you too. :)
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I didn't want to run wires all over ant the wife acceptance factor played heavily in choosing a Surroundbar. The SB50 perfectly fit the width of our TV stand and having SDA for both front and rear pairs improved the surround effect compared to the original SB. It also performs well with music by using Dolby PL-II music setting on my Onkyo SR605. Definitely needs a subwoofer for home theater and base-heavy music also benefits. I chose a PSW505 and it's the ideal match for the SB50 in a room 20'x40'x11' ceiling. When surround effects are active in a movie or XM radio I can 'hear' sounds all around me. The only place the SDA doesn't reach is creating sounds 'behind' me. I experimented with a wired speaker directly behind the seating area and it didn't seem to add much. Now that I better understand the surround options on the receiver I'm going to try it again. Not sure how I'll sell that to the wife.
The description and photo on Amazon for the SB50 is actually for the original SB. The SB50 has 9 drivers (4 pair of SDA drivers and a single center channel speaker) and is ported.
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I've had this product for a month now and love it. When I first installed it, my subwoofer (HSU Research VTF2-MK3) had not arrived. This allowed me to see the quality of the surroundbar 50 by itself. It is an excellent product that will deliver very clean, if not a little sharp, sound. Given the size of the midrange drivers you can't get a real bass response without a subwoofer, but you do get crisp treble and solid midrange. Polk actually recommends that you use a subwoofer for best sound quality and attach the subwoofer to the L/R inputs of the receiver. I set mine up this way and the blend between the subwoofer and surroundbar is surprisingly good. In fact, it's exceptional! It sounds like the bass is coming from the surroundbar even though I know it isn't. Plus with the surroundbar, you really do get quality surround sound with DVDs or broadcasts in HD. Sure this speaker won't beat a 5.1 or 7.1 system with individual speakers for each channel, but I use this in my open plan living room and it is so much sleeker than the typical 5.1 system. Plus I don't have to run wires everywhere. And the surround sound is good.
The speaker is great for audio as well. You can crank it up pretty loud and it still sounds clear and undistorted. Again just make sure you have the subwoofer in place if you want bass response.
One more thing. The surroundbar50 is just a speaker. There's no signal processing done by it, so you'll need a receiver for the dolby digital and DTS effects. Overall I think this is a great solution for people who want surround sound without 5-7 speakers. I can't speak for the 42" surroundbar as I haven't heard one, but the surroundbar 50 is great.
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The Polk Audio SurroundBar 50 has very good sound production. Got it for $572 at Amazon. If your room isn't large (or opened) and don't want to run wires around your room, then this is definitely a good buy.
I tested the SurroundBar 50 watching both Trilogy of the Matrix and Lord of the Ring. The sound production from the front left, center and right speakers are indeed very good, compared to a true 5.1 speaker setup. However, the sound coming out of the surround left and right speakers are only okay. This is why I am giving this 4 stars. But I am willing to sacrifice a bit of the surround sound to get very good quality from the front left, center, and front right speakers. While I have a subwoofer (Polk Audio PWS505), the bass coming out of the SurroundBar 50 by itself is also quite good. Dollar for dollar the SurroundBar 50 cannot replace the sound from a true 5.1 setup. However, it can definitely be an upgrade to an entry level speaker system. Especially when you consider the advantages of not having to run speaker wires and put speakers all over the place.
The SurroundBar 50 is not a standalone sound bar so you have to connect this to a receiver. The instruction to calibrate the speakers (using the receiver) wasn't difficult. The included 15 feet of speaker wires are color coded so connecting them to the surroundBar 50 was easy. However, the wires are thin so you may wish to replace them with a better gauge.
The SurroundBar 50 is over 50 inches long so you may need to consider ths for aesthetics reasons, especially if you are putting it below you LCD or plasma TV. I have a Sony 46" XBR2 and it just fits widthwise.
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Polk Audio SurroundBar 50 Surround System (Single Speaker) - Black I was searching for an audio solution with a clean look and good performance to compliment my new Pioneer Kuro plasma display. First off, this speaker was literally made to fit perfectly under this display, which is a big plus. Since I already have a traditional surround system in another room, I was looking for a simple uncluttered solution. To compliment the Surroundbar I purchased a very nice low profile receiver, 80 watts per channel and I added a subwoofer. The sound is very convincing and the sub blends in nicely with the Polk. The overall effect gives you a 3-D feel without the rear speakers. Is it the full-fledged 5.1 sound from a traditional surround system? I would honestly have to say no. However, it's not a contrived, unnatural sounding system. The center channel and vocals are spot on and the system plays music quite nicely. In summary, I'm very happy with this speaker and if matched with decent electronics and subwoofer, it creates a very respectable surround system.
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I have been a fan of surround sound for some time. There's nothing like experiencing a movie encoded with an aggressive 5.1 surround mix on a set of speakers that really put you in the center of the action.
But in the course of redecorating my living room, I had to shift around the furniture in a way that prohibited me from wiring up the left and right surround speakers. I was even going to have a hard time with the left and right front channels. (I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say an old hippie owned my house for 30 years before I bought it, and did a lot of work on it himself, leading to some unique interior features. Enough said.)
Then I ran across this speaker. I'm a fan of Polk Audio from the old days; I owned a set of SDA-2s for a number of years and loved them. This speaker uses some of that SDA magic to recreate all five channels of sound from a single sound bar. I was skeptical even as I unboxed this speaker, wired it up, and hung it on the wall. Installation tip: Really crank down on the nuts holding the speaker wire to the speaker with a ratchet, or they will slip out when you hang up the speaker. Otherwise, installation was simple and straightforward.
Once it was properly installed, I put it to the test with a home theater sound test DVD. To my amazement, as the different tones were generated for the five channels, I heard sound from the left and right surround speakers from this single bar located 16 feet in front of me! The surround was not as discrete and powerful as you would have gotten from an actual speaker, but it was probably 80-90% of the way there. For unique installations like mine, or if you just want a cleaner look or simpler installation, the Surround Bar 50 is definitely worth it.
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I recently upgraded my home theater to 7.1 and went with a great in wall installation for the rear 4. Unfortunately, my wife liked the clutter reduction and "requested" that I ditch the huge tower LCR speakers as well... I investigated several soundbar solutions to add to my existing setup and finding unpowered LCR bars was not easy until I found the Polk SurroundBar 50.
I bought mine through the Amazon Warehouse and it arrived in a truly shredded box, but the contents were in perfect order. Hookup was simple, although the included wires are too long for my install and a little on the scrawny side, but they are well sheathed and color coded for easy install. The variety of mounting/stand solutions was very nice and allowed me to place the bar on the console under my 65" LCD without a hitch.
Setup and calibration was simple, but as others (including the vendor) have indicated they are a little bright and you MUST have subwoofer support if you want an accurate experience. Surround is as iffy as I would expect, no matter the mojo, but since I was looking for LCR it was perfect. I ended up wiring the SurroundBar's surrounds to give me a 9.1 setup and it does an admirable job.
Soundbars ARE a compromise - I doubt anyone's bar will give you the same surround experience as a discrete speaker system. If that is what you're hoping for, then get 5+ speakers and be done with it. However, if you're looking for a single speaker solution to give you a reasonable portrayal and you already have an amplifier then look no further.
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I would give this a 4.5 out of 5....although I cant seem to select that.
I bought this to place under our Sharp 46" lcd with a small Axiom subwoofer. Both items are powered by a Denon AVR-789.
I have used it for standard and hi-def television as well as Blu-Ray.
The SOUND is fantastic....although sometimes it seems a bit on the bright side...meaning too tinny.... Hard to explain.
Now..i understand that the shortcoming could be my room and or my receiver...not to mention the content. Which is why I am going with a 4.5.
I followed the instructions in the manual to a T and decided that they were not right for a LARGE family room with a lot of ambient noise (3 kids0. I had to adjust the levels on my own to a comfortable level. I will also be using Audessey on the Denon receiver to calibrate this soundbar and will post the results when I have them available.
$399 is a STEAL for this item.
Be aware that this thing is wide....so you should have enough space on your table to fit it...otherwise it will hang off the sides like my unit does. ;-). I just hid it behind the LCD so my wife wouldnt actually notice or mind.
This will not replace my home theater speakers...but it does work wonders in a family room. GREAT ITEM.
ps. I also love...LOVE...the color coded cables and the ribbon type coating they use. It makes connecting this thing a BREEZE.
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I was sceptical that this would "fill" our room with sound (16' X 16' with 9' ceiling), but even with my old reciever and sub it does a good job. The bass is lacking, so make sure you have a sub.
It's definitely not on par with a complete surround system and you can localize, but I am very please with it.
Music (depending on source) sounds fantastic. This is wife friendly and I would recommend it for sure.
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I JUST SET UP THE SOUNDBAR 50 ALONG WITH POLKS PSW111 SUBWOOFER IN MY MAIN VIEWING AREA. THE RESULTS WITH MUSIC VIDEOS BOTH DVD AND BLU-RAY ARE VERY GOOD. THEY WON'T REPLACE MY MAIN SPEAKER SETUP BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT I BOUGHT THEM FOR (MASTER BEDROOM), WHERE THEY WILL SUPPORT A 42" PLASMA. SO FAR I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS DUO. AMAZON HAD THE LOWEST PRICE TOO.
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