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Annoyingly bad to sound bars, very few input levels provide an easy way to upgrade to a larger speaker system. Spend a couple hundred dollars for a basic bar, and you’ll be locked into buying a new center speaker if you want to upgrade to a full surround sound system — with dedicated surround speakers and a subwoofer — down the line.
That’s why I’m a fan of the new Polk Audio React line of home theater speakers. The Alexa-enabled main bar, subwoofer, and surround speakers are sold separately, so you can start with the bar and then buy other parts to fill your entire 5.1 system at your leisure.
You might buy a complete 5.1 soundbar system as a package generally with fewer pieces than you would spend assembling a Polk React system, but you should leave all the money at once. Each component of the Polk React is worth a couple of hundred dollars and can be purchased separately, which is a cheap way to get a great surround sound for those with a lighter case.
Alexa Barruan
When you remove the main react bar you will quickly notice the turn Alexa a unit built in the middle of the top of the bar. It looks like it melted into the main housing of the speaker. The small plastic circle offers the same controls you know from other Alexa devices, including the ability to mute the microphone if you don’t want to use Amazon’s smart assistant for anything.
I spent most of my time interacting with this foot-covered rectangle on my TV’s remote control, which allowed Polk to insert an HDMI ARC port, allowing me to adjust the volume of the remote TV’s sound bar.
That said, it was useful to use Alexa to set fast kitchen timers and other things I usually do with a smart speaker or phone, right on the sound bar. You will never lose a device’s oven timer if your TV session is literally interrupted by the sounds of your sound bar.
In addition to the sound bar, Polk Audio sent me the rest of the React ambient sound system for testing. Setting up potential speakers and wireless subwoofers has been very easy, thanks to Polk’s simple instructions for pairing the procedure, even if you want to secure outlets that reach about six feet (or, in my case, extenders, in my case). each speaker. The inserted power cables are longer than most, but they are shorter in larger rooms.
The whole black system is class and description enough to easily get lost in most spaces, which is a benefit or a disadvantage, depending on your aesthetic sense. Personally, I like to confuse devices like this in the background.
Growing together
I tested the sound bar on its own and then added the subwoofer and surroundings to simulate how most people should buy this system. Alone, I was impressed with the 34-inch bar’s ability to project warm, low-pitched sound throughout the listening space. The audio from a bar of this size was richer and richer than I expected, and that was good to hear.
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