Soundbars have turn into extremely common over the previous a number of years as a result of, whereas not on the similar stage as a correct residence theater setup, they’ll nonetheless be a large improve over what your TV places out by itself. If you happen to’re trying to enhance what your TV provides and even improve your present soundbar, the Polk MagniFi 2 is a reasonably stable alternative.
Let’s begin by diving straight into the sound high quality.
The three.1 channel, 200-watt setup that comes with MagniFi 2 produces a typically pleasing soundstage. It sounds greatest head-on from an honest distance, making it sound greatest the place you’ll naturally need to sit, on the sofa in entrance of your TV.
The soundbar handles dialogue very nicely, and the 4 presets — Film, Music, Sports activities, and Evening — work nicely for his or her meant use circumstances. Film brings out the main points and pumps up the bass, giving motion films extra influence. Music, in the meantime, leaves issues in a flatter and extra pure area. Sports activities is definitely greatest for dialogue-heavy content material, whether or not that be a sporting occasion or one thing just like the every day information. Evening mode, which I admittedly didn’t check closely, takes every thing down a notch to forestall sound from filling all the residence.
As you’d most likely anticipate, sound high quality sounds greatest within the place you’ll almost certainly need to sit, on the sofa, centered in entrance of the TV/soundbar from a little bit of distance away. That turns into a little bit of a double-edged sword, although. Whereas sound high quality is pleasant in that candy spot, it suffers just a bit bit in the event you’re off to the perimeters by a good bit. That’s one thing I observed after I used the soundbar for music whereas sitting at my desk, which is off to the left of the soundbar. It nonetheless sounds good, however noticeably not as clear. Encompass sound would seemingly assist with that, however that’s one thing you’ll must fork over a further $200 for.
The saving grace is Polk’s virtualized 3D mode, activated with a fast press on the distant. It’s not practically as good as a real 5.1 speaker setup, however the impact is healthier than I anticipated. Sounds results like vehicles passing by or Falcon flying previous within the opening of that collection’ finale genuinely do sound like they’re coming from totally different elements of the room. You possibly can even open up a encompass sound tester. It solely ever falls flat when the impact turns into too emphasised. That occurs rather a lot with music-heavy movies. Watching the opening to In The Heights, for instance, the 3D impact took away from the expertise relatively than including to it, making some particulars onerous to listen to clearly.
No matter mode, bass is the one place the place this setup falls flat. The subwoofer is large and really succesful, nevertheless it both feels prefer it’s hitting manner too onerous or not sufficient. Whenever you flip it up, it drowns out some particulars, however whenever you reduce it down, the audio feels missing, considerably muddled even. As with most different issues talked about, tweaking presets or the degrees of voice versus bass might help, however nothing totally solves that subject. For a deeper dive into the audio high quality, I’d recommending testing this assessment from TechHive.
Looking on the bodily {hardware}, the soundbar itself has a refined design that gained’t stick out in a lounge, one thing that’s for the very best, in my view. The glossy design additionally means it’ll match neatly underneath many TVs, although principally ones on the bigger aspect given the over 37 inches in width. There are bodily buttons alongside the highest of the soundbar for energy, enter, quantity, and a devoted button to activate Bluetooth pairing. Many of the work will must be executed from the distant, although, which incorporates buttons for the aforementioned audio presets, tuners for bass and voice, and changes for bodily encompass sound audio system do you have to select to purchase these. The distant feels good within the hand, however the all-rubber entrance tends to gather numerous mud that’s onerous to wash off in the event you go away it alone for too lengthy.
Past simply utilizing the three HDMI passthrough ports on the again, although, you may also use this soundbar as a Google Solid goal. This occurs whenever you join it to WiFi, an motion carried out by the Google House app on Android or iOS units. As soon as related, you’ll be able to solid audio from apps equivalent to Spotify or Google Podcasts, nevertheless it additionally turns into a goal for Assistant units. Polk MagniFi 2 doesn’t have microphones by itself, however a close-by Google House Mini or related system can ship audio to it, and it might probably even be included in speaker teams.
Rounding issues out, the final bit I need to contact on is how this soundbar handles HDMI. Typically talking, I’ve discovered that it really works very nicely with no visible points with HDMI passthrough. CEC additionally reliably passes by wake instructions from my Chromecast with Google TV distant to my TCL Roku TV. That TV particularly doesn’t work significantly nicely within the different path, however my expertise with an older Polk soundbar has been nice throughout the board on the subject of HDMI CEC. My sole grievance with HDMI, although, is how the soundbar reveals interactions. The lights designed to point out which enter you’re utilizing or switching to are unintuitive and infrequently complicated. This downside extends to toggling presets and extra as nicely. It’s powerful to inform in the event you’ve turned one thing on or off. I’d like to see Polk undertake a kind of LED display screen like some opponents supply in future iterations, because it’s a lot simpler to know. It’d be a giant profit on a product of this worth level.
The Polk MagniFi 2 has fairly a couple of highlights. Its CEC efficiency makes it an incredible soundbar to make use of alongside a Google TV or Android TV streaming system, whereas its general sound high quality can enhance the expertise on any TV. The $499 worth level positively leaves it on the most costly finish of the spectrum, although, with cheaper choices delivering extra quantity and related sound high quality. The leg Polk has to face on is its virtualized encompass sound, and actually, I’d relatively spend an additional $100 to get a correct 5.1 setup within the firm’s MagniFi SR. If, nonetheless, you’ll be able to’t go for bodily encompass for no matter cause, you gained’t be dissatisfied with this soundbar.
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