Polk MagniFi MAX home theater soundbar review
Polk is well known for their high-end audio equipment, but they've recently branched into the smart speaker game with several products. We recently reviewed the Polk Assist speaker that has Google Assistant baked right in, and this time around we had a chance to test the MagniFi MAX. Instead of a smaller, Google Home-esque speaker, the MAX is a full soundbar with Chromecast integration and a few other nifty audio tricks.
Design
There's not usually much to dig into when you're talking about soundbars, and considering you're going to try and hide it in plain sight in your living, boring is usually better. Polk's MagniFi is a sleek piece of equipment that fit perfectly under a 49-inch television, and while it definitely looks like a nice piece of audio equipment, it's not overwhelming at all.
There are unobtrusive lights and levels at the front of the soundbar to indicate your volume and certain EQ levels, but otherwise, this thing stays out of the way. Controls for the soundbar sit behind that main panel and include your typical buttons for power, volume, and input changing, but there are a few toggles for changing the EQ and voice clarity, too.
The total package sits at around 2 inches tall, so it's going to easily hide under most television sets. The subwoofer, on the other hand, is a pretty chunky addition to the setup, but it's at least wireless so you won't have too many wires and cables cluttering up your space.
Features
If you're looking for a soundbar that's loaded with speakers, you'll be very interested in what Polk is offering. There's a laundry list of things this speaker can do, ranging from your typical home theater stuff to smart connectivity.
There are enough outputs on the soundbar to cover nearly any setup, including a typical audioout, optical out, and three HDMI inputs, plus an HDMI ARC ports. That means so long as your TV has an HDMI ARC input you'll only need to use one HDMI cable for all of your sound instead of dealing with additional optical or audio cables. If you don't want to go that route and instead want to run your own equipment through the soundbar, it fully supports 4K HDR and Dolby Vision passthrough. That fits right at home with even the most fully equipped home theater setups. The remote also works with most common television sets by default, so if you're using an LG, Samsung, or other popular brand, you won't even need to worry with the remote.
Since it does have Google Cast integrated, the device also sports an ethernet port for hardwiring directly into your network. That certainly helps with any high quality audio streaming, and you can use any nearby Google Homes (or your phone) to get music going through the soundbar, all hands free.
Polk uses their patented SDA, or stereo dimensional array, technology to create virtual surround sound from a single soundbar to great effect for your 5.1 Dolby Digital content. Polk does offer extra wireless rear speakers, but the soundbar does a pretty great job at delivering virtual surround when it's set up properly.
Performance
The sides of the soundbar are ported, and those seem to play heavily into the mid-range/surround sound quality of the speakers overall. If you put the MagniFi MAX in a cabinet or in some shelves, it'll honestly sound pretty weak and not at all worth the price that Polk is asking. But moving it out into the open or mounting it on the wall below a television really opens up the soundstage and lets that SDA tech shine. It's not quite as good as a true 5.1 setup you're still missing Dolby Atmos, but if you closed your eyes I think you'd have a hard time imagining that kind of sound coming from a soundbar of this size.
And seriously, once this thing's out in the open, it delivers clear, room-filling sound. I was able to test it almost literally side by side with my full 5.1.2 home theater setup, and it more than held its own at a fraction of the cost, especially when listening to music. Polk offers a few different EQ modes for music, sports, movies, and so on, and there's an extra layer of equalization called VoiceAdjust that specifically emphasizes vocals, singing, and speaking. It's great for movies and sports.
As far as sound quality goes, you're getting a surprisingly thumping bass, which I wasn't expecting at all from a wireless subwoofer, with an excellent mid-range and clear highs. Personal preference, I think I would've liked a little extra sizzle on the high end, but it's nothing worth really complaining about. Whether you're trying to watch adrenalized action movies, loud sports games, or blasting baddies in a video game, the MagniFi MAX managed to hold up exceptionally well. For its price point that's probably to be expected, but I've heard enough trash soundbars to not take anything for granted.
However, as I mentioned earlier, this soundbar really shines when it's able to breathe. Keeping the volume relatively low (like watching something late at night or in a bedroom) tends to make the speaker sound pretty flat. I know it's not very common for anyone to drop this kind of cash on a bedroom soundbar, but it doesn't handle those low volumes as well as some other speakers do. Fortunately there's a late night mode that helps to retain most of the sound quality while scooping out the bass and other frequencies that shake the walls and wake everyone up, but it also doesn't work as well as some other full setups.
Verdict
At $399 for the MagniFi MAX without the surround speakers, Polk has positioned this soundbar directly next to the latest Sonos Beam. Both devices offer better-than-usual soundbar sound quality with a host of extra features and integrations.
The Sonos Beam is a really nice competitor, too; it offers integration with Alexa, support for adding on more Sonos speakers, and AirPlay for Apple devices. But Sonos absolutely falls short next to the MagniFi MAX when you start talking about sound quality, and that stings when the whole point of these devices is to make things sound better.
Polk's decision to include a subwoofer helps a ton there, and it's relatively inexpensive way to add surround speakers is a very nice perk. If you're planning on going all in on Sonos (or you're already there) it might make more sense, but if you're on Google's side of the fence the MagniFi MAX will be a much better fit into your home theater experience. Throw in the cheaper ecosystem expandability with Google Homes and other Google Assistant smart speakers and I think I'd have a hard time recommending anything else in this price range.
Buy it now: Polk, Amazon
Surround speakers: Amazon
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