I've never understood how I would benefit from wireless surrounds. They still have to be plugged in for power, and copper audio wires from a receiver can be virtually any length (since you can cut them yourself) and are so much easier to run under carpets or along walls. With the bluetooth surrounds, that power cable is going to be a pain to compromise between where the speaker should be placed vs where the outlet is, right? The new sound bars support both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X along with Polk's patented Stereo Dimensional Array (SDA) technology for immersive sound, and AirPlay 2 is a welcome inclusion for Apple fans. Google Chromecast, Spotify Connect, and Works with Alexa services are also supported thanks to both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Polk's decision to dedicate three speakers for the center channel alone also leads to clear and detailed dialogue in virtually any situation. While it’s a lighter flavor, it’s about as close as you can get to a discrete center-channel speaker in a single bar, letting you wave goodbye to dialogue issues. From sitcoms and prestige dramas to intense action, you’ll hear every lip movement and all the different vocal textures of your favorite characters. Great for music, too Polk continues not to offer a dedicated app for their soundbars. The Signa series didn’t have one either so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. You can use a few apps to stream music to the unit but these do not offer the type of control the remote does. But more on these apps in the dedicated section below. Extra Features and Services When it comes to those audio chops, I was immediately impressed at just how full and immersive this system sounds out of the box. Virtual surround sound engines have become increasingly convincing in the last few years, and Polk’s SDA version blends with its dual upfiring drivers for sound that pulls you into the action.

Polk MagniFi Mini AX review | What Hi-Fi? Polk MagniFi Mini AX review | What Hi-Fi?

Polk also includes its VoiceAdjust technology, which it claims raises the volume of dialogue in TV programmes and films without amplifying other sounds. First and foremost the remote, and here we were a bit surprised as the one we found in the MagniFi Max AX is completely different from all the other Polk remotes in the past. Big respect for Polk. I have heard a couple of their speakers and most recently the Signa S4 but I never tried the MagniFi series. I like them really and having such affordable prices make them a far more affordable brand than some other very known names in the filed. Excellent review you got there, keep up the good work! Kind regards Erica Reply And as a not-insignificant final bonus, the MagniFi Mini AX proves a very good soundbar/lozenge for music listening. A great deal of music sounded highly enjoyable, the bass continuing to be a strength here as well, and the system could be taken really quite loud without the usual musical distress that soundbars get into. We found it tempting to notch up the bass one or two points with those extra volume controls on the remote control, but that could cause some material to become overwhelming: the underlying bass content of RedBone’s The Witch Queen of New Orleans (streaming via AirPlay from Apple Music) was overcome by a weird swampiness in the lower ranges until we returned the bass to its neutral position.The soundbar does not have any rear speakers in the box although Polk does offer a bundle of this model with the rear speakers included. Unfortunately the one we have for testing does not have these. Internal Hardware Enjoy seamless integration with Spotify, allowing you to easily access and stream your favorite songs, albums, playlists and more in high quality over Wi-Fi. To get non-lossy Dolby Atmos through to the bar, eARC is required, though mere ARC may still manage to pass compressed Atmos. You’ll know because the remote control provided has a useful ‘info’ key at top right; one press invokes the white alphanumeric LED display behind the lozenge’s front grille to display the input, while two presses very usefully shows the file type, whether PCM 2.0 or Dolby Atmos-MAT. The MagniFi Max AX and MagniFi Max AX SR leverage 50 years of Polk speaker design expertise to deliver Polk’s best sound bar to date, and with Polk’s patented Stereo Dimensional Array (SDA) and Voice Adjust technologies, the Magnify Max AX and MagniFi Max AX SR will fill any room with exceptional sound without filling the room with speakers. Add built-in wireless music streaming and you have the ultimate all-in-one entertainment hub.

Polk MagniFi Mini AX Review | Trusted Reviews Polk MagniFi Mini AX Review | Trusted Reviews

As for the subwoofer the one that comes with the soundbar is a bass reflex design with both the driver and the port located at the bottom. The subwoofer, as is the case with most soundbars, is made of some kind of MDF or wood and features a rather cubic design with curved corners. It’s so simple in design that it can be very well mixed for a small table or something like that. So, rather than going bigger, brands have been getting smaller and more compact. Surround sound setups remain an option for some, but for others, a small soundbar is all that’s required. CARLSBAD, Calif.—September 6, 2022— Polk Audio, the leader in high-performance loudspeaker systems for home and mobile applications, today introduced two new flagship sound bar systems, MagniFi Max AX and MagniFi Max AX SR. These compact, high-performance systems bring movies, TV, music and games to life in immersive, multidimensional Dolby Atmos and DTS:X sound, thanks to 11-speaker arrays featuring dedicated center channels, up-firing height speakers and Polk’s patented Stereo Dimensional Array (SDA) technology. Both models include wireless subwoofers for extended bass response; MagniFi Max AX SR adds two wireless surround speakers for total sonic immersion. Music streaming, custom sound modes and eARC connectivity round out the features of these all-in-one, accessibly priced systems. Also all functions are available through the included buttons, something we definitely like in comparison to some other brands that force you to use their mobile app for some more specialized features.

With Terminator: Dark Fate, the car chase in Mexico has proved a problem for some soundbars in terms of protecting dialogue from the cacophony of special effects. Delving through my Dolby Atmos demo discs, I was treated to an impressive show, from birds circling around the room to strafing starships overhead and buzzing bugs that almost had me scratching away the dense humidity of a muggy summer evening. Even the challenging rain storm in the “Amaze” demo came off with surprisingly realistic overhead placement, allowing my brain to almost feel the beads of rain falling from the ceiling. The unit comes with a music mode so we opted to use that for this part of our testing. But as we always say, choosing a specific sound mode has to do a lot with the personal preferences of each user so we strongly advise you to try them all and decide for yourself which one sounds better to your ears.

POLK AUDIO MagniFi Max AX Dolby Atmos Soundbar and Wireless

Getting the whole lot to connect wirelessly is incredibly easy, thanks to sync buttons on each piece of kit. I didn’t have any problem with reliability, either. Things fall down with the integration of the sub, as the soundbar doesn’t extend quite well enough toward the bottom end and neither does the subwoofer attempt to meet it halfway. It probably won’t bother you during most TV viewing, but on occasion it can be too obvious that a certain sound is coming from the sub rather than just the system as a whole. You don’t want a subwoofer to be a distraction, but you also don’t want to turn it down so much that you might as well not have it. Everyone loves surround sound, right? But no one can be bothered to accommodate it any more – all those speakers and cables running everywhere. Soundbars are far more convenient. No matter how much they try, however, none have managed a convincing ‘virtual surround’ effect. The nifty Polk MagniFi Max SR soundbar doesn’t even try to go virtual.

What We Think…

I'd really like to know how this compares to a Sonos system. This whole system costs as much as 1 piece of the Sonos system. Now, there are soundbars we had tested before that could push the sound even further to each side but nevertheless what the MagniFi Max AX was able to give us was more that what we were expecting. We previously mentioned about the built-in buttons placed at the top of the main bar and these include a power button, an input selection button, Bluetooth, Mute and volume controls. One point to note here: due to the bar’s minimalist interface, there’s apparently no way to stream stereo music without surround sound virtualization. You’ll get sound modes like Movie, Music, and Night mode with different equalization presets, but there’s no Direct mode to deliver the format as intended. That’s normally something that would bother me, but the bar's Auto mode seems to make nearly all the right decisions, providing optimized performance for everything from immersive action scenes to swirling synthesizers.