Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR  Soundbar Review

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR has a sleek, rectangular design. The exterior is covered in a good-quality fabric, and there's solid plastic on the middle top and middle back panel.

The subwoofer has a more square-shaped design than the Polk Audio Magnifi MAX SR. It sits up on four pegs. The driver and the port are underneath.

The satellites have a similar design to the bar. They're mostly made of plastic with a fabric covering on the front. Their wedge-like shape makes it easy to fit them into corners without taking up much space.

The bar is pretty wide, so it doesn't fit between the legs of most 55" TV stands. It's not very tall, so it doesn't block out your TV screen, either.

The sub is a bit larger than an average desktop computer. Still, it connects to the bar wirelessly, so you have some flexibility when setting it up in your living room.

Like the Polk Audio Magnifi MAX SR, the satellites are wide. They also connect to the bar wirelessly, which is a nice touch, and their power adapter cables are quite long to help you set them up in your room.

You can mount the bar and the satellites to your wall. The brackets aren't included, but you don't need to buy them separately, thanks to the setup's slotted design.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR has a good build quality. The bar and the satellites are mostly plastic, which feels solid and durable. The fabric coverings on both components are high-quality, and it doesn't seem like they could rip or tear easily. The subwoofer also feels solid and heavy. It's made of a melamine-like material.

• Manuals
• Mounting template
• Power cables for bar and subwoofer (5.9ft / 1.8m)
• 2x surrounds power supplies (10.2ft / 3.1m)
• HDMI cable (5.9ft / 1.5m)
• Remote with 2x AA batteries
• 2x wall mount spacers

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR has a great stereo frequency response. Out-of-the-box, some boominess in the high-bass extends into the mids, which is great for genres with a lot of bass or if you want to feel the excitement in action-packed scenes. However, it does muddy vocals and instruments a bit. Also, the subwoofer tends to hold bass notes too long, which leaks into the rest of the mix. The dip in the high-mids means that vocals are a tad recessed, too. Overall, the sound is still suitable for most audio content, but the bar doesn't quite reproduce sound as the artist intended.

If you prefer a more neutral sound with stereo content, set the bass to -2 and the treble to 2. The resulting sound is more even and balanced, especially in the bass range, as there's less boom in the mix. The added treble brings more clarity to higher-pitched sounds like cymbals, too. It's also worth noting that based on our subjective impressions, the 'Voice' preset improves the response in the mids, so you can hear dialogue more clearly with this setting turned on. We didn't test it extensively, but it's worth trying out if you notice that voices are more recessed in your audio.

The stereo soundstage is decent. You perceive it to be a touch wider than the bar itself, but that's it. Focus is accurate, though, which is good since it means that you can pinpoint certain instruments to exact locations in the soundstage.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR gets loud, so it's a solid choice for listening to audio in larger, more open spaces. Audio reproduction isn't as clear at max volume, though, as the bar overcorrects the sound at max volume. You won't need to listen to it that loud, so it's not likely an issue.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR has a great stereo THD performance. When you listen at normal volumes, distortion falls within good limits, ensuring clean and clear audio reproduction. As expected, there's a small jump in distortion when you push the bar to max volume, but it isn't easy to notice, even with real-life content, unless you're a discerning audiophile.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR has a discrete center channel designed to improve vocal reproduction. This channel's frequency response is very even and balanced, especially in the mids, which is where most voices reproduce. As a result, it's easy to follow along with the conversation taking place on screen.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR has two dedicated surround speakers. As a result, sound effects are more clear and real in the space around you than with a bar that comes without satellites. You get the sense that the action on screen is happening all around you rather than just coming from a speaker in front of you. The frequency response on these channels is uneven, though, so sound effects reproduce with a little extra boom, and they also seem a bit dull and veiled at times.

Some users have reported that the surround test tone is active on both speakers simultaneously rather than coming from one at a time as intended. We found that both surround channels and some drivers of the right/left main channels on the bar play simultaneously when sending a pure tone to a single channel. It's very faint and possibly a result of the Stereo Dimensional Array technology, which the manufacturer advertises to enhance the soundstage by sending audio to several drivers. Again, it's not the most noticeable, especially with real-life content, but it's worth noting if you want clean surround reproduction.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR uses two up-firing drivers built into the bar to ricochet sound off the ceiling, creating the illusion of height. The frequency response on these channels is rather boomy, as there's a peak in the bass and a lack of emphasis in the mids and treble. Certain sound effects, like voices, are less clear, while bass-centric sounds like explosions tend to overpower the mix.

Subjectively, the bar's soundstage with height content is just okay. The surrounds seem disconnected, missing, or overpowered at times, possibly due to the uneven frequency response on these channels. The sub brings a solid rumble in the bass, but voices are hard to hear in the mix. You can improve this slightly by activating the 'Voice' preset, which is nice. Overall, though, most of the action seems centered at the front, and the bar doesn't achieve much height. Busier, more action-packed scenes like car chases tend to hide some of these issues, but they're more noticeable with scenes that have less going on.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR offers a limited selection of sound enhancement features. Compared to premium bars, it lacks room correction, so it sounds a little different depending on the unique acoustics of your space. Thanks to its bass and treble adjustments, you can manually adjust for this a little. There are also some EQ presets: 'Auto Mode', 'TV Mode', 'Movie Mode', 'Night Mode', 'All-Stereo Mode', and 'Music Mode'. The 'Voice Adjust' setting on the remote lets you adjust the dialogue in the mix. You can also control the height and surround levels. The 'Stereo Dimensional Array' feature is always active, too, and it works with a virtual surround feature to widen the soundstage and create a more 3D sound.

The bar has a lot of different physical inputs, which is a nice touch. It connects to your TV using HDMI or Optical connections. Plus, there are three different Full HDMI In ports to set up the bar as a hub between devices like a PC and a TV. You can use the USB port for basic MP3 music playback, too.

The Polk Audio Magnifi Max AX SR supports many common audio formats via eARC. You can watch common surround sound formats like Dolby Digital and lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

Via HDMI In, this soundbar can play back many different audio formats you'll likely find on both streaming platforms and Blu-rays.

The bar supports both Dolby Digital and DTS content via Optical. Dolby Digital is the more common, but DTS is often the fallback for higher-quality formats on certain Blu-rays.

The bar's latency is middling. Via ARC and Optical, latency is on the higher side, so you notice a slight delay between the audio you hear and the video you see. Fortunately, there's an 'Audio Delay' tool on hand to manually adjust for this if you have issues with any connection. Latency is lower with Full HDMI In, too, so you don't notice lip-synching issues over that connection. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, though.

This soundbar can passthrough many common resolutions and refresh rates, which is handy if you plan to use it as a hub between devices like your TV and your gaming console with clear and crisp text on the screen. It can also passthrough various high-quality video signals commonly found on both gaming consoles and devices like an Apple TV, like HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision.

You can wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices to the bar over many different platforms. You need to use Google Home, Alexa, or AirPlay to set up Wi-Fi playback since this feature isn't integrated into the bar from the jump. You can't stream content to the bar over Wi-Fi without these apps.

The display in front of the bar shows all the basic functions as you adjust them. You can also press the info button on the remote to see the current input, the source format, the preset mode, the Wi-Fi status, and whether the sub and the surrounds are connected.

A couple of controls on top of the bar let you control its basic features. You can power it on/off, change the input, activate Bluetooth, mute the bar, and adjust the volume. On the back of the bar, some LED indicators show the status of the Wi-Fi, the sub, and the satellites. Also, you have the connect buttons for the surrounds and the subwoofer. They're automatically connected to the bar from the factory, but these buttons are useful if you need to do some troubleshooting.

The remote is fairly simple but lets you control all the bar's features. You have buttons for more basic functions like the volume and options for the different presets and sound enhancement tools.

You can connect the bar to the Google Home or Alexa apps to stream audio from Alexa or Google Assistant-enabled devices from the bar. There's no microphone, though, so it can't receive voice commands.