10 reviews for Polk Audio React Sound Bar, Dolby & DTS Virtual Surround Sound, Next Gen Alexa Voice Engine with Calling & Messaging Built-in, Expandable to 5.1 with Matching React Subwoofer & SR2 Surround Speakers

1. 

   5 out of 5

   devprocb – February 22, 2020

   The sound quality of this soundbar is clear and crisp. When paired with a subwoofer, it will blow you away. I am currently using this to replace my computer’s sound system for a cleaner look and could not ask for a major upgrade to overall sound quality. I also purchased the Polk Audio 10inch subwoofer to pair with it, running on a separate channel on my computer and the bass feedback is crazy.A couple of annoyances: No audio “out” port which would have made the setup easier for my personal needs.The sound system beeps randomly every so often when no sound is playing for a while. I assume it’s related to the Alexa being built-in, but have not been able to figure out how to disable it completely. I did mute Alexa so that has helped a little.—In a large living room, you will have no issues filling the room with audio.I have had the soundbar at max volume and no cracking or distortion. If you are looking for a clean nice upgrade, the Polk soundbar is a great addition when paired with a good subwoofer.

2. 

   5 out of 5

   Bryan Hryszkanich – February 22, 2020

   I just received this sound bar which I installed in my living room. For the price the sound quality is pretty good (I paid around $180). It was easy to setup using the arc HDMI port on my Roku tv. The Roku tv remote now controls the sound bar which is convenient. The built in Alexa works just like any other Alexa device and was simple to setup and add to my speaker groups. Overall, so far I would recommend this sound bar. My only complaint would be I have yet to find a wall mount for this unit yet, Polk should either provide one or at least recommend one.Edit: I learned that you just use screws to mount this sound bar. No mount required.

3. 

   5 out of 5

   jonathan abramowitz – May 17, 2020

   took the plunge and bought this after seeing no reviews, just press releases.so far, after several hours of usage:dialogue sounds nice and clear. easy to pair alexa with the phone .bass sounds pretty good, and overall the sound is way better then you’d find on TVSpeakers.You can adjust the EQ in the app too, just low mids and highs.my only two complaints, and i haven’t read the manual yet regarding fixes;alexa light comes on a lot, its in the front of the speaker. can that be turned off? happens even when not talking to alexa.audio that’s playing on soundbar stops while talking to alexa.* EDIT- soundstage has been pretty impressive… you can hear the depth and sound elements in their mix pretty clearly

4. 

   5 out of 5

   TarunTy – June 27, 2020

   Very easy to setup. The sound quality is amazing. The sub woofer is pretty easy to set up as well. Just one click and less than five seconds to connect.

5. 

   5 out of 5

   JustSomeGuyJustSomeGuy – July 2, 2020

   I own several Alexa devices and this is the first sound bar I’ve bought with Alexa built-in, and man is it cool! The first cool thing is that it automatically connected to my home network and signed into my Amazon account. Alexa was ready to use in about 60 seconds after plugging it in. I didn’t have to open an app on my phone, sign into anything or type any passwords. It just connected!Second is the sound. I’ve owned a few sound bars over the years, but nothing that sounds as good at this thing. I didn’t have to make any adjustments out of the box. I could hear what everyone was clearly saying while watching the news and the overall sound from such a compact speaker is amazing. It sounds like it is way bigger than it actually is.For music I just asked Alexa to play my favorites playlist and was instantly blown away by the sound quality. Great bass from just a sound bar. I’ll see how it goes, but I might purchase the optional sub once I get a change to watch some more movies and maybe even the surround speakers for movies. Highly recommended!

6. 

   5 out of 5

   ShaunShaun – July 16, 2020

   If you know how to really take advantage of this thing – if for example you want to tell your TV soundbar to check that your front door is locked, read an email while you’re cooking, alert you about scheduled reminders, play multi-room sync music across your entire house, and behave like a normal TV soundbar, then buy this.This is an Alexa device on steroids and its the best value for an Alexa enabled soundbar. The microphones pick up from very far across the room – it’s as good as the Gen 4 Alexa devices as far as mics. It has Hdmi Arc, Bluetooth if you need it. And the subwoofer works flawlessly and has much deeper subsonic levels than an equivalently priced Sony wireless sub I bought 7 years ago. Also – the sub syncs wirelessly to the soundbar *and* works with Alexa for multi-room sync at the same time.I bought this at launch and there was one significant software bug that was fixed by a OTA update that I and others reported. The fact that a soundbar is receiving OTA software updates at all, is impressive.You need know that you cannot change the prompt word from “Alexa” to anything else. This is pretty ridiculous if your smart home is setup well, but I was told that Amazon is blocking developers from programming for this.I promise you that the Bose and Sonos equivalently enabled smart soundbars do not sound “better” than this unless you also think that wine tasters can taste the difference between an expensive wine and a basic, respectable wine. The sound fidelity and separation on this soundbar is money well spent because this is the point at which spending anything extra begins to offer meaningless additional acoustic or practical software advantages.

7. 

   5 out of 5

   Hookem Horns – July 16, 2020

   This speaker replaced a speaker that we jokingly called Frankenstein, because we had taken it apart when it died and replaced parts and got it working again. Frankenstein worked but volume control was manual as in you get up and turn the knob on the back to turn it up, let’s just say this was not ideal. So the hubby grabbed this one up by Polk and was pretty proud of himself because this Polk had an Alexa built in. Now the name didn’t mean anything to me but the husband assured me that Polk was a very good and reputable name in the speaker business. Well folks he was right. This little sound bar wallops a huge punch. The sound is amazing and the bass tones that come out of this sound bar astonishes me every time I use it. It even had the hubby convinced that I had moved the sub into the front room one-day during one of my daily workouts. At night we play a nice calming jazz playlist through Amazon Music and the house sounds like a quiet little jazz bar that serves to much coffee liqueur. The only issue that we have with this sound barAlexa collaboration is the fact that you can not change the wake word from Alexa to one of the other authorized wake words. With this sound bar being in the same hearing area as the kitchen Echo Show, they can get confused as to which device is being asked to do what you are requesting. What is the saying, you can’t have your cake and eat it to. Despite this major flaw with the Alexa capabilities, this is still one of the best sounding sound bars that we have ever owned. Polk = WOW!

8. 

   5 out of 5

   Adam Apple – August 1, 2020

   1. First of all, with or without Alexa, this sound bar is worth it. It blows away the “tinny” empty sound of most built in TV speakers. The increase in bass is quite obvious, but so is the mid-range and treble and it has much more depth. Speech is much more clear. Great for everyone including 2 family members who have mild hearing impairments. Variety of adjustments available is excellent which should be capable of meeting just about anyone’s needs. 2. I used the HDMI ARC connection. I had to switch my satellite input from HDMI ARC to HDMI 2. Once I did this everything just coordinated itself including switching my TV speakers off and using my TV remote for the soundbar. Very simple to hook up in a matter of minutes. 3. Almost instant connection to Alexa and my wifi. I had no problems mentioned in other posts. Tiny light in front of bar on is no distraction as far as I’m concerned and Alexa only speaks to me when I need. Great integration with Alexa. Needless to say, I am very pleased with this purchase and highly recommend it!

9. 

   5 out of 5

   N.A. – August 24, 2020

   I have had this sound bar for many months now and I use it almost everyday. The sound quality is great for watching television and for listening to music.My biggest tip would be to connect this sound bar to a 5ghz wifi connection rather than 2.4ghz. I started this off on a 2.4ghz connection as the manual recommends, but kept running into connection issues. The sound bar would randomly drop out of the Echo music group every so often. It was annoying and troublesome and I almost gave up on it. Then I switched it to a 5ghz connection and I have not had any issues since! It works every time it’s supposed to, the way it’s supposed to.It fits right in with an Alexa/Echo ecosystem – this may as well be an Amazon device. I have this set up in a multi-room music group along with other Echo devices and they all work together in a music group seamlessly. I can use my Alexa app to change the settings on this sound bar, including the bass and treble. It also has the “do not disturb” setting like other echo devices. This is my primary Echo device in the living room – it responds to the name “Alexa”. It speaks only when I use the wake word, that’s it.Volume can be adjusted using the buttons on the bar, the remote control, or by voice command. “Alexa, volume #” (mute, max, or anywhere between 0 to 10).I would definitely recommend this sound bar to anyone who has an Echo ecosystem and to those who often use multi-room music groups.

10. 

    5 out of 5

    Kevin Nicholls – January 11, 2021

    Full disclosure here: I really like Polk speakers. When I was younger, I ran Polk subwoofers in my car, which led to buying TSi and RTi series speakers in different rooms of my house. Except for the bedroom. I was told long ago that having a full receiver and speaker system in the bedroom was not happening. So there’s been this crap no-name sound bar that I’ve wanted to replace, but it never hit the top of the priorities list.And then this came.Setup was easier than I thought it would be. My TV doesn’t have HDMI-out, so I had been using an optical connection on the old sound bar. When this first powered on, it wanted to be connected through the Alexa app — which I already had going with the Echo Show and Echo Dot devices I already had. Adding it was just a matter of scanning the QR code on the sound bar with my phone.The Alexa functionality worked as I had expected it to, but I didn’t realize that the bar shows the same type of status lights that you’d see on an  Echo Dot . So there was a recessed yellow bar letting me know I had another package on the porch, and it turned blue when giving the Alexa wake word. Pretty cool.Once that was out of the way, I played with the included remote for a couple of minutes but noticed that the sound seemed to be controlling itself. I was afraid I had received a defective unit until I realized I was sitting on my AppleTV remote. With absolutely no intervention on my part, the sound bar was working with my TV’s remote. I grabbed the remote that came with my TV to confirm, and sure enough, it was controlling the volume on the sound bar with zero setup.I was impressed, to say the least. This wasn’t a matter of the TV adjusting the volume of the optical output. This was the sound bar somehow learning (or being able to receive with factory settings) the remote that came with my TV.So, then it was time to move to sound quality. Generally, I’m not big on sound bars. Does this sound like a pair of RTi 10 speakers in my living room? No. But for a sound bar, the quality is excellent. You get full, rich bass (to the extent you get that without a dedicated subwoofer) that don’t buzz, the expansive midrange that Polk is known for, and smooth highs.I really liked how well the voice-lift function worked on the dedicated remote. As full as the sound is, you don’t really need the room to reverberate when you’re watching the news, and that made this nearly perfect for use in the bedroom, where you can still watch TV with decent sound and without waking up your partner.Admittedly, I really want to add the  Polk React wireless subwoofer , though I’ve been told that absolutely is not happening. Oh well. Guess I can’t have everything.