Beef Up That TV Sound with the Polk Command Bar

Whether you’re into entertaining, watching movies or just like to listen to music, you and I both know that your TV probably lacks in the audio department.  An easy, affordable fix to beef up your TV audio is by adding a soundbar.  The Polk Command Bar offers home theater sound (with subwoofer) and is complete with built-in Alexa!   Sounds great, but is it?  I’m giving my 2 cents on the product, found at Best Buy, so read on and I’ll tell you how I really feel!

I’m thrilled to have partnered with Best Buy to give you my honest opinion on the Polk Command Bar.  And I’ll do exactly that, so let’s get to it.

It arrived well-packaged and as you can see, Sophie found it to be quite comfortable.  It sat in my living room for a few days because I was dreading the setup.  Usually, anything audio related is sort of a pain.  The day I decided to set it up, I remember my husband saying, “good luck with that”.  As you can imagine, in our 25+ years of marriage, we have put our share of things together so we both knew what to expect, or at least we thought we did.

POLK COMMAND BAR SETUP

Once everything was laid out, I opened the instructions and started with step 1, then 2, and before I knew it, I was done.  It took me less than 15 minutes from start to finish to complete the setup.  It was, by far, the easiest thing I have ever had to put together or set up.  The instructions were simple and easy to follow but if you’re curious, it consisted of plugging in an HDMI cable, optical cable for my TV, plugging the soundbar and subwoofer into the outlets, and downloading the Polk Connect app to sync everything up.  That’s it.  Within minutes I was telling Alexa to connect to my iPhone and play my Spotify music! Totally impressed!

SOUNDBAR AND SUBWOOFER

While I’m a tech nerd at heart, I’m no expert so I’ll run through the specs of the Polk Command Bar and then give you my 2 cents.

• 260 Total watts of output power
• Performance-tuned driver array, wireless subwoofer, and Dolby/DTS surround sound decoding
• Bluetooth music streaming
• Built-in Amazon Alexa
• Fire TV compatible (HDMI ports designed and spaced to fit Fire TV and other wide HDMI streaming devices. Built-in USB port also powers original and 4K versions of Fire TV (where Fire TV is available)

What does 260 total watts mean?  I, honestly,  have no clue. HA!  I know when I was in school, we wanted as many watts as we could get for our speakers for jamming out.  Back then, 75 watts was pretty impressive!  What I can tell you, is that it freaked my cat out.  As soon as I got the soundbar and subwoofer all synced up, the surround sound had so much clarity, that my cat was looking everywhere trying to figure out where all the little sounds were coming from!  It was pretty hilarious. But how does the music sound?

Even at 42, I have dreams of becoming a hip-hop dancer so I immediately opened my Spotify playlists and cranked up one of my favorite hip-hop songs!  OH.MY.COW. I felt like I was at a nightclub y’all!  I couldn’t help myself!! I was raising the roof, HOLLAing, and shaking my lovely lady humps!  I cranked it up a little more and you could feel the vibration throughout my home and with the windows!  In fact, I had a song on pause as I waited for my son to get off the school bus. When he started walking towards the gate to our front door, I played the song and he could hear it out there.  Big smiles came over his face.  We both like hip-hop!

Maybe hip-hop ain’t your thang?  What about sports?  Monday night football combined with the Polk Command Bar had us feeling like we were at the game!  I think we might have gotten a little carried away because my son, who had his gaming headphones on, playing his game in his room, came in the living room to let us know he could hear the football game across the house.

Needless to say, we think the sound is pretty incredible.  One of the things I really love is that it comes with a remote control and so if you want less bass and more voice or vice versa, you can control that easily.  It makes everyone happy!

BUILT-IN AMAZON ALEXA

The Polk Command Bar comes equipped with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.  All I have to do is say ‘Alexa’ with a question or command and she listens.  So far I have asked Alexa about our weather, to play music, and sports scores.  I’ll be linking up my Fire TV soon so that I can control it with Alexa.  One of the things I appreciate about the Alexa feature is the ability to turn it off.  There’s a button on the soundbar and remote that allows you to turn the mic off so that Alexa isn’t “listening”.  Once we get more comfortable with the feature and commands we can use, we will leave it on all the time.

DESIGN

I would expect a soundbar of this caliber to be more sizable so I was impressed with how well it blended into my entertainment area.  We don’t mount stuff on our walls but this does mount easily and I do think it would look great.  The subwoofer sits to the side also has sleek design to it.

FINAL THOUGHTS 

If you’re wondering if there was anything I didn’t like about it, well, the only thing I can think of is the remote. I think it could be smaller and thinner.  That’s really all I can think of.

The Polk Command Bar rings up at $299 at Best Buy.  For the price, you are getting superior sound with hands-free Alexa.  I feel like it’s worth every cent.  You’ll find comparables for at least $100 or more.  I’m a believer at getting the most bang for the buck and this will provide all you need for a price you can afford.  You also don’t have worry about setup. This soundbar was simple and straightforward and was up and running within a few minutes.  I highly recommend.  What a great gift idea this would be too!  My only wish is that you could hear it the way I hear it!

Disclosure: I have been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free in return for my honest review of the product. All opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.