The SurroundBar seems to work as advertised

June 18, 2006

Currently all I have is 2.1 stereo–left, right, subwoofer. My receiver is capable of pumping out 5.1, so I’ve been wanting to upgrade but I didn’t want to have to deal with wiring up rear speakers. Mainly because I need to be able to move my sofa easily, to make room if I want to play Kinetic on the Playstation.

I saw in this morning’s paper that HHGregg was selling the Polk Audio SurroundBar. It claims to create surround sound from a single horizontal bar enclosure. In essense it looks kinda like an extra-wide center channel speaker. You hook up all five speaker connections (left, right, center, and both rear channels) from your receiver to the SurroundBar. All you have to add is a subwoofer and you can get 5.1 surround.

So this afternoon I went to the HHGregg armed with my test DVD, Revenge of the Sith. The specific scene I used for testing was scene 3, the Battle over Coruscant. And it was definitely generating surround sound. The fireball, when it briefly engulfs the two Jedi starfighters, was especially impressive, almost like being in the theater.

The showroom at HHGregg was very large, so the speaker could not have been relying on reflection off the side walls to generate the surround. I’m not sure how it’s doing it, the Web site makes reference to “signal processing and acoustic geometry” and claims this will work in virtually any size room.

Man I am so tempted to upgrade. But do I really want to spend that kind of money on speakers? And I’d have to dispose of my existing speakers, sell them or donate them, either of which is a hassle. I’m going to be giving it some deep thought. My birthday is coming up in a few months, one of those nasty ones where my age will end in a zero. I hate those zero-ending birthdays, they make you feel especially old. Perhaps I can justify this as an early present to myself, to celebrate my impending old age.