>> [Background Music] Hi, I'm Matthew Moskovciak senior
associate editor at CNET and I'm here with the Polk Audio
SurroundBar SDA IHT. Now IHT stands for instant home
theater and that's a pretty good description of what this
product is about. You've got the SoundBar, you've got a
wireless subwoofer and that's it. You don't need a separate
AV receiver, you connect your component directly to the
SoundBar SDA. Now a lot of SoundBars you'll see they have a
glossy finish, but the Polk has a matte finish and we kind
of like that understated look. It also has two cradles that
it can sit on, but if you take the cradles away it also has
little rubber feet on the bottom so it will sit flat. Now
from the front you'll also notice that it has a pretty bare
look. There's no display on the front which we found to be
a little bit confusing. Sometimes when you're adjusting the
volume you won't know if you're at the maximum or if you
have a little head room. So the lack of a display can be a
little confusing at times. You'll also notice that there's
actually no remote included with the unit. What Polk wants
you to do is to program the remote that you use for your TV
also to control the SurroundBar SDA. Now in some cases that
makes it a lot more simple because all you have to do is use
one single remote. At other times what we found is that
sometimes it's adjusting the TV's sound, sometimes it's
adjusting the Polk sound. It can get a little confusing so
we thought that maybe Polk should have included a remote for
situations where that worked better. If you look around
back you'll also see that the connectivity is really limited
on this unit. There's only a single analog input. Now what
Polk wants you to do is to run all of your components
directly into your TV and then use your TV's output to go
directly into here and that allows you to use more than one
device. That works well enough, but when there are other
devices such as Sony's HT-CT100 and JVC's THBA1 that offer
either HDMI connectivity in the case of the Sony or digital
audio inputs in the case of the JVC. We found it a little
hard to defend the Polk's shortcomings. Now, while we did
find the Polk a little underfeatured we didn't have as many
quibbles with the sound. We actually liked the way the Polk
sounded a lot. In particular the blend between the
subwoofer and the SoundBar is one the best that we've heard
and we never felt like we could specifically hear the
subwoofer it really just blended into the overall sound.
Now, while we did find that the Polk has above average sound
the one aspect that we found was a little bit lacking was
overall dynamic impact. When we compared it to some of the
ZVOX units that we've tested we found like the ZVOX 525 had
a little bit more impact, but if you're more concerned with
music and audio fidelity rather than just raw power the Polk
is a good choice. Overall what we really liked the exterior
design of the Polk and we liked the way that it sound. We
found it really hard to justify the missing features offered
on competitors especially when they're available for the
same or even lower price. I'm Matthew Moskovciak here with
CNET.com and this the Polk Audio SurroundBar SDA IHT.
