Polk Command Bar can Give Your Audio a Much Needed Boost

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The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.

Years ago, before we lived in our current house, we had a sound system in the living room. It was nice, having a booming speaker presenting crystal clear audio. And then we moved, and like all things when you move, parts go missing. A few months later our daughter was born, and it just didn’t seem like we had time to find all the wiring for a complicated surround sound system. We were just listening to TV audio again. Now don’t get me wrong, most TVs these days have decent speakers. But they just don’t compare to the quality of a dedicated speaker.

Five years passed before we finally got another dedicated speaker system for a TV in our house.

The Polk Command Bar’s quality as a speaker is worth its price alone. Yet, it does more than just act as a speaker for your television. The Command Bar has Amazon Alexa built in. We have set up our Command Bar in our bedroom, allowing us to control the volume through Alexa. It also allows us to do other things like turning off WiFi enabled lights downstairs without the need to make an extra trip at night.

These cards come with the Polk out of the box, and provide a good primer on how to use the speaker.

Polk Command Bar Features

The Polk Command Bar features a 220W speaker along with a subwoofer that gives a nice bass sound. It also has Bluetooth enabled, allowing us to play our music through our phones if we want. If you happen to have a FireTV you can do even more by using voice commands to watch your favorite programs. (Like the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel! Just a suggestion.) It also features a far-field microphone. What is a far-field microphone? Well, to put it simply, it is a microphone that has been designed to pick-up noises from a distance greater than what a typical microphone could accomplish. Because of this, you don’t need to shout across the room! The on-board Alexa will activate just by speaking in a normal voice.

The set-up was simple, using HDMI and a supplied optical cable to connect to the television. The speaker has a low-profile form factor which is perfect because it doesn’t block our screen at all. It also looks sleek, fitting in nicely in our bedroom.