Polk Signa S2 Soundbar Review—and Giveaway

Polk Signa S2 soundbar review and giveaway. Get the details on sound quality, EQ modes, and remote control features.

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Craig Hanks
Jan 12, 2021
Icon Time To Read5 min read

What makes a movie a true blockbuster experience? Is it the slick visuals, the great acting, the meticulous storyline? I mean, it's not like those things don't matter, of course they do. But what sets apart the truly memorable, from the more mundane?

It’s the music and sound effects.

When it comes to movies, and increasingly these days TV, sound is what matters. What you hear is at least as important, maybe more so, than what you see. And while your TV may look great, it may sound terrible.

So today we're talking about this soundbar, the Polk Signa S2, and what it can do for your home theater experience. I featured this recently in a video in which I compared the top two best selling soundbars on Amazon. And today I'm gonna dive a little further into this one and the experience you get on this device.

We're gonna talk about what's in the box. What you get for the cost.

Plus hang in there. We're gonna be given one of these away.

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Polk Signa S2 Soundbar box contents

Let's talk about what comes in the box. You have the soundbar, the subwoofer, a remote, and every cable that you need to hook it up.

You even get batteries for the remote, something that was missing from the cheaper soundbar in that pair that I tested earlier.

So if we look over the buttons on the top of the bar, you can see that it will not only hook up to your TV, it also has bluetooth capability.

So if you wanna sync up with your phone, and play some music while you're doing the dishes or whatever, it should be able to do that just fine.

Polk Signa S2 Soundbar installation

All right, let's hook this bad boy up and see how it goes. I'm not gonna drill any new holes in my wall. I'm gonna put up a little impromptu shelf here and set it there, and we'll give that a shot.

They've included an HDMI cable. So we're gonna connect that to the ARC input on the back of the TV. ARC, A-R-C, stands for Audio Return Channel, and basically, that means that a signal can travel both ways through the cable. So you can control the volume on the soundbar with your TV remote.

Don't throw away your Polk remote just yet though, we are gonna come back to that in a little while.

All right, the subwoofer connects via Bluetooth and it does that automatically. Which works just fine for me, and it does save cable, which I'm all about. Okay, so now that we're all set up, let's give it a whirl.

Polk Signa S2 Soundbar test

Okay, I did a sound test on the previous video, and the same thing is coming through here. When we compare it to the TV default speakers the Polk sounds amazing. Essentially what it comes down to is you're getting a lot more noise, because the wattage that's being pumped through the speakers is quite a bit more. And you're also getting a more well-rounded sound. Because you've got that subwoofer, it's going to get you better lows.

Even though it's louder, this makes it easier to listen to. So you don't feel like you're listening to something quite so loud. As if you were to crank up the TV default speakers, it gets really, really loud.

Polk Signa S2 Soundbar remote

Speaking of the subwoofer, let's get into that a little bit. This is why I told you not to throw away that Polk remote just yet. Because the remote comes with a couple of volume rockers on it, including one for the overall volume. But as I said, if you hook it up through the ARC, you should be able to control that overall volume with your TV remote.

This button over here on the left side of the Polk Signa S2 soundbar remote is for bass. This controls the level at which the subwoofer is firing. And so if you're finding yourself just overpowered by the bass, you can turn that down individually without turning down the full sound of the sound bar.

Also on the Polk Signa S2 soundbar remote, you've got a few other buttons that we wanna talk about. Obviously, there's a mute button there, but right along the top here, we've got TV, auxiliary, and Bluetooth.

So these are the hookups that you've got. If you want it on TV mode, you hit that button. The auxiliary there is a 3.5-millimeter auxiliary jack in the back. If you wanna hook something up manually that way, there's also a Bluetooth mode, like I said. So if we hit the Bluetooth button, it'll connect to the phone, and we can play something that way.

Underneath the volume rockers let's talk about the presets that we've got on the Polk Signa S2 soundbar remote. We've got movie mode, night mode, and music mode. And essentially what this is, is this is an EQ, a preset EQ for each of these modes.

And so each of the EQ modes is gonna bring out something a little bit more. For instance the night mode is gonna compress the audio a bunch, to make sure that if you go from, you know, a talking scene to a gunfight, that it won't suddenly wake up everybody in the entire house.

The music mode and the movie mode, those are gonna bring out different parts of the audio. Whether it is, more bass, or maybe more mid-range, you’ll be able to hear people speaking a little bit better.

Polk Signa S2 Soundbar EQ explained

And then under EQ modes on the Polk Signa S2 sound bar remote are three presets for voice adjustment. This is so if you're having trouble hearing the dialogue, or if the dialogue is too loud, or something, you can adjust bringing out that dialogue sound a little bit better. And that's pretty much it.

Polk Signa S2 Soundbar summary

This is not a complicated soundbar, but it does have enough functionality to make it worthwhile, definitely. This is among the best entry-level soundbars out there as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, there are better ones for a more premium price. And yes, there are cheaper ones out there, but you're gonna sacrifice on sound quality which is kinda what we're here for in the first place.

So you don't wanna sacrifice too much of that. And this is even more important now that movie theaters aren't really a thing, and they might never recover, I guess we'll see. But our home audio, our home theater experience, is more important than ever.

Whether you wanna watch the latest releases, or a classic, sound is going to be extremely important.

So anytime you're shopping for a new TV, here's what I want you to do: factor in the extra 200 bucks. The 200 bucks for a soundbar is going to go a long way with your TV.

If your sweet new 4k Roku TV is 500 bucks, no it's 700, because you're gonna wanna spend about 200 bucks on a soundbar to go with it for that new TV.

If you want one of these soundbars, again check the description below. There is a link for how you can go about entering for a giveaway.

What we're gonna do is allow people a certain number of people to enter. Like and share, and you’ll get entries for the giveaway.

So go ahead and hit that link and good luck to you. And on your way down there make sure that you give your thoughts as well.

This is my favorite soundbar for the price, but I'm curious. What are yours?

Give us some suggestions, maybe from further down on the Amazon bestseller list if you think it's actually better. And don't forget to like, and subscribe, if this video was helpful or interesting in some way.

Thanks for watching everybody. I'll see you next time.

Craig Hanks
Written by
Craig is a long-time writer, presenter, and podcaster, and he now runs the Reviews.org YouTube channel, where he strives to be far more charming and presentable than he is in real life. Within the Reviews.org umbrella, he has accidentally become a streaming expert after covering the streaming wars for almost three years. Craig is also the founder and host of The Legendarium Podcast, his outlet for his love of fantasy and sci-fi literature.

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