Polk Magnifi max SR lacking bass after upgrade

zell

Hi,

I have encountered some pretty weird problem with my Polk Max SR.

So first of all ive had the system for about 10 months, and from the start i had some weird sounds from the sub. This would happen at random. and could go on for hours or just a cupple of times. its hard to describe the sound but very loud popping might be the best i can do. It could be days and maybe even weeks between so i had not given it much attension. just figured there was some problem with the subs connection

Other than that everything worked great. untill i got the bright idea to connect it to the internet and upgrade the firmware.

After the update it sounds completly different, so much so that i belive something has to be wrong. I have been playing Assassins creed odyssey(PC, HDMI cable to TV, HDMI ARC to MAX) alot lately, around 40 hours before firmware update and around 5 hours after. So its real easy to notice the difference. The bass is almost completly gone. The sub is connected. Light is green. I tried to reset and set up the system again, but its still the same. If i hold my hand under the sub i can feel that something is happening. but there just isent much movement or bass. almost just a low rumbling. Normaly i have had the bass setting in default and that would be plenty. Now if i put the bass setting to max it gets a bit better, but i would think that maybe its just the soundbar itself providing more bass and not the subwoofer. Before the update if i maxed out the sub it would pretty much make the room shake

The Weirdest part is that if i play music through casting, or i even tried to use spotify from the pc, offcourse through the same HDMI cable. The bass and sub seems to be working perfectly. atleast with higher volumes.

Last night i started playing Kingdom Hearts 3(xbox one x, hdmi to max, hdmi arc to tv) and it seems to be the same problem there. barely any bass. You could really notice it with the musical pieces in the backround. especially at one point my ears were bleeding, it sounded horrible. I also noticed the sound from the SR speakers was really loud. If i turned the volume all the way down they would offcourse turn off. but from 1 dot to max volume it pretty much sounded the same. i almost had more sound from the sides than the front. I had not noticed the same in assasins creed, but i will check it out.

I will try to reset again after work. and do more testing. untill then all help or tips would be much appreciated.

Thank you for reading my wall of text

[Deleted User]

Hello,
I'll send your post to Polk directly.

[Deleted User]

Hello,
Here is the response:
"Can you ask him what master volume is set to when he is having these issues?

He can see while adjusting volume and get a rough idea:
10% or lower? = 1 LED
11-20% = 2 LEDs
21-30% = 3 LEDs
Etc"

zell

Thank you Kenneth!

When i play games on the xbox and from the pc i normally have 7.5% - 15% volume

Dont know if its normal but like 20-30% is pretty damn laud. 😂

[Deleted User]

Thanks, I'll forward this.

[Deleted User]

Their response:
"Could you send him this:

Let’s make sure the surrounds and subwoofer are running the latest firmware:


1. Unplug power from sound bar, subwoofer and surrounds

2. Plug power into sound bar – orange LED will blink while bar boots up

3. Boot up completes when Orange LED turns off

4. Press Power button on the sound bar – furthest right LED should illuminate Orange

5. Press Mute on the bar – LED should now pulse white indicating Mute

6. Plug in subwoofer and surrounds and confirm the LED on the back of the units is solid green

7. Wait about 10 seconds.

8. If there is an update available, the furthest left LED should begin pulsing white indicating the update has started

9. The LEDs will gradually fill in and show the progress of the update. (If there is no update available, there will be no additional LED activity and indicates everything is up to date)

10. The update can take up to 10 minutes

11. When the update finishes, the furthest right LED will turn green and then all of the LEDs will go Off after about 10 seconds

12. At this point, the update has completed and sound bar is ready to use.

13. Power on the sound bar and play 5.1 content to confirm everything is working properly and there is sound coming out of the bar, sub and surrounds.

zell

I did the firmware update 2 days ago. That was when the problems started. Running on version 103 now.

I moved the sub around some. Unplugged the power a cupple of times and i did not notice any problems today. But i only had like an hour to test. Will have plenty of time during the weekend.

RobertGrafton

@zell - The Google Home app shows the firmware version of only the sound bar. The procedure above will confirm that the surrounds and subwoofer were updated at the time the sound bar was updated.

zell

Ah, ok. Will try after work

thanks

zell

Ok, I followed the steps and the system was allready updated. Nothing happend after step 7.

I have used the system quite alot over the weekend and there is all kinds of trouble tbh.

1. Subwoofer make small popping noises from time to time.

2. on lower volumes(under 10%) the surround speakers only play at one volume. I can turn them off, but the other 9 dots have the same volume.

3. and offcourse the initial problem, the sound especially when playing games from the PC or on the xbox is almost all treble and no bass. Its like the sub is making a very low rumbling noice in the backround. If i plug out the sub i can hear a differense so its absolutly doing something. just maybe not the right thing.

I also noticed that when playing the sound is quite laud at say 20-25% but when playing music a equal volume was more like 40-45%

I also tried pumping up the volume to 40-50% while playing, in hopes that the sub would kick in more and that there would be more of a balance in the sound, but the treble just kept beeing annoyingly laud and the bass was offcourse more noticeable but not any where close to before the update.


is there any way to roll back the firmware update? I would much rather have the laud thumping sound once a week than all this stuff all the time

robcrobc

I know this is a pretty old post, but I had the same problem. I did all of the above resetting. I did all of it a bunch of times. I did a lot of resyncing and resetting with and without speakers plugged in. I also did a lot of regular resetting just by holding reset button. I got lucky and have my bass back. I would much rather deal with a little popping sometimes. It usually only happens when stuff is paused or certain channels. Don't forget to turn bass back up with remote after resetting. Plus my TV has equalizer setting that produces even more bass. Don't give up hope, keep trying til you get it!