Polk 50 Sound Bar Plus ????

frogwash

A real noob here as far as new components. I get lost real easy in all the jargon so if you could keep it real basic I would appreciate it!

We jus purchased a 50" Panasonic Plasma.. Its hanging on our family room wall (room dimensions approx 13 x 16).. Had a pro come over and fish wire so we have no exposed wires at all.. great job I might add. He ran extra wire for future.. Spoke with him this morning and he said he just picked up a Polk 50 and is very happy with it. Told me it woild be a great fit for our room and we are wired up no problem for something like that. I have been doing a bit of research but very confused... I saw the Yamaha unit has a built-in amp. Right now we have a separate amp (very old) and not sure if it will even work with the Polk 50. We also have an old DVD... maybe that won't work either.. Just don't know. So my questions are:

What do I need (low to midrange price) to drive the Polk 50 Bar? AmP? Any suggestions? Also a nice fit for a DVD player / AM-FM too!? Any unit that will fit all requirements? Really didn't want to end up with more remote controls... Already have 3.. comcast, tv, dvd

thanks much in advance

Eric W

The Surroundbar 50 is a non-powered speaker. It needs to be connected to a surround A/V receiver. The older unit may work, but will not drive the SurroundBar 50 to its full potential, particularly if it's not surround sound.

Based on your application, you may want to consider the SurroundBar 360 DVD Theater- it has everything you're looking for. Single speaker bar- no subwoofer or rear speakers needed- Built in amps, DVD player, AM/FM and universal remote.

http://surroundbar.polkaudio.com

frogwash

The 360 actually looks like nice set-up. would like to hear it. I will see if anyone locally has one. What is A/V? Told ya I was a real rookie at this stuff... I assume it is Audio/Visual..? At least it used to be. Appreciate the info. I assume the sound is pretty comparable to the 50. I like the idea of being able to hook up a sub if needed. I assume this box has a series of speakers? The info says 1 speaker but I don't think that quite what they meant.. do you?

dorokusai

frogwash wrote: »

A real noob here as far as new components. I get lost real easy in all the jargon so if you could keep it real basic I would appreciate it!

We jus purchased a 50" Panasonic Plasma.. Its hanging on our family room wall (room dimensions approx 13 x 16).. Had a pro come over and fish wire so we have no exposed wires at all.. great job I might add. He ran extra wire for future.. Spoke with him this morning and he said he just picked up a Polk 50 and is very happy with it. Told me it woild be a great fit for our room and we are wired up no problem for something like that. I have been doing a bit of research but very confused... I saw the Yamaha unit has a built-in amp. Right now we have a separate amp (very old) and not sure if it will even work with the Polk 50. We also have an old DVD... maybe that won't work either.. Just don't know. So my questions are:

What do I need (low to midrange price) to drive the Polk 50 Bar? AmP? Any suggestions? Also a nice fit for a DVD player / AM-FM too!? Any unit that will fit all requirements? Really didn't want to end up with more remote controls... Already have 3.. comcast, tv, dvd

thanks much in advance

The SB50 is pretty efficient(90db) and easy to drive with any modern 5.1+ AVR. The rest you'll have to figure out on your own....or wait for more responses. The SB50 isn't dependent on a particular brand of DVDP....again, that's up to you.

strider

The SurroundBar 360 is very impressive. If we had a flatscreen TV I would definitely have one on the wall. All in one design which is nice because you know everything is compatible when you pull it out of the box. You can hook up a subwoofer to it as well, but you don't need to.

Yes, A/V stands for audio/video (or visual if you stretch it just a bit....)

jbarnes280

I have a Soundbar 50 hooked up to a Denon AVR-2309CI(about $800) which is fed by a Sony PS3 game machine as the Blue Ray player. The results are outstanding and the games on a big screen are great. The PS3 gets high reviews as a Blue Ray in the research I did prior to purchase.

rayslifecycle

Not sure which old amp you have and I am assuming you have a receiver (integrated amp and am/fm tuner) - and if all you buy. is......

A soundbar 50; it will be adequate - and I can confidently say that you will feel that way about it.....however.....if you decide you want to go any farther......you will be absolutely amazed by the surroundbar 360........as well as relieved with how easy it is to hook up......

I am a do-it-yourselfer - but the surroundbar 360 is one product that made me question that course of action......

The only other product that may want to be considered is adding one of the subwoofers from their micropro line...........this will give you some serious boom and to the PSW line to get boom for your buck.....

But if you wanted to be a little more experimental - take that old amp you have and hook it up to a pair of speakers and see what happens - for your most basicHome theater needs - you require a pair of cables (see image) to connect your left speaker channel and right speaker channel of your cable box (or dvd player) to your amp .......then attach a left and right speaker to your amps speaker outputs and place those speakers on either side of you plasma screen ............and compare how this sounds to the speakers that may have come within your TV - if it is better - horray......and it should be.......lots of good speakers can be found at garage sales or flea markets for less then 100 a pair........speaker wire can just be a paired wire with bare ends.......

when you are ready to branch out into some more techinical stuff - write back - we'll be here........