Polk Audio manufactures speakers, soundbars, and audio components for home theater and music listening. This page aggregates shopper ratings and reviews of Polk Audio products purchased through various retailers, helping consumers understand real-world performance and reliability before buying.
Polk Audio Reviews
What Shoppers Say About Polk Audio
Polk Audio receives sharply divided feedback, with 18 shoppers rating the brand 1.8 out of 5. The majority of reviewers report significant reliability issues, particularly with soundbars and subwoofers that fail to connect or stop functioning within months to a few years. Common complaints include unresponsive remotes, Bluetooth pairing failures, and loss of communication between paired devices. When customers contact support, many describe unhelpful responses and pressure to purchase replacements rather than receive repairs or warranty service.
A small but notable segment of reviewers report positive experiences, citing good sound quality and instances of generous customer service where representatives provided free replacement parts even outside warranty periods. Those satisfied customers praise the audio performance of Polk's speaker systems. However, the preponderance of negative reviews focus on product durability and customer support inconsistency, with reviewers advising prospective buyers to avoid the brand altogether, particularly for soundbar products.
Customer Reviews (18)
Sorted by: Most recentPurchased a Polk Sigma S3 soundbar two years ago and had trouble from day one. The remote wouldn't respond unless I was practically touching the device. The audio quality was disappointing. This week I connected it to my phone via Bluetooth and played some music, but then I couldn't get it to reconnect to my TV. I've tried everything, restarting, unplugging, switching the TV on and off, but nothing worked. The soundbar is now where it belongs, in the trash.
My advice is don't buy a Polk Audio soundbar with subwoofer. I purchased one less than a year ago and the speaker and bar stopped communicating after a while. When I contacted customer service, I got a bunch of runaround and ended up worse off than when I started. I'm giving it two stars only because it actually worked for that initial period.
Skip Polk Audio entirely if you're shopping for speakers. I got a soundbar with a subwoofer roughly five years back and dealt with constant remote control issues while it was covered under warranty. Now the subwoofer has quit working completely. Instead of offering repairs or replacement parts, they're pushing me to buy something new from them. Polk used to have a decent reputation but honestly their stuff feels cheap and disposable.
Had an issue pop up with my subwoofer that I bought seven years ago. The warranty expired long ago, so I wasn't expecting much. I emailed their customer service and they spent several messages walking me through different troubleshooting steps. When those didn't pan out, they mailed me a brand new amp board shipped to me at no charge, even though they had no obligation to do it. I put the new board in and my basement is shaking again with my movies. Really appreciate the generosity!
Can't get this speaker to pair with my phone via Bluetooth or WiFi and there's nobody available to help troubleshoot it. The device is basically worthless to me at this point. Total waste of money on both the product and the company.
Polk has come a long way since starting out in 1972 and they keep getting better. Just got two monitor 60 series speakers standing up, a center channel, and a 10 inch subwoofer to go with a Pyle receiver and wow, the sound quality is unreal. It's like sitting in an actual theater, and listening to music is fantastic. Really happy with this purchase, thanks Polk!
My TV only has one HDMI ARC port. FIOS needs that connection and so does Polk Audio. Can't use both when there's only one port available.
Got a pair of Polk Assist speakers for a great price brand new, and they worked wonderfully for several years. I had them connected to my Google home setup and the audio quality was solid. Then in the last six months they started refusing software updates because the internal storage is maxed out. I emailed Polk and their response was pretty much 'too bad, that's old gear.' Now I'm stuck replacing functioning speakers just because they can't hold updates anymore. It's wasteful for the environment and rough on my wallet, and I hate this cycle of constantly replacing stuff.
The Auto Standby feature on this soundbar just won't work. I reached out to their support team and they seemed confused about what I was talking, so I literally sent them the page from their own manual explaining it. They responded by copying and pasting the exact same section back to me without actually addressing the problem! When I pointed out that the soundbar isn't behaving like the manual says it should, things went downhill fast. The device sounds pretty good, but if anything ever breaks down, I'll just trash it rather than deal with their customer service again.
Had over a thousand dollars invested in a full home theater system. When the subwoofer needed repairs, the repair shop asked for a schematic. I contacted Polk and they refused to help because I didn't have my original receipt. When their products break, they become useless. This is the worst customer support I've ever encountered. My advice is buy any other brand. I'm selling mine online.