- 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?
(T-Rex roaring)
("Jaws" theme song)
(lightsaber buzzing)
(gun firing)
(Harry defecating loudly)
(Harry whimpering)
Music and sound effects.
(Harry farting)
When it comes to movies and increasingly these days, TV,
what you hear is at least as important,
maybe more so, than what you see.
And while your TV may look great, it sounds terrible.
So, today we're talking about this soundbar,
the Polk Cigna 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 one.
We're gonna talk about what's in the box,
what you get for the cost,
and why it's one of the top selling soundbars on Amazon.
Plus, hang in there,
we're gonna be giving one of these away.
So, let's dive in.
Alright, thanks for watching everybody.
If this video is helpful or enjoyable in some way,
then I'd appreciate a 'Like'.
Go ahead and hit that thumbs up button
and don't forget to subscribe.
And check the description below,
we'll have more information on today's giveaway
if you want one of these Polk soundbars.
Alright, so, the Polk Cigna S2.
It goes for about 200 bucks usually,
though sometimes you can find deals
for a little bit less.
But let's talk about what comes in the box.
You've got 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's also got Bluetooth capability.
So, if you wanna sync up with your phone
play some music while you're doing the dishes or whatever,
it should be able to do that just fine.
Alright, let's hook this bad boy up and see how it goes.
I'm not gonna drill any new holes in my wall,
so 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.
Alright, the subwoofer connects via Bluetooth
and it does that automatically,
which worked just fine for me.
And it does save the cable, which I'm all about.
Okay, so now that we're all set up, let's give it a whirl.
(dramatic action movie music)
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,
which are terrible
and which fire down instead of toward you,
yeah, the Polk sounds amazing.
(motorcycle revving)
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,
which actually, even though it's louder,
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
really, really loud.
Speaking of the subwoofer, let's get into that a little bit.
And this is why I told you
don't throw away that Polk remote just yet,
because the remote comes with
a couple of volume rockers on it.
One for the overall volume.
But, like I said, if you hook it up through the ARC
you should be able to control that overall volume
with your TV remote.
But, this one over here on the left says Bass.
This controls the level at which the subwoofer is fired.
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.
Anyway, also on this 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.
These are the hookups that you've got.
If you want it on TV mode, you hit that.
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 Bluetooth,
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 here.
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 them is gonna bring out
something a little bit more.
The night mode one is gonna compress the audio a bunch
to make sure that if you go from
a talking scene to a gunfight,
that it won't suddenly wake up
everybody in the entire house, at least that's the goal.
Music mode, movie mode,
those are gonna bring out different parts of the audio,
whether it's more bass
or maybe more mid-range,
so that you can hear people speaking a little bit better.
And then under that are three presets for voice adjust.
And 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.
It's really straightforward.
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 kind of 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.
If you wanna watch the latest releases or a classic,
either way, 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.
I mean, and probably some more
for a wall mount or something,
but 200 bucks for a soundbar to go along 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.
And 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 entries,
and you just follow the instructions on that.
Do the "Like" and the "Shares" on this video,
that'll get you entries for this,
and we'll be giving this away to one lucky viewer.
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 yours are also.
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.