Polk Signa S2 Review: Everyday Use for TV Dialogue

Gloria and I had the same argument for about a month before I bought the Polk Audio Signa S2. She would sit down for the evening news at 6, lean forward, and ask me to turn it up. I would turn it up. Then the commercials would come on and she would flinch. The TCL 55-inch we bought before Thanksgiving football had a clear picture, but the sound coming off the back of it was thin and it pushed dialogue into the background. I am 58, she is not shy about telling me when something is wrong, and the living room is about 11 feet from couch to screen. That is the whole reason a soundbar ended up on our media console in January.

I am Curtis Mabry. I spent most of my working life as a city bus mechanic in Raleigh, and I am retired now. I am not an audio reviewer. I watch local morning news with coffee, evening news at 6, college football on Saturday, NFL on Sunday, and basketball when winter gets here. What I wanted from a soundbar was simple: hear the news without riding the volume button, and feel a little more of a football game without turning the house into a theater. The Polk Audio Signa S2 has done most of that for ten months. It has not done all of it.

How I've Used It

Ours sits on the low media console under the TCL, connected with one HDMI cable to the TV's ARC port. The wireless subwoofer is on the floor at the left end of the console. I did not wall-mount the bar. The console is low, the TV is on a Mounting Dream full motion mount, and the bar fits under the screen without blocking the bottom edge or the TV's remote sensor. That matters in our house because I pull the TV out and angle it toward the kitchen side when Gloria is cooking and watching the news. The bar stays put. The screen moves.

Setup took me one cable and a power cord. I am not going to pretend I ran room calibration or studied a manual for an afternoon. I plugged it in, switched the TV to the right input, and started with the evening news. The remote that comes with the Polk Audio Signa S2 is small, and I use it for volume and for VoiceAdjust. Gloria uses the Roku remote for everything else. We have two remotes on the coffee table, not five. That was part of the point.

I have used it every day since, mostly for broadcast news, football, basketball, and a handful of streaming shows through the Roku. The bar has been on for ten months. Nobody has moved it, unplugged it, or asked me to return it. That is a low bar, I know. But a lot of gear in this house gets abandoned after the novelty wears off. This one stayed because the reason we bought it did not go away. Gloria still watches the morning news with coffee and the evening news at 6. I still watch more football than any reasonable man should.

Dialogue First: The Evening News Test

The first thing I noticed was that I could stop turning the volume up for the news. On the TCL's own speakers, the anchor would be clear enough at one moment, then a remote field report would drop into a lower register and I would lose the words. I would push the volume from 18 to 24, then a commercial would hit and Gloria would reach for the remote. With the Polk Audio Signa S2, the news sits at a steadier level. I keep the bar around the same volume for the 6 p.m. broadcast most nights. I still touch the remote, but not every four minutes.

VoiceAdjust is the feature I actually use. It is a dedicated control on the remote, and I set it where dialogue comes forward without making the whole broadcast sound harsh. I do not have a number for it. I just know that when Gloria says she cannot hear a city council update, I can nudge that control instead of cranking the master volume. That is a better fix for us than making the commercials louder too. It is the difference between a tool I understand and a menu I avoid.

Does it make every word perfect? No. If the news is using a phone interview with a bad connection, it still sounds like a phone interview. If two people talk over each other, the bar does not separate them into two tidy lanes. What it does is keep ordinary studio dialogue and ordinary location audio from disappearing into the TV's thin speakers. For a 58-year-old retired mechanic and a wife who watches the news every day, that is the whole job. I did not need it to be clever. I needed it to be clear.

Weekend Sports: Motion, Crowd Noise, and the Subwoofer

Saturday college football is where the wireless subwoofer earns its floor space. The bar alone would probably be enough for news, but the sub adds weight to the band, the crowd, and the hit on a kickoff return. I do not need the house to shake. I need to feel the game has some body to it. The Polk Audio Signa S2 gives me that at a lower volume than I expected. On a normal Saturday, I keep it where we can talk during a timeout without shouting. Marcus, our son, comes over for Sunday football when his schedule allows, and he has not once asked me to turn it down. That is a good sign.

The five full-range drivers in the bar spread sound wider than the TV did. Our couch is about 11 feet back and a little off center because of the room layout. With the TV speakers, Gloria and I would sometimes get different amounts of dialogue depending on which end of the couch we sat on. With the bar, the difference is smaller. It is not a setup with rear speakers. I do not have rear speakers, and I am not claiming the bar throws sound behind my head. It just fills the front of the room better. For a living room with one TV on the long wall, that is enough.

Where it gets pushy is commercials and promos. A football broadcast will be mixed at one level, then a promo for a car dealer or a network show comes on and the subwoofer makes the room feel like it got louder. I have gotten faster with the remote. That is not a flaw I can pin on the bar alone, because broadcast audio is not mixed for my living room. But it is the thing I notice most in ten months of use. If you hate touching a remote during a game, this will give you a reason to touch it.

Living With It: Remote, Size, and the Rest of the Room

The bar is just over 2 inches tall, about 35.4 inches wide, and 3.31 inches deep. Polk Audio lists it at 3.9 pounds. That is why it slides under the TV without blocking the screen or the remote sensor. Our console is low and the TV is mounted, so I had the room. If your TV sits on a stand with a lip, measure first. The bar is slim, but slim is not the same as invisible. I set it centered under the screen and left it there. It has not moved since January.

The remote is small and plain. It does not have a screen, and it does not try to be a universal remote for everything in the house. I use it for power, volume, and VoiceAdjust. The subwoofer is wireless, so I only needed a power outlet at the left end of the console. I did not run a cable across the floor. That was the difference between a clean setup and a project. I have run enough cable in my life. I did not want to run more.

The built-in music streaming is there, but I am not the right person to judge it. I have played a little music through the bar, mostly to see how it handled a familiar song. It was fine. I did not buy this for music, and I would not tell you to buy it for music first. I bought it because the news was hard to hear. Ten months later, that is still what it does best in this house. If music is your main reason, look for a bar that is built around music first.

Where It Falls Short

I have three complaints, and none of them are deal breakers for us. The first is the remote. It is easy to lose in a couch cushion, and the buttons are close together. I would prefer a slightly bigger remote with clearer separation between volume and VoiceAdjust. The second is the way the subwoofer handles a loud promo. It can make a commercial feel heavier than the show you were watching. I turn it down. You will too.

The third is that the bar does not fix a bad room. Our living room is one open rectangle with the TV on the long wall. The bar helps. It does not make the kitchen sound like the couch. If Gloria is cooking and the exhaust fan is on, she still misses lines. That is not the soundbar's fault, and I am not going to pretend it solved a room problem. It solved the TV speaker problem. Those are two different things, and it is worth knowing which one you have.

I also would not call this a replacement for a full home theater setup. It is a two-piece bar and subwoofer. It gives you a wider front stage and more low end than the TV. It does not give you rear channels, and it does not make a bad broadcast mix sound like a movie. If you want rear speakers, buy a setup with rear speakers. If you want the news to stop sounding like it is coming from a laptop under a blanket, this is the right kind of tool. That is the job I bought it for, and that is the job it does.

The Polk Audio Signa S2 did not make our living room into a theater. It made the 6 p.m. news sound like two people talking instead of two people mumbling.

Who This Is For

This is for a household with one TV in a normal living room, a couch about 10 to 12 feet back, and at least one person who complains that dialogue is hard to hear. It is for news watchers and sports fans who want more body on a football broadcast without installing rear speakers or running cables around the baseboards. It is for someone who will use a small remote for volume and VoiceAdjust and leave the rest alone. If that sounds like your living room, the Polk Audio Signa S2 is a sensible fit. It was a sensible fit for ours.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you want a true surround setup with rear speakers. Skip it if your main problem is music, not TV. Skip it if you have a TV stand with a tall lip and no room under the screen, because the bar is slim but it still needs a flat place to sit. Skip it if you hate a separate remote and want everything on the TV remote. And skip it if you expect a soundbar to make a loud open kitchen, a running exhaust fan, and a bad phone interview all sound clean. No bar does that. I would rather tell you now than have you find out after the return window.