Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNot Worth The Money Over TV Sound
Reviewed in Canada on February 21, 2023
I really was hoping this soundbar was going to be a replacement for Klipsch Soundbar 48" it was replacing (it died) but it wasn't even close. Literally when the wife asks "why are we still using the TV speakers" when the soundbar is on, you know you have a problem. I found "movie" mode the best sounding overall but it still sounded "hallow" like the the TV speakers and I'm starting to think this is a problem with plastic soundbar cabinets vs MDF cabinets like the Klipsch unit was. I tried the dialogue enhancement modes, and although they work, they amplify the "hallow" sound I mentioned above along with the voices. Surprisingly the subwoofer for it's size is fairly good but suffers from becoming too "boomy" when the sound level increases. I tested Atmos with a couple of Netflix shows and the Amazon Firesticks built in Atmos test clip and it sounded "OK" (light goes blue for Atmos content) but I'd rather they have just not included that and concentrated on a good 3.1 channel soundbar. Bluetooth was easy to connect to and in "music" mode it sounded good but that's not what I was buying it for. Really disappointed as I have a fairly high end Polk 5.1 speaker system in my basement family room so was expecting Polk's general level of quality and this just wasn't it. The last issue was DTS support. The Polk page for the Signa S4 doesn't list supported formats and checking the manual also yielded no results and it turns out it has no DTS support! I have some Blueray content with DTS and DTS-HD and it has to be transcoded. I thought today we were past that and they all supported DTS. I'd recommend this a bedroom best case but I think there are better options out there even then for the dollar value.