Polk Lands Single Speaker Wireless Sound for Premium Price

Polk Audio’s plug-and-play wireless rear speaker has just gone on sale here for $899 — or $400 more than what it’s selling for in the US.

“We’ve just made great sound as simple in the back of the room as it is the front of the room,” Polk Audio’s vice president of product line management Mark Suskind said when launching the speaker at CES in January.

“Too many movie lovers miss out on rear speakers because of the clutter and morass of wiring.”

A pity more will continue to miss out because of the high local price: in the US, the speaker sells for $US400 — which, with today’s exchange rate, means Kiwis are being asked to shell out nearly twice as much for it.

Still, the NZ distributor is expecting keen interest, describing it as one of Polk’s most in-demand products.

The F/X Wireless Surround uses Polk’s Digital Logic technology to make rear surround sound possible from a single component without speaker wires — and with seemingly extraordinary placement flexibility.

It has four 2.5 full range drivers and a 5.25 woofer, powered by a compact multichannel channel DSP amplifier.

A small transceiver connects the a/v receiver’s surround channels to the F/X Wireless Surround wirelessly, so Polk’s Controlled Dispersion Array (CDA) technology can create a convincing, discrete left, right, rear and back surround stage that emanates from behind and to the sides of the listener.

The system reproduces 5.1 and 7.1 surround material, and has a three-position DSP control that optimises the image height for floor, table and shelf use.