SurroundBar®

The original single-speaker surround sound bar.
Polk's patented SDA® Surround Technology means you won't need to install rear speakers. What you hear is a completely immersive sound experience, as if there are multiple speakers all around you. The sleek, unobtrusive design is a welcome addition for anyone who wants all the thrills of surround sound…but none of the hassles. The Polk Audio SurroundBar will complete your high definition TV experience. It's the perfect match for flat-panel and shallow screen TVs. And it works with any surround sound receiver.

The technology behind the SurroundBar is based on Polk's legendary SDA SRT Systems, which one reviewer called "The Ultimate Loudspeaker." SDA Surround Technology makes the speakers disappear by cancelling the acoustic position location information. That information is then replaced by the correct surround sound information of the original recording just as if sounds were actually coming from all around you. Whether it's music or movies you're assured of a great surround sound experience.

What is SDA® Surround Sound Technology?

SDA stands for Stereo Dimensional Array, a patented Polk Audio exclusive*. Matthew Polk describes SDA Surround Technology as "a mixture of acoustical engineering, psychoacoustic principles and a little magic."

To understand how SDA Surround Technology creates 360 degree surround sound, we must understand how sound works and how you perceive sound. Sound travels through air from the source to your ears at a fairly high speed, much like waves travels through water.

Our ears are positioned at the sides of our head so we can distinguish exactly what direction a sound is coming from. The tiny difference in intensity and arrival time from one ear to the other allows us to sense immediately from which direction sound is coming. The ear closest to the source of sound hears the sound louder and slightly before the other ear.

Now that we know how sound travels through the air, we need to know how a recording is made to be played over an audio system. When a multi-channel recording is made, sound supposed to be heard at your left ear comes only out of the left speaker. However over a sound system, you hear sound from the left speaker not only in your left ear but also your right ear as well. The dedicated SDA driver produces a SDA signal to control the amount and type of sound the further ear hears. By carefully controlling the SDA signal, SDA Surround Technology allows the sound image to be precisely steered and projected into the room. You'll experience sound effects and instruments coming from all around you, with no physical speakers beside or behind!

This is why most conventional "front only" speaker systems don't have much of an aural image beyond the physical boundaries of the speakers. By understanding how we perceive sound allows us to project the sound image well beyond these boundaries of the speaker bar. This gives SurroundBar its magic while achieving the surround effect independent of room boundaries.

What SurroundBar gives you is an easy to set up, awesome sounding surround system that blends into the room.