Mark Fleischmann

The Polk SurroundBar 500 ($999) was first announced a year and a half ago but took some fine tuning. It moves the messy details of connectivity to an outboard rack-size box, left, allowing the enclosure to be just 0.9 inches deep. It can operate in three-, five-, and seven-channel modes. The woofers at the sides have dual voice coils to make such complex motion possible. The picture may not do justice to the dimpled surface of the drivers, which we assume is for air-flow control. Oh, and have we mentioned that Polk has overhauled its excellent LSi Series for the first time since 2002? There are two towers, a monitor, two centers, and a surround. One or more of them will prove quite reviewable.

Polk Audio's Blackstone series comes in the three versions shown including wireless sub not shown. The demo featured smooth and gentle mids. For more information see our review coming a few months after you read this.

Polk Audio's new Signature Series of speakers and Magnifi Mini compact soundbar are bristling with bright aspirations and cunning engineering, including ideas pioneered by now-retired cofounder Matthew Polk himself.

Though strictly speaking, it was a Friday when we saw the Polk OWM5, a $179 speaker that will tolerate any of nine mounting methods if you speak to it nicely. Let us count the ways: vertical wall mount, horizontal wall mount, vertical shelf mount, horizontal shelf mount, corner mount, horizontal ceiling mount, vertical 45-degree wall mount, vertical corner wall mount, and standard articulating wall mount bracket. There's also an OWM3 which is less versatile, with a mere seven mounting methods.