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With the opening scene of Mad Max: Fury Road, both the Polk and the Yamaha were able to deliver a convincing sense of height — making the disembodied voices of the intro zip around the room. While the Polk made the room seem bigger, the Yamaha displayed more brute force and the voices were more focused.
I also listened to Batman Begins to test both soundbars’ voice modes and found that the Yamaha was the most natural sounding. It was able to maintain bass effects while keeping the dialogue intelligible Though the Polk has three different levels these got progressively less listenable and synthetic. People with hearing difficulties may still prefer this level of fine-tuning, however.
On to stereo replay, and the two soundbars were evenly matched with most kinds of music, but it was with bass heavy tunes that the Yamaha was most at home. Gorillaz’s Feel Good Inc is where the Yamaha finally pulled away from the Polk. The SR-B40A is the soundbar if you like loud, bass-driven music. It played the song with an authority the Polk couldn’t touch and with deep, punchy bass. The Polk sounded more lopsided with this song with vocals that were so far forward as to be nasally.
Should you buy it?
The number of soundbars under $500 that can play “native” Dolby Atmos can still be counted on one hand, and while the Yamaha SR-B40 can’t be included on this list, it sounds great anyway.
While the company hasn’t yet offered anything to replace the fantastic YAS-203, the SR-B40A comes closest, and the soundbar certainly has the original’s gift for performance. If you’re looking for a TV speaker which delivers both sparklingly clear dialog and muscular music replay, then the Yamaha SR-B40A is one to consider.