Product Description

The Polk Audio XRT12 Reference Tuner is the first component XM tuner and it is the performance reference standard for all XM tuners. It is specifically engineered to complement your current audio components with digital and analog outputs and a full featured remote control. It delivers your favorite XM stations directly to your living room, playing crystal clear audio through your own home loudspeakers while displaying the channel, song and artist information on your TV.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35742 in Consumer Electronics
• Color: Black
• Brand: Polk Audio
• Model: XRT12
• Dimensions: 17.00" h x 2.30" w x 10.50" l, 9.00 pounds

Features

• XM Satellite Radio tuner with component-standard 17-inch width; lets you store up to 10 artist name/song records for future recall and reference
• TV text video output for easy visibility of channel, artist, and song information right on your TV screen
• Optical and coaxial digital-audio outputs, as well as analog stereo RCA outputs, for easy integration with other audio equipment
• Burr-Brown digital-to-analog converter chip, quality analog components for the best possible XM sound quality
• Measures 17 x 2.3 x 10.5 inches (W x H x D)

Customer Reviews

Best Satellite Radio Sound
This unit offers excellent sound. The SkyFi unit has very good sound for all that is packed into a small box for less than $100, but the Polk uses high quality analog preamplifier and the heralded Burr Brown DACs that deliver the best analog output available from a satellite radio. If you use the optical connector then the quality of the sound will depend on your DAC and analog stages. The weak link in the satellite radio plug and play units is not the digital compression.

If you are running the audio outputs from a SkyFi into your home stereo this unit will be a very nice upgrade. Assuming you have a mid-high grade system you Will hear a difference. The SkyFi II has a newer digital processor, not yet in the Polk, and so it would deliver a better digital output if it had an optical output, but it is only capable of delivering analog and so the Polk still outperforms by virtue of its superior analog stage. But if I owned a SKyFi II I would wait for a newer version of the Polk. This is 5 Stars based on it's sound quality and oncreeen menu features, but I admit some dissapointment that it does not yet have the latest digital processor already rolled out in less expensive units 7 months ago.

Good product, but missing two important features
This product has many nice features, and the sound quality is better than FM radio and MP3s (but not quite as good as CD). However, this product does not contain two features that are important to me.

Feature One: Channel Surfing. While watching TV, I like to channel surf by pressing the Next Channel button on the TV's remote control. With one button press, I can jump to the next channel (example: I'm at channel 40, pressing the button sends me to channel 41). The Polk tuner does not have a Next Channel button, instead, you have to press three buttons to move to the next channel. The Polk tuner has some sophisticated features for moving through channels, but lacks basic Channel Surfing.

Feature Two: Headphone Jack. I want to listen to this Tuner with headphones in my bedroom, but I had to buy a Receiver just so that I could use the Receiver's headphone jack.

sees the bird even inside commercial buildings
WHAT WORKS;

Something the typical XM subscriber might not know when they first read about satellite radio is that the signal for the XM systems arrives as a direct line of sight signal AND a terrestrial repeater signal network in larger Metro areas.

We get both.

When I first set this up at the office, the menu for Signal Aiming only showed 2 land signal bars and the satellite showed 0 (zero) signal bars. I thought I would have to drill through the buildings 24 inch brick walls to connect.

Wrong!

It connected to the XM Service without a problem with the land signal alone. The sound quality of this is very good played through a small 5.1 channel home theater I pirated from a residence. The senior partner likes it so much, he is re-discovering the joys of listening to pure music at his fingertips.

We are very happy with this Polk tuner. I will only buy audio systems with a satellite service std/option in the future.

WISH LIST;

I would like to see an option for a larger mini menu display, and perhas one with a bit more legible color text/background on it. A few others have mentioned this. Perhaps Polk will offer other options for this unit over time.