Review: Polk Reference XM HomeTuner Tuner

Category: Miscellaneous

A month I received an offer from Polk Audio to purchase their soon to be released XRt12 Reference XM Home Tuner for $299 shipped to my door. I have XM radio in my car and I have always liked the programming available. To be honest, the majority of my car listening winds up being ESPN and CNBC. That being said, I did find some of their stations, The Loft XM50 and Music Lab XM51, to be great stations to listen to on long trips. I am often on the road and I find that the ability to keep any station on for a trip duration is well worth the ten dollars a month to subscribe. I accepted their offer and a few weeks ago it arrived at my house.

Setting up the XRt12 was simple. The antenna comes with 20 feet of cable to place it by or at a window. I purchased an additional 50 foot extension cable and have the antenna outside my garage. The tuner as a setup menu guide that lets you know what signal strength it is receiving. I called XM radio and within 15 minutes I was up and running. The subsription to XM Radio is ten dollars a month. It is an additional seven dollars if you already have an account with them.

The greatest strength about the XM Reference Home Tuner is the unlimited amount of programming that it offers commercial free twenty four hours a day seven days a week. I live within 10 miles of New York City and I have been blessed with some great FM stations. Most of the stations offered, however, are either full of commercials, way overmodulated, sonically inferior, or offer poor playlists. Their are over 70 stations of pure music offered, including a number of classical stations, each of which with a particular theme that I think could satisify any of us.

The sound quality of the tuner itself is very good. Some stations sound better than other stations. The tuner sounds better than the digital cable that I get from my cable box. My assumption is that this is the case because of the better quality internal parts used in the Polk XRt12. I used the same interconnects to compare the digital tuner in cable box to the XRt12 in that comparison. On every station with similar programming directly compared the Polk had better dynamics, stronger bass response, less stringent high frequencies, and a deeper and wider soundstage.

The XRt12 has both optical and rca digital outputs. With the tuner connected to my Northstar 192 Dac the sound is exceptional. Many of us who own outboard Dacs have an input that they do not use. I cannot think of a better way to get the most out of your outboard Dac than to use it with this component. With the Polk tuner connected to the NorthStar 192 Dac the sound was closer to the NorthStar Dac connected to the NorthStar Transport than the sound of the digital cable from the cable box. Very dynamic, individual instruments and performers identified in the soundstage, and extreme frequency response at another level. All this and so many musical choices.

This is the best three hundred dollars that I have spent on my system. If you are looking for greater musical variety than you now have access to this is a great component to have. If you have an outboard Dac with an extra optical or rca input then a cannot make a higher recommendation than going to your local retailer and picking one of these up. You will not be disappointed.

Associated gear
Pass Labs X2.5 Preamplifier
BAT VK500 Amplifier
NorthStar 192 DAC
NorthStar 192 Transport
Tandberg 3001A Tuner
VMPS FF1 Speakers
Wireworld Gold Eclipse Interconnects
Analysis Plus Oval 9 Speaker Cable