Polk Ships Car Audio to Best Buy in First National Post-Circuit City
BALTIMORE -- Polk Audio launched sales of DXi 12-volt products through Best Buy, giving its car audio national distribution lacking since Circuit City’s demise, Polk executives told us Wednesday. The 17 DXi products, including amplifiers, subwoofers and speakers, reached Best Buy’s stores about three weeks ago, they said.
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The line ranges from the DXi650 6.5-inch 180-watt coaxial speakers that were being promoted Thursday on Bestbuy.com at $79 after a $20 “savings,” to the A880 800-watt mono block amplifier that was being promoted at $159, a $40 discount. The line includes three amplifiers, nine speakers and five subwoofers, including the DXi112 12-inch ($159) that contains Polk’s Powerport technology. The DXi line also can be converted to a marine product, which appealed to Best Buy, said Al Ballard, vice president of marketing. Polk’s DXi is being priced slightly above Kicker speakers, which Best Buy also recently added to the car audio line, he said.
Before the agreement with Best Buy, Polk’s car audio gear had largely been sold through independent dealers, which will have access to the company’s step-up gear in addition to DXi, Ballard said. Circuit City, which liquidated in 2009, was Polk’s largest car audio retailer. Polk added Best Buy to its dealer roster six months before Circuit City’s collapse and has extended its ties, Ballard said.
In addition to car audio, Best Buy also started selling Polk’s custom install in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, which will be handled through a group within the chain’s Geek Squad, Polk officials said. Best Buy also carries a range of Polk’s home audio speakers, including the RTI three-way floor standing speakers that include a seven-inch, 500-watt model ($999).
The deal with Best Buy comes as Polk seeks to also expand distribution of its monitor-style HitMaster 100-watt gaming speaker ($99) that features two 1-inch neodymium tweeters and 6.5-inch woofer in a 9.5x14x8.5-inch cabinet. HitMaster is being sold by Amazon, Fry’s Electronics, Best Buy’s Future Shop in Canada and other dealers, Ballard said. Polk is considering expanding its line of videogames speakers, he said. “We're continuing to explore the market because it’s a way for our brands to reach new customers."
Polk is continuing to sell its I-Sonic Entertainment System 2 that combines a iPod/iPhone dock with HD Radio/XM Sirius/AM/FM and four speakers. While radio carries a $499 retail, it was being promoted on Polk’s Web site Thursday at $299. I-Sonic has been sold by Crutchfield, Fry’s and others and had a run at Best Buy where it was merchandised on a “technology table,” Ballard said. “It didn’t succeed there like we would have liked and we knew it was a stretch because of the price,” he said. Polk recently promoted the I-Sonic system in an ad in the Wall Street Journal, but “that’s just an experiment and we haven’t tried to do it with any regularity,” Ballard said. I-Sonic emerged several years ago as Polk weighed adding a Polk Audio Designs sub-brand, a project that was later dropped, he said. “We started having second thoughts because we had a big job promoting our own main brand without bringing on something else."
As it weighs strategies for I-Sonic, Polk is “spinning down” its SoundBar 360 DVD ($1,199) that combined speakers with a built-in DVD player and has no plans to add Blu-ray, Ballard said. It will continue with standard SoundBar products, he said. “It’s better to let” video-oriented competitors focus on the DVD/Blu-ray market while “we concentrate on audio,” Ballard said.
Polk is owned by DEI Holdings, whose CEO Jim Minarik is the company’s president, though it’s given a fair amount of independence, said Ben Newhall, senior vice president of sales and marketing. Newhall and Joe Tristani, senior vice president and chief operating officer, travel to DEI’s headquarters in California, but spend most of their time working out of Polk’s Baltimore area offices, Newhall said. While Polk is affiliated with DEI’s Definitive Technology, it doesn’t share technology, Newhall said. Definitive, which is headed by former Polk executives Paul DiComo and David Peet, shares distribution with Polk at Sixth Avenue Electronics and Fry’s, but generally sells through separate dealers, Newhall said. At Best Buy, Polk is sold through the main store, while Definitive is in the chain’s Magnolia Home Theater section.