If you are a audiophile, the days when you had to spend thousands of dollars on a receiver and convince your contractor uncle to show you how to thread cables through walls are long gone. Soundbars, especially those with dedicated rear surround speakers, have gotten so good most of the time there’s really no need to use old school devices.
In particular, systems like Samsung’s flagship HW-Q990B sound more and more like your traditional high-end home theater. This 11.1.4-channel soundbar bundle is the first to feature wireless Dolby Atmos, and all you need to set it up are four power outlets and a short HDMI cable.
In just a few minutes, you’ll find yourself immersed in pretty incredible object-based surround sound. Dragons, alien ships and helicopters whizzed overhead, bullets flew left and right, and even James Earl Jones’ baritone appeared full and clear in the channel. center. Unless you’re willing to spend more time (and money), it’s hard to get a system that sounds as good as this in most living rooms.
Setting up Tentpole
While the inside of the black-on-black HW-Q990B is packed with fun and exciting technology, the bar’s exterior is incredibly boring (and therefore easily hidden beneath the TV screen). The bar is a long hexagon, with angled corners to bounce sound off the walls and large rear surrounds, with angled tops to spray sound up and down as height channels. .
The included wireless subwoofer is the standout unit of the bunch, a simple rectangular shape that can easily be tucked away in any corner of my studio. Put around on the stands. Plug them in with the subwoofer. Plug the main stick into the source and also into your TV or projector via the HDMI eARC port. Then you go to the movies! Seriously, it’s that simple.
Those with more advanced systems, or those who are super picky about their interior design, may want to mount the main bar or surround frames. But that can be easily done with a few drywall anchors and a dynamic drill (not included).
Entrance price
Spend $1,700 on a soundbar — significantly more than I recommend most people spend on one Current generation TVs—It seems stupid. But then, think about the last time you bought a new pair of computer speakers to go with a new laptop. You tend not to replace your audio equipment as often, as they tend to last longer. In the home theater world, good sound isn’t a static business, but it’s not evolving as fast as screen and picture processing technology.
If you get a soundbar this high, with Dolby Atmos and all the modern processing that goes with it, I expect it to last through at least two generations of TVs. So if you expect your TV to have a lifespan of 3 to 5 years, a soundbar of this quality should have a lifespan of 5 to 10 years, which makes the price per year even comparable. .
Personally, I find that the more immersive sound brings me deeper into the action than a higher-end monitor. It sounds like a sacrifice coming from a TV and projector reviewer, but truly immersive surround sound is one of the few things that most cinemas do significantly better than us. homemade. Whenever you close the gap with a good sound system, it really helps to bring you back to that cinematic space.
At last, an important part of most movies and TV shows is sound. You may have watched most of the shows in full resolution on a pretty good quality screen, even if you only watched them on your mobile phone, but you listened to them in full quality sound, good speakers or nice headphones? Maybe not.
Epic Fidelity
I’ve heard excellent center channel soundbars before — Sennheiser The terribly expensive Ambeo comes to mind—But I have never heard of a bar with such amazing surround speakers. The large two-way surround display produces more volume and better fidelity than I’ve heard from a soundbar plus setup before, delivering pops and squeaks behind your head. At a time when watching the latest movie Fletch movie, I swore that a real fire alarm would go off behind me. No, just the movie.
The bar, subwoofer, and surround combine with Samsung’s superb digital signal processing to make everything from thrilling action movies to gripping classic detective movies. as easy as at the theater. The bass is great, but not loud. You get enough rumble from the included woofer to hear and feel the every move of an evil monster in Strange thingsbut not enough for apartment dwellers to fear retribution from their neighbors.
