LG Dolby Atmos Sound Bar

LG has a good track record of making soundbars with many features filling the room. Its latest product in this area is the $1,000 SP9YA. Like the rest of the 9-Series, it packs a lot of audio features (like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X) into one soundbar and one portable subwoofer. It’s a good choice for people who want a big, dramatic sound and an easy setup. The LG S95QR goes beyond what most people consider a soundbar because it has four different speaker units and more channels than most separate-based systems.

LG Dolby Atmos Sound Bar Speaker Specs

PROS:

• Strong, all-encompassing sound
• Full of features
• Thin, sleek shape

CONS:

• Interface not easy to use
• Streaming music that isn’t reliable

Price

The LG S95QR came out in June 2022, and it has prices all over the world that put it in the very top tier of soundbars. However, for a soundbar that boasts 15 “real” (as opposed to “virtual”) channels, 810W of power, and four individual speaker units, this sounds acceptable.

The S95QR is more than just a two- or three-channel mono bar. If you looked at the three prices at the top of this part, though, you’d have seen that the S95QR’s price in the UK is much higher than its price in the US or Australia when exchange rates are taken into account. This is because the price of the speaker has recently gone down quite a bit in several countries outside of the UK, but at the time of writing, it is still selling for the same price as when it first came out in the UK.

Features

Even though the S95QR is still small and neat enough to be called a soundbar, it packs some major audio heat into its four speakers. On the main speaker, for example, there are front left, front right, front centre, side left, side right, and three drivers that fire up. The rear speakers each have three drivers: two curved drivers on the front to spread sound across the back of your room and one up-firing driver each to make sure that the system’s overhead sounds don’t just fill the front half of your room.

LG calls the S95QR a 9.1.5-channel system, but this may not be true when you consider that the extra center-channel up-firing driver only plays the same sound as the front center speaker and that the two angled drivers in front of each rear speaker only play the same sound at slightly different angles. The ports on the S95QR are also better than those on most soundbars. For one thing, it works with LG’s extra WowCast audio dongle, which allows Dolby Atmos soundtracks to be sent directly from TVs that support eARC.

Sound Quality

It doesn’t take long to realise that the LG S95QR is easily the best speaker the company has ever made. In fact, it’s one of the best home theatre soundbars we’ve seen from any brand, especially for movies and video games. A lot of our best movie soundtracks stand out because of three things: how powerful the sound is, how big the soundstage is, and how much dynamic range it can produce without sounding distorted or out of balance.

When you look at each of these in turn, you can literally feel how powerful the soundbar is when powerful soundtrack moments explode into your room, blowing your hair back with huge cinematic purpose on the one hand and defining even the smallest details with skill on the other. All of this is done without being sharp or thin, and the sound from each channel is pushed to the farthest corners of your living room at the same time.

Design

The main speaker of the S95QR is surprisingly small for something that can make so much noise. It’s only 63mm high, so it should fit under most TVs. It’s 1.2m wide, so it’s good for TVs 55 inches or bigger, and it’s strong and well-balanced. The rear speakers are also surprisingly small for being able to produce three channels of sound each. Any part of their body that isn’t a felt speaker cover has the same nice brushed finish as the main soundbar and subwoofer. Their angled fronts also made them look better than most rear speakers.

Value

The S80QY’s list price puts it at the higher end of the price range for speaker systems, where it competes with the Sonos Arc and other Samsung products like the smaller and more stylish HW-S800B. Still, the S80QY holds its own against these other choices in many ways, thanks to its powerful and dynamic sound, many wired and wireless connections, and the strong overall set of features. LG’s 3.1.3 speaker is also often sold for much less than its given price, which makes it an even better deal. The thing that sets the S80QY apart from other soundbars is its up-firing center channel speaker, which does a lot to improve the clarity of speech and make the sound more realistic.