Samsung - HW-Q850D

That's what I just got. 7.1.2 👍

I have the Samsung Q850D from Best Buy paired with my TCL QM851G, but somehow it shot up in price so I'd look elsewhere 😅

I have the 850D (7.1) and have always noticed the 9.1 and 11.1 versions have the exact amount of standalone speakers as mine. I assume they just squeeze in a few more up-firing speakers for more "Atmos"? Curious how different they sound.

Just got the Q850D today at Best Buy. Had ordered the Q800 as it was on sale and the 850 wasn't at the time but was out of stock. When we went to get it today, saw the 850 was now the same price as the 800! Since we also got a new Samsung Q TV to go with it we are enjoying the Q Symphony and yes, it does make a huge difference! I think the TV has 4 speakers, so it uses those 4 on top of the sound bar speakers (does that make it technically 11channel then?) to give more dynamics to the surround effect. Our TV is mounted on the wall and the wires are behind the wall, so we set it up at first by BT and then realized Q Symphony wont work in BT mode. Wifi mode was easy to set up (I have a galaxy s24 ultra and through the Samsung Smart Things app you can set up and control the sound bar much more in depth) Q Symphony works perfectly in WiFi mode. (Thank goodness I didn't have to thread another HDMI cable through the wall as the conduit is a tight fit with the cables there now!) Yes the rear speakers are wired but only to the receiver box so no wires front to back and the sub is also wireless and easy enough to hide. We just put the receiver under the sofa and the wires are also behind the sofa. The sound is amazing in Q Symphony mode! I fully set the system including balancing the speaker levels for our room setup. You can do this either through your Samsung TV or the Smart Things app.

Just got this from best buy, open box but never taken out for ~ $500 and man my living room sounds like the movie theater

Definitely. I got the Samsung Q850D for around $300 (open box) at Best Buy and the surround sound is so much better than I thought was possible without a dedicated multi-channel system with an AV receiver. I think it would be perfect for your setup

Look for an open box Samsung Q850D from Best Buy. It’s an awesome setup and like $310 right now in “good” condition.

How big is the room? Small to midrange rooms I would go with a Samsung q850d. You can get those specifically at Best buy I ended up getting an open box for 400 bucks and it sounds great in my bedroom.

I’ve got a 5.1 jamo setup, and the HomePods are not even comparable, and a centre channel does make things better, but a good set of bookshelves handle dialogue well enough I don’t miss a centre channel at all. We watch a lot of TV, movies and TV shows, so I don’t know what to tell you. We bought the jamo gear because our 7.1.2 Samsung soundbar sucked hardcore with dialogue, and I constantly had to change sound modes to attempt to hear things. Not worth the bookshelf speakers though. IMO the HomePods are worse than the TV speakers sometimes. Also planar tweeters were a big upgrade for me for dialogue.

The q symphony is hard to notice if I am being honest. Not because it isnt good, it seems decent, but I had a 5.1 Logitech PC system before. The THX was nice but 11 speakers of Atmos is so amazing that adding 4 is like putting chocolate fudge on a chocolate bar after just eating vanilla wafers for years. Its richer and you cant say no, but the chocolate bar would have already been more than enough at this point. And yeah, I pushed to 30 for a bit and it was a lot in most cases. Went to 50 for fun and started getting worried I may blow a speaker out haha.

Get the Sonos system. Samsung is terrible at support. Further you can buy the Sonos components from Costco. At least most of them. Return policy is quite generous as you probably know. Don’t be tempted by the Samsung pricing. It’s just not as good or reliable as the Sonos systems. He’ll even the JBL soundbar systems have better sound than the Q series.