Samsung - HW-Q950A

Downvote me all you like but I purchased a Samsung sound bar with the 2 wireless surround speakers + sub and I love it. Only issue is I can't adjust the surround speakers a whole lot but you don't really need to. I was sceptical at first but I'm about 3 years in and it still blows me away how good it is

Yeah ours is the Q950A which is essentially the same model but a couple years older. Looks like the Q990F was $2500 at the start of the year and is now $1450 so not a bad price. It may not be for you but I was really just after a setup that didn't require me running cables into the walls or hiding them under the carpet. So far so good. Pretty powerful and very minimalist setup. We never really crank it too high either and I like that there's a setting to boost dialogue. Disclaimer though I do have a Samsung TV so that also played a part in me sticking with the brand.

Pairing most brands their soundbars with likewise tv models often gives you an additional speaker option that comes from your tv that supports your soundbar. However, for most tvs and brands this is just a gimmick. It doesnt really add much to use the tv speakers with a dedicated soundbar. Why do people buy soundbars/sound setups? → because generally tv speakers arent great and we want to improve on that. So unless youre buying a sony theatre quad or hta9 (those systems dont have a dedicated centre speaker, but use a phantom speaker) it doesnt really add much to the soundset to use an accompanying tv from that same brand. So that brings me to always advice people to buy the better quality soundbar set as opposed to being brand loyal. Especially regarding eARC sets. Your best choice here would go for the Samsung sets. They are just better than those LGs. As for which one: go for the 990C. Its probably a good bit cheaper than the 990D. Its sound is >95% of what the 990D is. The only thing it really lacks is the 2.1 hdmi ports. But you will not be needing that, as your C4 has 3 additional 4k144 HDMI 2.1 ports besides that eARC port of your tv. For reference: i atm use a 990D with my 65 G3. Ive used most of samsungs their 950 and 990 bars with previously my C1, now G3 and also my A95L. They all worked amazingly well. For my A95L i will use my newly bought HT-A9 with SWA-5 sub this coming weekend. That would be probably the only sound setup that might benefit of using the A95L as a centre speaker. But i will find out this weekend whether thats the case or not.

The Q990D is an amazing set. The Q990 series are pound for pound the best you can get. An all-in system that can be found for 600 euros is unbeatable with its great quality. However, you can definitely get better. It will cost you a significant amount more to get that though. As far as soundwise, the Q990D was to my ears essentially the same as the Q990B. And thats logical, as there has not been any change to the hardware channels since the Q990B. And the B only had minor improvements over the Q950A (only the sub had a little change to performance). But these comparison reviews from Rtings should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially the numbers that are given to the categories they are rating. I just sold my Q990D and gotten a second Sony Ht-A9 (with sw3 sub) to go with my G3 in my bedroom. I already owned a Ht-A9 with SW5 to go along my A95L in my living room. The ratings of Rtings for the Ht-A9 are number wise much lower than the Q990D (or heck even Q990B). E.g. the atmos is similar. But i can assure you that the Samsung sets dont get even close to that Atmos effect and being surrounded by sound. The samsungs do everything great, but arent the best in any category. Its a complete package, yes. But i also believe that the Samsung sets are less refined than other top end models. They require more volume to achieve that effect what other sets can do with less volume. I cant speak for this comparison between Sonos and the Q990D, as i never heard or owned Sonos myself. But again, these comparisons need to be taken with a grain of salt. Everybody has different needs and wants. Same goes for acoustics in your room.

My problem was never with the amount of power in the sub, but rather the quality of the bass. I live in a 75m2 appartment, so i generally put the subwoofer and bass on very low. Its really powerful, but the quality is not great imo. Ive had the Q950T, Q950A, Q990B and now the 990D. I also have a Ht-A9 with SWA-5 sub since a week or 2 to go with my A95L. And im so impressed by that thing that im going to change my Q990D for another Ht-A9, but with SWA-3 sub for my bedroom to go with the G3. That system is just so good. But i also found that the SWA-5 sub is just way better quality than that of samsung sets. Ofcourse, that comes with a price (650 euro is newprice for SWA-5). But that sub puts it power where its needed. Its a quality subwoofer. Not as powerful as the samsung sub, but much more refined. Thats what samsungs sub should be → more quality, not necessarily more power. I hope that new sub is the answer.

Ive owned every samsung Q950A and Q990 sets from Q950T to Q990D. And now I own 2 HTA9 sets with subs. I tell you so..

Price/quality wise you got to go for Samsung their top models. So now that would be the HW-Q990D. Its an amazing system that can do it all for a relatively low price. If you dont need additional HDMI 2.1 ports (so for 4k120fps gaming consoles), you can also choose for their last years Q990C model. Thats basically the same thing (sound pretty much the same, hardware wise except for the 2.1 hdmi ports also the same). It will save you money. Ive owned and tested several of samsungs top end bars the last couple of months (950T, 950A, 990B and now 990D). They are amazing. I also owned a very good LG setup before that (DSN11RG), but it doesnt get close to Samsung their complete surround sound package.

Yes it makes a difference. Ive used the LG DSN11RG for the last three years (7.1.4 setup from 2020). That was a really good comete atmos surround system. However the last couple of months ive owned, tried, and sold most of Samungs latest bars (managed to keep upgrading my systems for free basically). Now, i noticed an immediate increase in sound quality and soundstage when going from the DSN11RG to the Q950T (9.1.4 system). This increased significantly when 2 weeks later i upgraded to a Q950A (11.1.4). Big difference again in both quality, but especially soundstage. Then recently i upgraded to the 990B. That increase was noticeable, but less apparent than the previous upgrades. Mainly because speaker hardware didnt change compared to the 950A. Last week i upgraded that to the 990D. That too was a smaller (but still noticeable) upgrade over the 990B. So i definitely think that more speakers will surely help. Especially when using e.g. Samsung its adaptive soundprofile so the system uses all its channels. Now tomorrow i will place my HtA9 + SW5 sub and hopefully be impressed by a quality increase in soundscape like i was going from 950T → 950A.

I have both a complete Sonos arc ultra setup with dual era 300s dual sub gen 3 and dual play 5s using a third party app to connect them all and I have Samsung q950a soundbar set. What I have noticed is that my Sonos is really good but it’s a bit more nuance to get a movie theater impact it’s definitely a clean sound and it’s really good, I will say there are moments that I feel my Samsung q950a packs a punch out the box but it’s not as controlled. Like if with Samsung at 20db is definitely for my Sonos to be that loud it has to hit 40 but the Sonos sounds cleaner like it doesn’t sound like a speaker while with my Samsung to me I can here “oh it’s coming out of a speaker” if that makes sense

Agreed Im answering the initial post as to quality of Samsung that it is good.

Here I am with my Q950A still going strong 💪🏾

Absolutely. I had the Q950A and got the Q990C and it's absolutely amazing.

I agree, from personal expierence I would argue that the Q990d may sound a touch better with regards to movies, at least this was true for the OG Arc Full Setup. However, I use my system as a one stop shop with 60 % music, 10% TV and the rest ist Streaming on Netflix etc. For this usecase, the Samsung would be a total disappointment and I had the 950a und currently installed the 930d at my fathers house. So If movies is your top priority, Samsung clearly has the the better value and may also sound better with movies (although Andrew Robinson might disagree).

That's not a fair competition at all. Samsung should be the much better option for both movies and music (though I'm not a big fan of how Samsung Soundbars are tuned for music). It's value/money is just hard to beat. I'm just not convinced of the Beam when looking at similarly priced competitors, especially since the Beam is also quite outdated. You need at least the Arc Ultra and Era 300s to surpass the Samsung, but this will not be cheap...

I have a Sonos Arc and sub mini in my bedroom. I have a Samsung Q950a in my den. I love gaming and watching movies on the den TV and think the Samsung sound great. If I had surround for the Sonos, maybe I'd like it as much. I bought my Samsung before I knew about the EPP program and overpaid by about 700 bucks. It was still cheaper than a Sonos setup that does sound overwhelmingly better to me. I considered an Arc Ultra for my living room, but decided to get the Samsung Q990D. With the discount, the value is too hard to pass up.

My 950A rocks

I went from a Q950A to a Q990C, ill wait for the G or if I can find a deal on a Sony BRAVIA Quads.

I'm with ya. I have the Q950a which is still amazing and the latest successors are a difficult upgrade justification. I'm compelled to consider the Q990D for 2.1 support, but that's it.

I prefer a soundbar and I have an older Samsung q950A. Having a dedicated receiver was more Cumbersome and provided no real benefits

100% agree I had Samsung Q950A Samsung Q990B Samsung Q990D and now quads and it’s not even close when we talk about that proper real cinema feeling quads absolute destroy Samsung q990d and Samsung is just way too too loud for my likings

I have the Sony HT-A9 with the sub and it's been amazing. Had the sonos arc and one's as surrounds, and a sub; also tried Ambeo that shit is massive but excellent also. Ultimately went with the Sony since my partner wanted to be able to play Bluetooth occasionally and didn't wanna tinker with having to download sonos app, etc. I had a Samsung HW-Q950A too but ultimately resold it, and had intentions of trying Nakamichi but returned it unopened and stuck with HT-A9. Occasional glitches like once every 6 months if that so have to run the Optimizer stuff. I've loooved it! Going on 3 yrs now having mine. The price went down some, and just keep an eye on bestbuy open box for the sub, i got the SA-W5.

This! My Q950A worked great with pass through on my previous C9. But on my current G4 I can't do pass through anymore, it won't pass through atmos. Need to do auto now for it to work.

Maby it's time to upgrade from my Q950A this year

I haven't personally tested the Q930, but typically with the Samsung lineup you'll get much better performance when disabling the rears/surrounds. I can confirm this was the case with both my Q950A and 990D. If you're a frequent music listener, you can run two cheap smart plugs to your rears and set up a scene to enable/disable them. You can also further tweak performance using the EQ. As an audio enthusiast myself (I'm a musician and mix engineer), I found performance for music listening serviceable. Sub/mid bass is too forward, boomy, and ephemeral; it lacks impact and slam. Mids are far too recessed and there's not enough detail past 1-2k. As above, you can correct some of this with EQ, but you may find it lacking. In summary, it's too warm, dark and veiled. My very strong suggestion is to test the method I mentioned above if you can demo it locally, if running it for both use cases is critical.

I will definitely upgrade from my Q950a if this is true.

I have Q950A and i dont use the Q symphony, basically the bar is so good that the TV speaker just ruins it.

I have a 950a. Its been faultless and still sounds really good.

I had the arc + sub + 2 ones Bought a Q950 and now I know what is atmos. It’s much much better. Also I will never buy any Sonos again because I have 2 ones and 1 five that just don’t work anymore because of that crap app

It’s important to do what works for you, I went with a Samsung Q950 atmos setup for my theatre room. Funny enough it’s the projector that gives me the most trouble (Epson 5040, in the midst of sorting out custom firmware on an Ezcoo splitter to be able to watch 4k HDR discs played from my PS5). So really as long as you do the research, and are happy with what you have, whatevs. There is always something better you can get.

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.

If you get a Samsung soundbar with Q Symphony that will add an extra dimension to your system that you won't get if you choose another brand

If you have a samsung tv or plan on getting one go with the samsung. Q Symphony is dope

FYI, I already had the Samsung soundbar when TV shopping. I thought it would be kool to have the Samsung TV to use with the Samsung soundbar- Q Symphony, but in the end it wasnt enough for me to not get the G4.