Samsung - HW-Q950A

Get a 2nd hand 7.1.4 surround soundbar setup or something. A decent/good setup like that can be bought for ~200 euros or so. Ive bought a couple of those over the last couple of weeks to try (and sell them again). You should definitely be able to get something like the DSN11RG, Q950T or Q950A for a around that price. Those are still incredible sets that are not far off from the top setups of today. Especially for that price it cant be beaten.

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.

Here I am with my Q950A still going strong 💪🏾

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.

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.

same here, my Hw-n950 waits for an upgrade, i just dont see a reason to still..

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.

The Samsung tv will help with center channel with the Q symphony I believe. Prob will not notice much if at all. Samsung as others had said is def a far better bang for your buck. I don’t consider myself an audio expect but I had what I thought was a nice lg 5.1.2 soundbar and the Samsung blows it away. Voice clarity is what shocked me the most. All ranges of sounds are more defined and crisp even when only steaming. 4k Blu-ray Discs up the level another few notches. There are a bunch of posts on this subreddit explaining how to save a bunch of money ordering some Samsung directly if you choose to go with that soundbar

Idk, pretty happy with my 11.1.4 Samsung sound bar that pairs with my TV speakers. Way better than a 2.1 system. Still better than a 5.1. For music I have a Frankensetup in a smaller, different room where it can shine with half the power output I don’t need atmos for music. I don’t need the tightest bass, or hifi clarity for a movie track or tv. I don’t need a system that cost $5000 to meet what my $1500 split over my 2 systems does. I also don’t want 20 fucking giant ass speakers hanging all over my living room

I found that Q-Symphony adds a nice touch of fill-in to the front soundstage. Not life changing, but definitely worth it.

I’ve had the sennheiser ambeo, Bose smart ultra, and the Samsung q800, in that order. First two were returned for connectivity issues with my newish Samsung tv. The q800 has been great (the ambeo probably had the best surround but only if it connected). Q symphony is amazing. With the first two bars, you could clearly tell the sound was coming from below the TV… q symphony fixes that completely. And the subwoofer is amazing.