Samsung - HW-Q950T

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.

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.

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.

Best of the best would be q990c or d BUT if you want a very solid one for MUCH cheaper, you can look into its older iteration or the 900x series. Q990c/d are 1000-1500$ sound system. Their price is quite inflated because the biggest improvement they have over previous gen is some features like auto EQ, nightmode, Alexa built in etc… but not much purely sound wise. I personally got the Q900A + 2x SWA9500S rear speaker for 320$. The sound difference is minimal. If the q990d is a 20/20, the q990c is a 19,5/20 and my q900a is a 18,5/20. And its 70% cheaper lol The Q950T can also be a great choice if you have good deals since it is from 2020. Lacks some features the others have but it’s probably top 5 Samsung in terms of sound quality. Very good one!

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 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.

Typically yes there should be a difference. More channels means more sound separation. However it may not be as noticeable in a soundbar system compared to an actual surround sound home theater system. I would suggest just making sure whatever system you go with comes with satellite speakers to truly experience the difference. I originally purchased a Samsung 7.1.2 system that did not have satellite speakers. However I purchased the add-on satellite speakers that Samsung sells separately which converts my system to a 9.1.4. The satellite speakers is what made the difference. More channels=better/more sound separation.

Try it, it's more musical than q990d or f for sure but sounds thin sometimes.

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.