Samsung - HW-Q990B (2022)

I moved from Q990B To Q990D just yesterday after the 990B just gave in twice . Had to change the motherboard the first time . Other than HDMI 2.1 in 990D , no difference in sound quality between the two . Love this soundbar

Tbh, price/quality wise your best bang for your buck would be the Samsung Q990 series. Can you get better sound? → yes sure you can. But thats going to add up quickly in price. With the Q990 sets you get the complete package (complete surround, atmos). Even if you dont think you require the rears, they will enhance your listening experience so much more. Especially in movies that utilize atmos. And if they dont support Atmos, then the system is pretty decent at enhancing the sound to Atmos "like" sound with its sound settings. As for which one to get: if youre on a really tight budget the Q990B will suffice. There isnt that much difference between B, C and D. Try to get the Q990C if its within budget (it should be), as soundwise its pretty much the 990D. Only lacks the 2.1 hdmi ports that the D has.

Tbh, price/quality wise your best bang for your buck would be the Samsung Q990 series. Can you get better sound? → yes sure you can. But thats going to add up quickly in price. With the Q990 sets you get the complete package (complete surround, atmos). Even if you dont think you require the rears, they will enhance your listening experience so much more. Especially in movies that utilize atmos. And if they dont support Atmos, then the system is pretty decent at enhancing the sound to Atmos "like" sound with its sound settings. As for which one to get: if youre on a really tight budget the Q990B will suffice. There isnt that much difference between B, C and D. Try to get the Q990C if its within budget (it should be), as soundwise its pretty much the 990D. Only lacks the 2.1 hdmi ports that the D has.

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.

No need to upgrade from 990B to a 990D. They sound pretty much the same (i couldnt tell a difference). Only upgrade to the 990D if you require those hdmi 2.1 ports.

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..

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.

It's a cliche but the Samsung Q990 series is great. And a good bang for your buck too. And you don't have to get the C or D to get a high quality soundbar. You can get the B and it will be very close to the newer models. I have the B myself and I love it.

Q990b, and Q990f. I think tuning them to your needs is important. They sound amazing playing music in my setup.

Anyone know if they support 1080p 24hz passthrough now? My Q990B stupidly does not. It tells the devices connected to it that it'll only accept 1080p at 60hz. I had to manually program my streaming device to use the edid for my TV rather than the edid of the soundbar, basically tricking it into outputing 1080p 24hz to the soundbar, and it passes through just fine. Really annoying though. Also, about once a week I'll go to watch something and the sound drops out and speakers disconnect, and the only (temporary) fix is to reboot my router. The soundbar also freezes up every now and then and I have to unplug it and plug back in. Also, Samsung recently removed the ability to change the input from the API, which is super annoying because I used it with home assistant automations. Have any of these issues been fixed with the new ones? The only thing I like about the Q990B is the sound. Everything else sucks big time. 😂

More is better than less if you can afford it. I changed from a Q800B to a Q990B and the sound is noticeable even without the rears. Would've gotten the Q900C but it was not released where I lived.

If the q900c isn’t available, just pack the rears away or use them as front speakers. I didn’t want rears but bought the q990b a few years back. We started bringing out the rears on movie nights but now just are permanently out

Love my Q990B. For my room makeup it's perfect compared to a full system. Plus it thumps when I want it to

The one thing I don’t like about this Samsung is that it hasn’t changed, like at all and I had the Q990B, and while it was good, I paid more for the Sony hta9 and loved the difference in atmos on the Sony, then I got the Quads and Arc Ultra and I’m still in awe by how good the Quads sound with movies. The Samsung is able to keep it cheap because every part is almost identical, the bar, the rears, and the sub til this year keeps its price down from mass production. I get bored quickly especially since I’m unable to build my dream home theater but it’s been just under a year and when I first got it I bought the dragon at $4k and that was an absolute disaster at least for me.

I’m good with the Quads, as I have a pair of klipsch nines with a speedwoofer sub that’s only used for music. I have 2 young teenage boys and 2 well trained German shepherd’s but they like to play and need daily exercise so for now I’m good. The nines offer music at a different class than any soundbar can and my Quads are very good at movies so until I move in just about 3 years and change, that’s when I get my dream home theater and the best part is my wife loves audio too.

I had the Samsung Q990B and it was good, but I switched to the Sony hta9 which was much better with atmos and now I have the Quads which is the best Atmos I’ve ever heard and by a lot! I also have a full arc ultra era300s and 2 subs as well. The Samsung just never got me excited about movies which the hta9 did better, the arc ultra does better and the Quads beat them all. If money isn’t a factor then try the Quads as they are so easy to put anywhere unless your ceilings are not flat and past 12’. Maybe it’s time to upgrade to avr setup if you have the space for it as any 5.1 that’s decent will beat all of these even without Atmos.

Get the The 990F save money I have a 990B I am very happy with my bass performance, turn on bass boost and keep the sub at +3 level