Samsung - HW-Q995GD

The best of the best Q995D

I second this, I've had the 990/995B in the living room for two years now (and the first 990/995 in my old house before that, it's currently in a guest bedroom), for movies it's very good for the price. I say this coming from a Meridian pre/pro and power amp with Aerial Acoustics speakers, the downstairs home theatre/mediaroom will have a 7.2.4 setup with Arendal 1723Ss and a Denon A10H reciver (was supposed to be available here a month or so ago, current status is around next weekend).

Also, at least with the q990d you can adjust the volume of the rears and change it left/right as well. For me in my usual seating position the right rear is a bit closer to me than the left rear so I have the right rear turned down a bit in volume to make it equal to my ears.

Q990D, it's phenomenal

I ordered a Q990D from Woot for $847.99 in late November and got an extra $170.00 off through a promotion they were running plus saved an extra $50.88 via Rakuten. It arrived new in box a few weeks later. Completely happy with the purchase.

It is great compared to what? I have Q990D, and it is nowhere near a budget stereo system.

I had a Vizio soundbar, it was Vizio M51ax-j6 and it said it had Dolby Atmos, idk what you mean by "true Dolby Atmos" but I loved that soundbar, and if you have the tv in like a room or an small/medium size living room I think it should be more than enough, I only changed it because I went all out in a Q990D (which is definitely an upgrade but is not day and night different like it is going from tv speakers to a soundbar)

Q990d best bang for the buck. If budget is not a constraint arc ultra + sub gen 3 or 4 + 2 x era 300s

I just picked the Q990D up two weeks ago after returning a terribly disappointing Sony Bravia 9 soundbar and man is it amazing

I have the 990D and it is awesome. However I'm having some fomo bc the 990F will eclipsa surround. I know that it's not really a thing yet. But if it takes off and there is a lot of content produced in it I am going to regret not waiting and getting the F.

Q990D

Not my fault he's cheap. You can get it on sale for $700. Save an extra $400 and get the best soundbar on the market vs buying a $300 pos and upgrading it later.

I'd go with a Q990D. Best bang for your buck right now.

Q990d best in segment/ for more balanced sound/ value for money

Greetings, everyone! I've been wanting to enhance the audio on my LG C1 for a while now. I wasn't sure whether to go all out with an amplifier and a couple of speakers or to keep it simple with a soundbar. After watching many YouTube videos and reading reviews, I decided to just go for it and bought the Q990D—the best or nothing. Now, the soundbar has been here for three days, and I'm kinda disappointed. I expected much, much more. Before anyone asks: * Yes, I am using the eARC HDMI; the TV supports it. * Yes, all the TV features like passthrough sound are enabled. * Yes, I’ve used the mobile app and customized the soundbar to its full potential, or so I would say. So, what problems am I having? * The bass is alright, but it feels like it’s not rich—more like a giant WOOF than an actual good bass with a rich range that reacts to the media you're consuming. * The rear speakers are kind of dead silent most of the time. I adjusted the settings, rebalanced the center speakers, and increased the rear ones, but still, the surround effects, even for Dolby Atmos movies, are very minimal. I'm thinking of returning it and maybe going with something cheaper and perhaps better, like a simple setup with two big speakers and an amplifier. What do you guys think? Just to note, these are my personal feelings and experiences. Some of my problems might sound crazy to others—each to their own, I suppose.

hey, i cannot give you a simple yes/no for me it didn't worked and I returned it after 1 week for the fallowing reasons: \- it was too loud, at 15/100 sound level, my ears were hurting and at 99/100 i never tried it so I don't damage something in the house \- the bass is really meh \- the surround is not existing, you can lower the middle body and get close to the side speakers but its not that good either \- the whole atmos thing is marketing because most of the content you consume unless you are some audiophile, will be standard stuff from youtube and movies, also dolby atmos on soundbars ≠ dolby atmos on actual surround speakers, also at this price you might want to go for an actual surround speakers \- my honest opinion is that cheap soundbards are worth it because they have multiple speakers in one easy to store device, the device removes the need for tons of speakers around the room and cables and its far cheaper than high quality surround speakers, really expensive soundbars are not worth it if you really want good quality out of your content I believe you are better off with something less pricey or an actual surround system

I suspect a big part of it is that the Q990C used to be easily had for $800 while the 900D was in the $1500-1800 ballpark so from a value standpoint the C made sense over the D. These days I’m not as convinced — the D frequently goes on sale

Not sure what you’re looking for in terms of what defines a good system for you. Stereo deep rich music? Wall shaking bass? Convincing cinematic special effects all around the room? Whole home audio integration? Foolproof ease of use? If you want loud and lots of boom, the Dragon can be a good choice but the reviews are mixed for other general use. If you want easy and good cinematic effects honestly the Q990D is a good option, even though you have more budget I simply feel the 990D checks off a lot of boxes really damn well. If you want something with more sound positioning abilities and are willing to pay a premium the Bravia Quad is awesome. The Arc Ultra and Era 300 and 2x Sub also will be a top notch system and gets you into the Sonos ecosystem but it is really new — historically Sonos has struggled with brand new product launches, I was a day one Arc and day one Era300 owner and both of those took months to reach their potential through software updates.

Well for me either Sonos or Q990D felt not in sync via earc - unless you compensate and add latency. (S90D can do it , LG B9 could not I think) Which is not a problem for movies etc but no-go for gaming and PC connection I have both Google Streamer and PC (4k120hz) connected via passthrough now. The only issue I have is that I have different image settings and TV (S90D) sees both as one input. Need to swap them manually then.

Got a new q990d from them. No issues. Paid 999

Q990C/D/F will all work perfectly for your use case. Q990D would be the sweet spot of price and future-proofed support, and will likely leave some room on the budget for rear speaker stands or shelves to make placement seamless.

I went from a Denon / Polk 5.1 system, to the Q990D and was honestly astonished at how good it is. Took a while to balance and still think I have the rears too high for some movies, but it felt almost like an upgrade at points. Absolutely better than I was expecting. Also the speech is so much clearer than my old system. My wife thinks it sounds 10x better! For the ease of set up and no wires in a family room I find it great. I will be setting up my old system in the basement and will try and get the calibration right so I suspect it will eventually sound better 🤷🏻‍♂️

I got the q990d free because I brought a 75inch 8k neo qled at close to 60% off Luckily there is no need to 'top up' and buy another soundbar.

i am from singapore, so not sure if this would apply to you, q990d is a 'free gift' for any 8k neo qled tv purchase.

Q990D is exceeding all expectations at the moment for me. Just got it two days ago. Snagged it for $815 on eBay!

I’ve got the LG S95QR and dialogue is very clear. Surround performance is also phenomenal for movies, it has a ton of bass, and plenty of volume/headroom. You might be able to find deals on it online since it’s LG’s previous flagship model, otherwise the current version is the S95TR. Q990D also kicks ass, you can’t go wrong with either!

Q990D on a heavy discount. 100%

Agree, I have the same experience with my Q990D. Music does not have the same „impact“ on me as I was used to. Voices and highs sound very clear and noticable, also deep bass (for music and for movies). But mids are a side-show and get drowned out, I don‘t feel them. I guess either the center speakers are too small for the mids or this is what a „balanced“ sound sounds like, as many reviews praise this soundbar for. TBF, my old cheap 5.1 Teufel was way too heavy on bass, could barely listen to voices in movies. With the Q990D voices are incredibly easy to listen to, I don‘t even need voice amplification.

I had previous version S800B... Not sure if eARC really somehow upgrade sound but previous model was good for it's size if this form factor is needed but later when I got Q800C there was no comparison. Much better and fuller sound with big improvement on Dolby Atmos performance. I have currently Q990D and it's another big step up. Much fuller sound. I would say get ultra Slim soundbar only if it's required due to design or low profile TV. It's good to small room where you sleep but in my case for example outside movie area when I played some podcasts on YT it sounded even thinner than TV speakers sometimes when subwoofer was not really involved although clarity was good.

One of the biggest mistake most audiophiles made of switching traditional speakers setup to soundbar is the room acoustics, for traditional speakers system we will have some sound absorbing materials at the walls and it’s good for minimizing sound reflection, BUT in soundbar world it’s totally another way, we need to have walls to bounce the sound for creating surround effect, keep this in mind and you will have a amazing soundbar experience. My recommendation is if you have an ideal room for sound bouncing then Ambeo Max is the soundbar to go, Ambeo Plus sound much thinner like a normal soundbar do, although it’s still sounds better than many other soundbars, the Max just sounds like hifi speakers due to the driver size, it’s physic things than can’t beat. Q990D is good for movie, big sound, big bubble, but the problem is they put all the drivers in the same box without isolating them, do not expect a good sound quality from this design, it will never be.

Recently purchased a Q990D for $1200 CAD ($835USD) from Visions. My wife and I absolutely love this thing. With the new Q990F announced, should we see if we can return and get a better price on our Q990D? Or return and see if the new one is worth the purchasing?

Yeah, we got the 990D for a huge discount, so not sure if it’s enough of an upgrade. I’m curious to see how much performance it will have over the 990D sub. Hopefully the new sub will be compatible with older models to allow for an upgrade.

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!

Literally. This led me to buy a Q990D after being unimpressed by the upgrade of the Arc Ultra to the Ultimate set. The Q990D in fairness is excellent but not as refined, and it completely missed any detail on the overall listening experience. Unlike TVs, I find their scores highly flawed and misleading.

I found the Q990D bar alone offered arguably better sound than the Ultra with the sub attached and no surrounds enabled. Higher atmos effects & louder, but a bit muddy compared to the separation of the Sonos. The Era 300 surrounds elevated the whole experience and the sub of the Sonos is more refined & controlled. I did enjoy the Samsung upscaling of stereo and lower media though. It’s not really night and day but the numbers in the context of actual experience feel arbitrary.

Q990D is good, but metrics aside, I personally found it less refined especially for Atmos. I feel like each channel is very forward and a bit shouty, and for that reason it may explain why Sonos suits others better. I found the Q990D fatiguing listening to multichannel and atmos and the audio felt very localised to each channel. Sure it gets loud but it doesn’t sound to me like it places and separates audio throughout the room like the Sonos. That being said centre channel and dialogue is better on Samsung, better than the Ultra. Despite that, overall I found the listening experience superior on Sonos and subsequently even better on the Sony Quad which also scores lower than Samsung but sounds exceptional.

I really appreciated the amount of customisation the Q990D had as opposed to Sonos and the simplicity of its room customisation. I think most people would probably get a sound they like best from the Q990D if willing to tinker. If I hadn’t landed on the Quad, the Q990D would’ve definitely stayed as I think for value and being very good / excellent in many areas, it’s the best proposition. I’m glad my Era 300s and sub could get used elsewhere but it was eye opening, especially comparing just the Arc Ultra soundbar price with the whole Q990D, that the Sonos is a bit of a rip off these days.

I have a q990d in the living room, which replaced my old 6.1 Bose speakers (not a typo, 6.1), it was significantly better, specifically for dialog. Then I bought a q600c for my bedroom, which was an huge upgrade on an old Samsung TV. I didn’t want the rear speakers, since I don’t have the space for them, and I wanted to be able to connect a player (for plex) directly to the bar and have atmos (the q600c has up firing speakers). Is it as good for atmos? No, but I think it is a good compromise for the $.

Just got my q990d yesterday and it’s a BEAST

I have an sony 77" a80l oled. Speakers were good enough that i ended up disconnecting my Samsung $150 soundbar - tv was just better. But ive now got q990d and love it, but was above your budget. My recommendation is save up for something quality

I have the Q990D and it's amazing!

I came from the Sonos Beam 2 and sub gen 3 to the 990D. I'd say the dialogue on the 990 is about the same if not a little bit better. I've never heard the mini sub in my listening room, but the sub gen 3 seems like it plays a bit deeper than the sub that came with the 990, I'm guessing the mini sub will be on par with the sub in the 990D system. But that Sonos app will never make be buy another Sonos product again:(

Buy the Q990D and give your significant other the boot. 🤣 Mine was reluctant to getting rear speakers, but I have been able to convince her 😂

Yeah, but it's nice to see some active members! Acutally, this was the decider for me towarfs the q990D. The 930 would have been enough, cause I have a small living room, but I needed the HDMI 2.1 for my xbox and PS.

I got my 990D for $900. Between amazon renewed, like mew and woot they can be had for wayyy cheaper

Yeah. The hdmi 2.1 thing is nice as a gamer. Honestly the thing is too powerful for my front room lol. I barely turn it up past 15

I have the s90c and Q990D soundbar. They poo sir very well. The 990d has some amazing volume. For my living room cutting it up to 14-15 on volume is loud and subwoofer performs well even on 0

Q990D, best for the $. It will blow you & your neighbors away. You wont need the TV speakers.

Q990D is best for the $$

In my case I wanted a 77" A95L. It was $1500 more than a 77" G4. So I got the G4, & had more than enough $ left over to buy a Q990D soundbar. The G4 turns out to be an awesome TV, & that soundbar is more than awesome! Esp when BOTH were less $ than the Sony by itself!!!

Q990D Best for the $!!! You're Welcome!!! Peace Out

Q990D. Period! You're Welcome

If you're looking to upgrade soundbars, e.g. one of the best on the market like HW-Q990D has hdmi in > and hdmi further out to the projector. This would be a smooth way to let the soundbar eat audio formats directly and just pass through video. eARC is supposed to be less finnicky than ARC, but I still find direct routes the most reliable. Of course, maybe you'll get it to work. Good luck, I bet you figure something solid out. 👍

Q990D, I have the A95L as well.

I 100% agree I got Q990D I do believe it’s doing better but the Jump from volume 9 to 10 is quite scary tbh

aaI have an Ambeo in one room and a Q990D in the other. 95 percent of the time I don't miss the rears because the Ambeo is so room filling. Just my oppinion, but I don't think we will ever see rears for the Ambeo. If you do decide to listen to music, I think the Ambeo is the best by far out of your suggestions.

cc@Samsung also has a bug where if you are listening to a playlist which has some atmos and some non-atmos songs, when an atmos song comes on, volume will drop by about 50 percent. Changing volumes all the time does drive me nuts. I am thinking of replacing it with a Ambeo plus, because I don't have rears in my second living room where I have an ambeo and don't miss the rears most of the time.

Stand alone Sennheiser Ambeo mini in the sun room and Q990D in the living room and both with a little EQ are quite good for music. At least to my ears and I am quite picky about sound.

Q990D all the way

Value wise Q990D will always better. Especially with that 120Hz passthrough. Would go very well with gaming

I have the same setup. You made tge right decision. I bough a high end lg bar and the Q990D. I thought the lg would be better because it was made to match the tv. After a week i swapped the soundbar and sub to the Q990D. Literally knewzwithin an hour that the lg bar was going back to the store. Theres no comparison.

Yeah, 9PM is quiet hours for me too. I’ll go crazy with the 990D before 9PM hits. None of my neighbors ever confront me, but I do hear them talking shit in the hallway. Just this past weekend I watched TENET (2020) on 4K Disc, and the bass was just excellent.

If you’re not a gamer, I’d recommend getting the Q99OC instead for half the price. It lacks HDMI 2.1 but it has the same guts as the Q990D; its last year’s best model. If you are a gamer, I still recommend the Q990D.

u/smajser I've been trying the q990D for the last few days as I'm deeply divided between keeping them or switching to the Sonos Arc Ultra + Sub + Era 300. I know. It's a lot more expensive. My main issue with the q990D is that I'm not impressed. The bass seems a bit muddy. The soundbar soundstage a bit limited and overall, not a lot of detail. Specially for music. In movies the Atmos feel is decent. I like the loads of options available, but my main priority is sound quality. I like a more detailed sound signature, with punchy bass. Decent soundstage. I know the q990D is great for the price, but if price is not an issue, is the sound quality of the Ultra + 300's noticeably bettter?

We bought the Q990D, mainly for TV/movies. But occasionally music and that sounds fine, especially from Apple Music. But if music is main then you will be better off buying a Sonos, where the movie experience is less. That is why we have a Q990D for TV/movies and a Harman Kardon bluetooth speaker for music.

Woot is owned by Amazon. I purchased my Q990D from there it was brand new in box and works perfectly fine.

Just bought the q990d and am using the "back" speakers as additional front speakers just need to adjust the setting in the app. I'm honestly stunned by the sound that comes out of that thing

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.