Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B flagship soundbar is the first ever to feature wireless Dolby Atmos. And it sounds awesome. If you are an audio lover, at the time when you had to spend thousands of dollars on a receiver.
Of course convince your contractor uncle to show you how to run wires through the wall ahead of time. Especially those with dedicated rear surround soundbar speakers.
Table of Contents
In particular, systems like Samsung’s flagship Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B sound extra and more like your traditional high. Home theater. First this 11.1.5-channel soundbar package is to feature wireless Dolby Atmos with Subwoofer. and have to stay all you need to set it up is four power outlets and a short HDMI cable.
In a few minutes, you’ll find yourself engulfed in pretty astonishing object-based sound. You can feel the dragons, alien ships, and helicopters flying overhead, bullets whizzing left and right, and even James Earl Jones’ baritone comes all over full and clear in the center channel. Unless you’re willing to spend much more time, it’s downright hard to get a system that sounds this good in most living rooms.
Features of Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B
While the inside of the black-on-black Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B features plenty of cool and exciting technology. The outside of the bar is very boring (and thus easy to hide under a TV screen).
The Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B is a long hexagon, with angled corners to bounce sound off the walls, and the rear locales are large, with angled tops to spray sound up and bounce it down as high point channels.
The included wireless Dolby atmos with subwoofer is the most gray of the bunch, a simple square that could easily be hidden in any corner of my studio.
Put the surrounds on stands. Plug them in along with the subwoofer. Plug the main bar into power, and also you into your TV or projector via the HDMI eARC port. it’s very simple.
Those with high-end systems, or those who are very picky about their interior design, may want to mount a main bar or surround. But this can easily be done with a few drywall anchors and a power drill (not included).
Audio Performance
I’ve heard very good center-channel soundbars before—Sennheiser’s heinously costly Ambeo comes to mind—however I’ve never heard a bar with such excellent surround speakers. The big two-way surrounds pump out more volume and better fealty than I’ve ever heard from a bar-plus-speakers setup before.
If head-turning tire squeals and whooshes behind your head. At one point while watching the modern Fletch movie, I swore that an actual fire alarm was going off behind me. Nope, just the movie.
The bar, subwoofer, and surrounds combine with Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B’s perfect digital signal processing to do everything from big boomy action movies to sultry vintage detective movies with theater-like ease. Bass is great, however not massive.
You come to have enough rumble from the included woofer to hear and feel each step of an evil monster in Stranger Things, yet not enough that apartment dwellers need fear retribution from their neighbors.
In Alexa and Apple Airplay 2 make streaming excellent easy, and you can pick between four different sound modes—sports, news, movie, and dialog—using the included remote (not that you’ll touch it much, thanks to the afforested eArc support making your TV remote take control).
Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B Music sounds lovely solid, too, with Bluetooth onboard for quick streaming from my android or smartphone. You can also stream via the Samsung Smartthings app.
If you have a high-end Samsung TV, the bar can connect to the TV’s built-in speakers to help create even better sound. I tested this with the Samsung QN900B, and I have to say it was pretty very good.
But to be honest, this soundbar system is generally pretty good. But it really delivers significantly better performance than those cheaper alternatives.
If you watch a ton of TV or movies at home and you want a home theater experience, a great soundbar like this can be a worthwhile splurge.
World-wide Price
Spending $1600-$1,700 on a soundbar—significantly more than I’d approve most folks spend on a current-generation TV. It might seem foolish. But then, think about the final time you bought a new pair of computer speakers to go with a new laptop.
You tend not to replace your audio gear as often, because they tend to last longer. In the home-theater world, better sound isn’t by any means a static enterprise, but it isn’t developing as fast as image processing and screen technology are.
If you get a soundbar that’s this high-end, with Dolby Atmos and all the latest processing that comes with it, I’d expect it to last through at least two TV generations. So if you expect your TV to last three to 5 years, a soundbar of this quality would last five to 10 years, which builds the price per year even by comparison.
Personally, I find extra-excellent audio brings me more deeply inside the action than a higher-end screen. It might sound like sacrilege coming from a TV and projector reviewer, but truly charming surround sound is one of the few things that most theaters do significantly better than we do at home.
Whenever you bridge the gap with a better audio system, it really does a lot to bring you back to that movie theater headspace. After all, a notable part of most movies and TV shows is the sound. You have probably seen most shows in full resolution on a pretty decent quality screen.
Even if you have only seen them on a cell phone, but have you heard them with full quality sound, through best speakers or nice headphones? Maybe not.
FAQ
Why buy the Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B?
Buy the Samsung Soundbar HW-Q990B because it is a high-quality soundbar for you and you will enjoy it.
I am provides technical reviews, Windows, Android apps, GSM Tools, software, screenshot tips and social media details and how-to guides. Also, concurrently, try to enhance your skills by solving various technical problems.