Samsung |HW-Q600A | 3.1.2ch | Soundbar | w/Dolby Atmos/DTS:X | 2021

The media could not be loaded. It's good enough to be top-rated by Consumer Reports, in my opinion. I'll give some tips on why or why not to get it, and what it is:* I wouldn't get it if your TV doesn't have HDMI eARC capability. If your TV only does HDMI ARC, I'd save a fair bit and get an ARC (not eARC) soundbar.* If you're going to also stream music to this soundbar from your phone, iPad or other device, this is a good choice. Very fast & easy Bluetooth pairing.* If you will stream music directly from your router (Wi-Fi), you're in business because it does that too.* If you want an included Bluetooth subwoofer of excellent quality, it's a good choice. Of course, at this price you will be using a subwoofer, I expect. You'll like the subwoofer.* Operating power consumption is 28W, whereas regular speakers on average use 100W. The soundbar and the subwoofer each draws .5W in standby mode. But use a high quality surge protector with it, because it doesn't have a surge protector built-in. I know this from calling to check since the manual didn't mention it.* If you prefer traditional surround sound, consider that this unit uses Dolby Atmos (or you can use DTS:X). Which one is preferable probably depends more on the room than anything. Dolby Atmos is right for me which is one reason I selected this Q-series soundbar.* This soundbar features 4K Pass-through and HDR.* Handles Alexa voice which may come in handy depending on how you roll and your views on privacy.* Remote control, included, is quite intuitive as expected of Samsung, one of the major brands for soundbars.* If you're going to mount this soundbar, be aware that the brackets are designed such that they're 24" apart. Believe me, this is a heavy soundbar, something I would not personally mount on drywall with mere anchors, but that's me - I don't like creating large holes in the drywall to accommodate anchors; I want to secure something with weight to studs to be more secure. Because the studs in my wall are 16" apart, I'm going to buy brackets separately and use wood screws to put them into the studs. And I'm going to use nano tape to make sure the soundbar is truly secure on the brackets I'll select. At any rate, Samsung doesn't provide screws for the wall. The only screws they provide is for affixing the brackets they include to the soundbar. See my photos to know exactly what I'm talking about.* This is an appropriate soundbar if your TV processes Dolby Digital Plus, but not if your TV only processes Dolby Digital. You want to be able to get Dolby Atmos which isn't possible if your TV doesn't use Dolby Digital Plus.* You can later add 2 back speakers that will connect with Bluetooth to this soundbar. Samsung sells those, of course. I called Samsung to ask about how this soundbar decodes sound for the back speakers, and the guy I spoke with had to get with his manager who concluded I would need to call their expert on this. I was provided the number to call the expert which I will probably get around to in a couple months.* The soundbar itself has 8 speakers. It uses a lot of technology to make extremely sophisticated sound that justifies the price. I'm delighted with it.

I've been waiting for the release of the Klipsch 1200 for some time. This week Amazon had what appeared to be a one day killer promotion (1k even) which lured me into trying this.This soundbar is intended to replace a Monitor Audio RX Silver 3 channel setup. And I have 4 MA RX/FX surrounds in the box because my current living room layout does not lend itself to setting up those fairly large surrounds. I was quite skeptical about buying any soundbar, thinking that despite the Atmos effects, the presence and ability to fill a large room with 20' ceilings would disappoint. Last Black Friday I bought a Klipsch 600 on sale for another much smaller room, and later added real surrounds, and while it is OK for that space, I wouldn't consider it for my large LR, so I still had uncertainty about how well a soundbar would work in the large space. (After experiencing how good this sounds, it has lowered my opinion of my Klipsch soundbar since, even with the added Klipsch rears, it pales in comparison to the rich spacious sound that this Samsung produces. I know they are at different price points, but the difference is enough to make me consider replacing them already.)The bottom line is that once I figured out how to Auto EQ the soundbar, I can't begin to express how much the sound fills the room. The sound quality and detail is for me very impressive, and I think you have to be a hardcore audiophile to be disappointed in some meaningful way with this system. I spent thousands on that MA system and feel that at a fraction of that price the audio experience is topped by this. I used to have an SVS sub but got rid of it due to its ridiculously large size and had been using a much smaller ML 700, which was good enough. I would say that by comparison the sub provided and the low frequency performance is even better than what I'd been using, and I like the fact that it has a tall, space-saving form factor. Within days the Klipsch was finally released. I liked the fact that it allows for a second sub, which this Samsung does not. Note I have a much larger LR than most reading this review, 20x20x20, and open on two sides to other rooms, but honestly I am not sure I really need that larger Klipsch 12" sub paired with a second sub. I was debating if I should buy it and try it, but I like the narrow Samsung sub and the integration of features with a Samsung TV. And I should mention that this system is an 11.1.4 system vs the Klipsch 5.1.4. I suspect that is a big reason why it sounds so rich, so I'm not too likely to bother with the 1200s. Just look at the pictures on both websites--I don't know how 5 speakers can compete with 11 (of comparable quality of course) for a surround system.With that said, I have several criticisms of this.1) Go to the Samsung website and download the full manual. The paper mini-manual is not enough to understand all the functions and proper setup/calibration. Navigating through the configuration setup was completely un-intuitive without the benefit of the detailed steps in the full manual.2) Display on top is a disadvantage while you are in tinkering and set up mode. Even afterwards, if say you want to adjust the subwoofer volume, you won't know what level you are going from/to unless you open your Smartthings app. Of course if you're not tinkering with settings it doesn't matter.3) I had an extremely frustrating weekend setting this up in Smartthings. It would go offline, and I tried numerous things like unplugging and removing. I couldn't get it registered within the app for days until the one time I disabled WPA3 and all the advanced security features on my Eero 6 routers and unplugged it. However, once registered, after re-enabling all those and unplugging one more time, it seems to be working and compatible with WPA3. It seems flaky on setup, so I'm offering this experience as something to consider if you have issues with WiFi or registering in the app. The other thing I seemed to notice is that within my Samsung TV, if I switched input from the Q950 ARC to Q950 Wifi, that seemed to go badly. With an HDMI cable, I don't see a need for now to try it again.4) Honestly, the big disappointment for me is not really getting a sense of anything flying directly overhead. I'm guessing it is due to the 20' ceilings, and/or inability of the calibration to compensate, and the limitations of the room configuration/speaker layout. However, I do experience some sensation of height, and a satisfying sense of sound from all other directions. I have a 2018 Samsung TV, so I don't have the ability to use the SpaceFit feature, so I suspect that upgrading my TV would improve the height sensation. According to the manual, the AutoEQ feature merely calibrates the sub for the low end frequencies, and from my limited experience using the system without it, it made a huge difference in filling the room even before I got the rears working. I suspect that reviewers complaining about the lack of bass may not have AutoEQ'd their system, which is another reason to read the full manual.5) A big part of my initial problems too was that the surround speakers were producing no sound at all, despite being confirmed paired (by the blue lights). I read on some forum someone mentioning enabling bass enhancement in the app would create this problem. I don't recall if disabling that did resolve the problem, but in the process of troubleshooting with known sources of Atmos enabled video content, once I started testing youtube Atmos test videos, the surrounds finally started working and have worked since. It's completely baffling what made this start working, but now that I'm past that, I'm happy. Hopefully issues like this do not randomly occur over time, as I've only owned these for less than a week now.6) Maybe on select vocal tracks where the dialog is very prominent, this seems to sound thinner than what my center MA speaker produces, even with AVA on. Maybe it's my imagination. But I don't consider this a valid reason to hang on to the MAs given everything else I'm benefiting from.Samsung support was very responsive. I contacted from within the app and exchanged emails, but none of that really helped to resolve any of my issues.Lastly I will say that I enjoy listening to music (and video) in surround mode. If you're old enough to appreciate The Beatles, try the Atmos mix of Abbey Road available on Apple Music (and maybe elsewhere), which sounds amazing. I'm not sure why people might prefer listening to music in stereo mode with this system, except that it might be more accurate if that is how the source material was designed. I'm not bothering to change modes from surround. Curiously, rtings didn't evaluate this system in surround mode and hence didn't utilize all the speakers.