SAMSUNG HW-Q950T 9.1.4ch Soundbar with Dolby Atmos/ DTS:X and Alexa Built-in (2020), Black

Since Samsung debuted HW-K950 (5.1.4) .. I have been trying every Samsung high end soundbar introduced to the market.The first soundbar HW-K950 (5.1.4) was done with perfection. It just had some issues like subwoofer blending and over powering the soundbar sound. Subwoofer had 6inch driver. Won't go deep either.Later models which are 7.1.4 are miss and hit and found them to be not so great. They were great with Atmos but when regular 5.1 DD rear surrounds do nothing. This was a big drawback. Majority of streaming services movies and shows use 5.1 DD.Finally again Samsung made the great soundbar. Q950T decodes 5.1 sourround and Atmos correctly. It performed correctly with test tones 5.1.4 , 9.1.6. When I tested , the sound was coming from exact speaker where it is supposed to.Over all immersion is really awesome. This soundbar sounds way better than my existing setup when it comes to channel to channel sound sweeps and swirls.Retiring my current setup of Denon4400h and Pioneer elite Atmos speakers (5.1.4) , SVS PB12-NSD setup.Very happy how this sounbar how it sounds and performs.

I spent 2 months researching and decoding to go with the q950-t. It was so worth it. The atmos is amazing. The Bluetooth connection was instant. It happened so fast, I thought I had more steps to do. The app control is so easy. The bass is smooth and clear. The focus is clearly on sound quality and not overpowered bass. Im glad I did the research and found these instead of just buying a cheaper one. My kids love them. The PS5 games even have atmos. Call of duty sounds like a real war zone in my living room. Wife isn't too happy about that, but the kids can't stop smiling. We work it out so the hardcore gaming goes on when she's at work, lol. The Alexa is more sensitive than the echo dots which is great. When I ask to turn the lights on and off, it hears me from across the house.

This review is for the SAMSUNG HW-Q950T (soundbar, rear surrounds, subwoofer combo).It took some tweaking to get my Vizio cinema TV to properly connect to the eARC with bitstream uncompressed audio. Once that worked, the sound was excellent in all formats. But it took a lot of changing HDMI cables, changing the settings on the TV for both 4K video and audio formats, etc... I would expect that if you have a Samsung TV, perhaps this is more plug and play. I worry that if I get this for my OLED LG, Samsung will have actively made it hard for this to work (or vice versa) properly.Pros: just read the positive reviews on sound quality, immersion with up-firing surrounds, etc... that's my experience.Cons: a lot of tweaking the settings, a lot. On both the TV, and the soundbar (volume and gain of each speaker set - center, left, right, surrounds, same on the subwoofer)Also, sometimes we turn on the TV, and there's no signal whatsoever. We think that the signal from the video source (Roku Premier) going to the soundbar, and then to the TV (that's right, you need TWO HDMI cables if you are using anything other than the TV for whatever you are watching) results in just enough of a low-power signal that the feed sometimes doesn't signal to the TV that something is coming in. Solution has been to turn the soundbar off, then on (with the remote), and after a few seconds the signal goes through to the TV and you are in business. This doesn't happen all the time, but frequently enough that it is a bit annoying.Last con - sometimes one of the wireless speakers will not connect. We've started watching a show more than once, and noticed something odd with the sound only to find out the surrounds (one or both) were showing a red light in the back (which means it is not connected). Solution is easy, but annoying - you unplug the power cable, plug it back in, and the speaker will reconnect back to a blue light. This happens with the subwoofer sometimes as well. Same solution, unplug the subwoofer, plug it back in, wait for blue light, and you are set.Overall, the cons aren't enough to give this less than 4 stars - this is what happens with wireless technology, it won't be perfect all the time. And anyone that wants plug-and-play perfection for connecting new technology to older technology (like my Vizio), not to mention different manufacturers, is living a charmed life if they don't have to do some tweaking of settings.That being said, for $1200 for this unit, it should have an on-screen display when I am messing with the settings, not a tiny scrolling LED matrix on the soundbar itself that feels like 1980s technology. It cycles through settings, and if you cycled past the one you want, you have to go back through the entire cycle again until you get back to the one you wanted. I should be able to put music or a movie on, then use an on-screen settings menu to shift from speaker to speaker as I set up the sound exactly the way I want in my livingroom. Here, you go to "center" tweak tweak tweak, then if you want to jump to another speaker set, you have to cycle through to the one you wanted to tweak next. And if the speaker set you wanted to tweak was BEFORE the one you are on, you have to cycle through some half dozen items you aren't looking for until you come back around to the one you were looking for. Super annoying.If you are looking for a soundbar system that you can set sound profiles on easily for different things (e.g. video games, spotify music, movies, sports), I don't think this is what you want. This technology is not quite there. Instead, go get a receiver, get component speakers, run some wires, and you'll have all the customization you want exactly dialed in as you want it.

Great sound and value, considering you get a sound bar, 2 satellite speakers, and an 8” sub. Soundstage is impressive once you do all the careful listening and tweaking. The only big area of improvement, as others have mentioned, would be to put the display facing forward, rather than on top of the soundbar, which requires you to stand in front of it, looking down, while scrolling through the menu and making adjustments.The seller went above and beyond to make things right after FedEx failed to make the original delivery, despite several calls made to FedEx customer support (a replacement was sent, with genuine empathy, and shipping was expedited at no additional cost). Abbey at Video & Audio Center in CA handled the whole situation like a pro, and truly cares about her customers. Highly recommend this vendor. Thank you Abbey!!

I have a Samsung 75" 4K TV and had some issues with my old Boston Acoustics soundbar. I wanted to have the same brand soundbar to minimize any issues.I did a lot of research and settled on this model. Unfortunately, I live in Panama, and can't get this model here.My research indicated that this soundbar was what I wanted, however - particularly the adaptive sound - so I decided that I was willing to pay the extra shipping from the US and customs fees ($$$$).It was worth every penny - the soundbar and rear speakers are spectacular. The depth and range are amazing.Highly recommended!