Review – Samsung HW-Q950T 9.1.4 Soundbar
When we had our hands-on experience with the Samsung HW-Q800T soundbar, some of you asked if there’s any chance we would be reviewing the HW-Q950T. Guess what? Today what we have in our studio is the 75-inch Q950TS and the HW-Q950T soundbar. In this review we shall be focusing more on the soundbar itself, do check out our separate review for the TV if you’re interested.
Premium Unboxing and Build Quality
I don’t know if you guys actually care about this, but I personally don’t really like those L-shaped soundbar packaging. They are difficult to handle and just too troublesome to unbox. The HW-950T’s box is a standard rectangular box which makes things a lot easier. However, I can sort of understand why some users don’t care because usually the electrical shop delivery staff will assist in the unboxing and setting up.
Leaving the box aside, I am very impressed with the overall build quality of the soundbar, subwoofer and the satellite units. The soundbar particularly has a premium finishing which it utilises the Kvadrat fabric for the front and top cover. That makes the soundbar stand out from the rest of its competition. The soundbar can be either mounted to the wall via the included mount or just simply put it in front of the TV.
The subwoofer is connected to the soundbar wirelessly. That means you can place the soundbar in your living room or home theatre wherever you want and don’t have to worry about dragging a cable across the lounge. You just have to plug in the socket and it should pair with the soundbar without any hassle.
Same goes to the two rear channel satellites which are also connected wirelessly. You will, however, need to look for ways to mount the rear channel speakers as the package does not come with any of the mounting tools.
True 9.1.4 Surround Sound Experience & Q-Symphony
Connecting it via HDMI eARC to the Q950TS 8K QLED TV is fairly straight forward and within seconds you’re ready to rock. Even if you don’t have any surround supported contents, the TV and the soundbar would be working together to provide a simulated surround sound experience especially when you actually have physical speakers placed in your room.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any Bluray player available to playback contents with 7.1ch sound however, we believe the 5.1ch is the most common nowadays so Netflix is a great platform to test it out. We hosted a movie night and the experience is simply amazing. Q-Symphony combines both soundbar speakers and the TV’s top speaker to improve the overall surround sound experience. The top front channels are now sounding more prominent compared to depending on the bounce method.
Final Words
If you’re currently eyeing on the HW-Q900T soundbar, I would strongly suggest you give the HW-Q950T soundbar a look. You see, the Q900T is pretty much the same soundbar except that the cheaper Q900T doesn’t come with the rear channel satellites. The price difference is RM4,999 versus the RM6,499. At RM1,500 difference, I believe it is best to go that extra step and get the Q950T set and experience a complete surround sound experience.
