u/valentinuveges

dimensions: 4.89 x 3.61 x 2.68 (length x width x height)
this is a small room with the speakers firing down the width of the room
on the back wall i have a curtain covering the windows and a door which leads to a balcony
on the right of the room there is a set of stairs leading into the attic
on the front right is the door which leads to a hallway
the room has a two person couch, a foot rest that doubles as a coffee table, a tv console with a wall mounted tv, a rug, a desk with a gaming pc on the left wall and a small bookshelf under the stairs on the right.

Placement:

LRC are on the front wall,
- the center is on the mid point of the wall
- the left an right speakers are place at ~1/3 of the wall
- the right speaker is right next to the door opening
Surrounds are in the back left and right corners
Subwoofer1: is is placed on the front wall at 1/4 from the left
Subwoofer2: is placed on the right wall at 1/3 from the back
Subwoofer3: is placed in the back right corner

Personal Notes:

The biggest improvement is to the kick drum. It feels impactful and quick.
Because the decay time is low, the bass needs a lot of extra boost. I am using a Harman +8db house curve to compensate for it. I also enjoy listening to bass heavy music.
The tactile response is improved. I think this is the result a low decay time combined with the bass boost of the house curve.
Bass is not fatiguing anymore.

No AI was used to create this post.

I have this soundbar for more than a year, and trying to use it at it's full potential proved very difficult, even impossible at times. Here are my findings during my time fiddling with it.

I have bought this soundbar because of the dolby atmos and dts:x 3d audio position inside a virtual dome of sound which I intend to use wile gaming.

The soundbar is advertised as a 11.1.4 surround which is true that it has a total of 16 speakers but:

The actual sound bed is 7.1.4 and through smasungs own proprietary sound modes (surround, game and adaptive) the should will me upmixed to 11.1.4
- Dolby atmos which is mixed for 11.1.4 will be downmixed to 7.1.4 and then upmixed by samsung to 11.1.4
The side surrounds are mapped to the side firing speakers in the soundbar itself
- This is the biggest failure in terms of audio positioning
  - When downmixing 7.1 to 5.1 the side and rear surrounds are collapsed into the rear surrounds which are located at the back of the listening room.
  - Having the side surrounds originating from the front of the listening room breaks the intended audio positioning of the sound object in the 3d space

It is full of gimmicks:

SpaceFit Sound Pro: this should adapt the sound to the room, but no one knows how this works.
- There are systems to do room eq using a provided microphone where you place the mic at the listening position and run the calibration software. This works and it is measurable, but samsungs version does not make sense from a physics point of view.
Q-symphony: this allows you to use the tv speakers together with the soundbar for a more immersive listening experience
- This also breaks the intend audio positioning of the sound object in 3d space because sound that should be routed only through the rear speakers is now played from the tv as well.
Virtual speakers and up firing speakers
- They do not work.
  - It sounds different enough so that you can trick yourself into associating sound cues from these speaker to their virtual position, but there is no escaping the fact that sounds radiates, reflects and scatters in relation to it's source and surrounding objects.
  - This actually does more harm than good because by having speakers pointed at the walls, they will interfere with the direct sound making it sound muddy and distorted
  - Having more speakers aimed at the listening position is good, having more speakers aimed at the walls is bad.

Sound modes:

There are 4 sound modes: standard, surround, game and adaptive
- Their role is to take the input source which can be 2.0, 5.1, 7.1, atmos or dts and upmix it to 11.1.4
  - The upmixing is dependent on the source and it can result in making the sound too loud for the rears (5.1 source with game preset)
  - Adjusting the sound levels in the mobile app, in order to volume match the speakers, is futile because the combination of sound source and sound mode will result in different sound volumes between the speakers.
- If you have a Samsung tv, whenever the tv goes into game mode it will switch the soundbar to game mode too.
  - This cannot be disabled, and while there are workarounds none of them are practical or user friendly
  - This is a weird case where you have a worse experience if you have 2 devices from the same manufacturer.

In conclusion:

As a true 5.1 system is where it sounds best, everything which is put on top of it only makes it worse.

I am really impressed with Dirac ART on a Denon x3800h with a multi subwoofer setup

Long term review of Samsung soundbar q990d for gaming