Customer Ratings & Reviews

The sound on this is outstanding! I will say you need to have a compatible TV also otherwise you lose the true capability of the unit. It is engineered for QLED TVs no doubt about it. It can certainly be used on any other TV but, the two together brought out amazing sound. As others have stated this is a very easy setup but just be sure you have outlets for the two rear wireless speakers. This unit collectively is quite heavy so you may want to have some help getting it home. This is well built and very sturdy. The price may hold some back initially but it's a good investment for those who are serious about having as close to actual theater sound as possible. I still have to give it 5 stars due to the high quality of both the unit itself and the immersive experience you get when you listen to something in true Dolby Atmos. Hearing the sounds above you and surrounding you was really something to experience. This is just one of those purchases where you just have to go for it and enjoy it!

Preface – For soundbar reviews that are Atmos branded, I primarily use the following source material to evaluate 7.1 channel control, general object-oriented sound positioning, dynamic fidelity and Atmos dialog performance: Dolby Laboratories own September 2015, Blu-ray demonstration disc Game of Thrones, season seven Blu-ray disc Justice League 4k Blu-ray disc Dialog presentation is a super critical area of soundbar performance and an often overlooked (untested?) area. It is my professional opinion that any soundbars that don’t deliver proper positioning & balance to the other facets of the soundscape are systems that aren’t truly worth their high dollar price tags. In the +1000-dollar category, it simply makes far more sense to stick with a true AV receiver system that employs all the dedicated speakers unless you can find a soundbar that is designed & tuned to perform the same vital functions. There are only a few companies that have come close to achieving this… with Samsung being one. Presentation - The Samsung Q90R soundbar comes well packaged with clear instructions – for basic setup – and it is keenly organized in the relatively smallish packaging considering the aggregate weight of all the components. The remote control, like so many of its competitors, is not backlit – but to be quite honest, I like the ergonomics Samsung has designed into their remote – so I can forgive the lack of any backlighting. The sub is substantial and solidly constructed, with a rectangular footprint that should make it easy to tuck behind furniture. The real value in this package is the inclusion of up-firing drivers in the rear surrounds. And these rear surrounds are the closest thing you can get to truly wireless surrounds – with no speaker wires between the sub and the satellites. All you have is the power cords to each individual speaker. I personally like this design aspect. Samsung wisely designed their matrix ‘status’ display to be verbose & informative AND enabling it to automatically turn completely OFF after several seconds. In other words, this soundbar goes blacked out, monolith mode once you’ve put down the remote. Initial Setup - Setup was simple & straightforward but not issue free. For one, the SmartThings mobile app is OK but has pitfalls in the way it was designed. Once you’ve set up the system the 1st time, any attempt to connect to a different wireless network requires a full-on, hard resetting of the device. The option in the app to modify the wireless settings is grayed out. I ventured over to the Samsung SmartThings and AV forums and was met with an abundance of unhelpful chatter. Nowhere in the user manual or online is one able to find clear instructions on Wi-Fi login in procedures. I’m assigning an immediate single star demerit for this glaring oversight. Why have the option in the mobile app if it’s not going to be enabled? And why should a hard reset be required to simply change Wi-Fi login settings? I attribute this situation to the flawed thinking of the Internet of Things and app developer’s disregard for ‘ease of use’ and a simplified user experience. Pairing between the main soundbar, the subwoofer and the satellites is all automatic – straight out of the box. But problems with synchronization losses can & will ensue – and are widely reported on the internet forums and on the review pages of the Samsung product page. More on that later… Performance - Upon setting this system up with my Xbox One & my 4k Blu-ray player, I recognized that Samsung dedicated the resources to getting dialog decoding properly setup on this flagship model. Using my reference discs, I immediately went right into all the battle scenes in ‘Game of Thrones’ season 7. Dialog during these Atmos(pheric) soundscapes is a tough act for many competitors to manage. When Daenerys is riding bareback on the dragon and commands it to breath fire down on the vulnerable army of warriors, you should be able to clearly hear her utter those words. ‘Dracarys’ You should also be able to perceive distance and position between the screams, the shouts and the spurious dialog between actors… with consistent clarity, no matter the positioning. You’ll recognize a poor design straight away as you hear dramatic musical content, roaring car engines and loud explosions swamp over voices, making them incomprehensible. It’s a great test method – and GOT discs help reveal deficiencies with skill & precision. This sound bar handles dialog perfectly. Next up, I always defer to the engineers over at Dolby Laboratories. Their demo discs can offer an abundance of insight on just how well (…or not) an AV equipment manufacturer has followed the ‘rules’ in constructing their DSP hardware & software. You can start by using the channel tests available on their demo discs. I always grab a seat on the couch and run through the 7.1 and 9.1 speaker tests. Even though this system is NOT a 9.1 system, you should still be able to perceive the relative locations of the side- speakers in a phantom way. I was amazed just how well the Samsung Q90R positioned these phantom channels with balance & precision. Just try that test on many of the other competing products! The last bits of testing I do with the Dolby demo disc includes playing the various music samples, movie clips and Dolby animation shorts. On the Samsung Q90R, everything is presented with a near ‘theater like’ character. It honestly left me breathless the first day I ran through all these demos. Samsung should be commended for paying such close attention to the Dolby specifications. Finally, I always run through a series of super hero movies – including ‘Justice League’. At this point I still pay close attention to dialog presentation, but I also take note of sound movement, bass articulation (punch) and overall tonal balance. Again, this soundbar is truly amazing. Having owned & demo’d quite a few different soundbars over the past several years – and some are indeed good – none even come close to the staging, the impact and the dialog performance of the Q90R. I spent a good amount of time also using Rhapsody, Bluetooth direct streaming and watching downloaded music video content – and this sound bar does a really great job of punching out music, while at the same time providing great fidelity across ALL music genres and sources. And it does this in Standard mode. This soundbar doesn’t have a ‘Music’ setting and I was a bit disappointed when I first read that in the manual, but from what I can see (…and hear) now – it really doesn’t need it. I’ll now cover syncing issues and audio drops – as it is a commonly reported set of issues on the internet. With a little bit of digging, anyone can find Samsung’s explanation that this system uses 5 GHz wireless bands to link up the pieces. And because of this, Wi-Fi interference problems are pretty much unavoidable. On a few occasions, I noticed that the subwoofer & rear speakers wouldn’t turn off. The subwoofer power LED remained blue and the rear speakers flashed blue. I also experienced subwoofer & independent rear channel disconnects in the middle of movies and it turned into a completely frustrating experience. For the first week or so I had to resort to unplugging the subwoofer from the wall to get the system back up and running. But once I took a closer look at it, I repositioned my router & access points to the best of my ability and also stopped using Wi-Fi on my Blu-ray player, FireTV & Xbox One and my experience dramatically improved. This isn’t to say that Samsung doesn’t have linking issues – but having too many Wi-Fi connected devices in close proximity to the sound bar and/or in the line-of-sight paths on the sound bar mesh is an area where owners can somethings help things. So, before anyone throws in the towel, or rushes to return the gear out of frustration– take a closer look at your wireless environment and see if there are some adjustments you can make first. It’s worth the effort. As a side note, I noticed things that having a smart phone near one of the rear speakers with Wi-Fi being active or a family member using a laptop computer on the couch, in the middle of the sound bar’s wireless path, causes the sub & rear channels to drop. Everyone’s Wi-Fi environment is different. I don’t completely fault Samsung on these issues. There are too many variables involved. No demerit for this wireless performance – because sound bars are inherently prone to these issues. I also noticed that the firmware version on the product support page doesn’t remotely match the firmware version reported by the SmartThings app. Another demerit. Summary - This sound bar system is truly amazing. Atmos dialog is clear and properly placed. Overall sound staging is near ‘theater quality’ and the subwoofer/rear speaker sound-field contributions are THE best I’ve experienced. From movies, to music – starting with stereo sources and all the way up to 7.1.4 Dolby & DTS sound tracks – this system has one of the best – if not THE best – DSP designs currently available. Build quality of this system is apparent from the moment you unbox everything. The remote is one of the best designs out there – lack of backlighting notwithstanding. There are issues with wireless interoperability and firmware confusion, but those issues can be addressed, and they aren’t things that would prevent me from recommending this system. Pros: Stellar DSP performance – for all source material. Switchable EQ; you can choose tone control or multiband equalizer (in the app) Solid build quality. An ergonomically superior remote; intuitive to use. A status display that actually goes completely dark when not needed. Plenty of power to fill even a very large Great Room. Relatively easy to set up… Cons: … goofy SmartThings app. Firmware versions are confusing and the update process unclear. Subwoofer and rear speaker disconnection issues.

The only good thing was delivery packaging. I have HW- J7500R/ZA it so good clear voice everything is cool even the price was fair. But this one quite expensive and bad stuff I don't recommend anyone.

Bass made a popping, distorted noise. The rears never seemed to work properly too. Best Buy was great with the return. Bought an LG SN11RG. Am very happy with the new sound system.

Wasn’t working properly had to return it. Exchanged for the new model but not satisfied Is not made by Herman kardom.

Purchased Feb 2020 and subwoofer is already damaged. Samsung won't warranty the issue. $1,400.00 down the drain.

I've had this a couple of weeks now. Although the packaging was severely beaten up the contents were well protected and in pristine condition. The setup was quick and easy. I couldn't be sure that Dolby Atmos would come through from my cable company signal or streaming sources so I bought a couple of Blu Ray disks. The surround effects are amazing compared to my 5.1 system. While this is the best soundbar I have ever listened to, it doesn't fill my large den with the mids and lows the way that my full sized speakers and sub do. Streaming music through the system is great too. This soundbar has amazingly crisp and clear highs. I did find that with some sound sources the high end seemed a bit out of proportion to the mids and lows even after adjusting the treble downward but for most sources it seemed well balanced. Even though this is probably not the best system for a large room like mine, it is a great way to have the Dolby Atmos effects without having to install speakers in my 16 ft ceiling.

Crapped out on me early on, so, went right back. Went with the Nakamichi 9.2.4 and couldn’t be happier.

This Samsung system has really enhanced our movie-watching experience at home. It matched up seamlessly with our Samsung QLED TC, and out Samsung SmartThings app found it with no problem. I love that the subwoofer and rear speakers are wireless. While they of course need to be plugged in to power, there are no audio wires needed. The woofer is very large, so it was a challenge for us to place it. The sound bar itself is also very large, and we had some trouble setting it in form of our QLED TV because of the way Samsung built the TV stand. The sound experience varies greatly with the source and age of the movie. Some of the more recent action movies have a lot of bass, so we were having to drop the woofer level down to minimum using the SmartThings app and the sound system's remote. Even then, the bass was extreme. There is no bass level dial on the subwoofer itself, which would have been very helpful. The biggest challenge we have had is with the mid-range, right where dialogue happens. For nearly every movie, the dialogue is hollow and shallow, easily overwhelmed by the music and sound effects. We find that we have to use closed captioning quite a but to avoid missing dialogue. To make it even more challenging, it seems that we have to spend a good bit of time for EVERY movie playing with the settings to make the dialogue more clear. So, this is not a set it and forget it system. The sound settings need to be adjusted depending on the movie and the platform (hulu vs netflix, vs DVD, etc.). Would be great if the system could intelligently detect the source's balance and adjust accordingly. We have a Denon sound bar that seems to give a more consistent listening experience. Overall this is a good sound system but it is really hurt by the hollow/shallow mids. We have spent a lot of time trying to bring out the dialogue with only nominal success. Treble and bass are robust, but it can be a struggle to catch the words.

The sound is only a little better than stereo. Oh well.

Let me begin by telling you that I have been able over the years to put together a pretty nice home theater in my living room. I have a premium brand OLED, an elite series AV Receiver and a leading manufacturer's speakers all assembled to deliver the best surround sound I could afford. Furthermore, all of this has to look and sound good in a room with a vaulted ceiling and an open space instead of a wall on one side! Wiring this up has been a challenge and each upgrade has resulted in significant time dealing with a spaghetti nest of wiring. While I intuitively knew that a soundbar would be a much more elegant solution for me I wasn't willing to sacrifice quality surround sound and needed support for both ATMOS and DTS:X formats. I have auditioned other soundbars and while they sounded good, none met my dream requirements. Until now...….. This solution will rock your world! It is solid and heavy and just defines quality. The soundbar itself contains multiple speakers - front firing, side firing and even up-firing! The unit easily and consistently connects wirelessly to both the subwoofer and the two rear speakers (that each include their own up-firing speaker as well). That's right - 7.4.1! I have fed this beast every form of content I have - from streaming YouTube content to Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, Dolby ATMOS and DTS:X. Everything has worked. The imaging is amazing. It even sounds good with my vaulted ceiling and missing wall! Don't ask me how - it just works. Oh, and by the way, I was easily able to stream to it via Bluetooth from my phone and that sounded amazing as well. Listen, I know many of you will scoff at this review but I have moved almost everything off my dedicated AV receiver to this Samsung/Harman Kardon HW-Q90R and I am not looking back. Just do yourself a favor and give this thing a listen. It's not the cheapest solution out there but it is VERY good and you need to consider it if you are tired of fighting wiring and/or have less than the perfect space to build your home theater. 5 stars and more.....

This product has a very nice bass,treble, and over all strong sound to it. Great for a home entertainment center. While watching movie in surround sound it really makes you feel like you’re in the movie. Very easy to set up, good directions. Love it!!

PREFACE: I’ve been hooking up home theater systems for myself and friends for 17-18 years, so I’m not a novice when it comes to components, connections, and deciding the best way to connect those components to create an integrated system that does what is intended. I also understand the advantages & limitations of having a sound bar-based home theater system versus a receiver / speaker setup. SUMMARY: This product is below my expectations. I think it needs work (or a major firmware update). This product is wonderful for movies and gaming; the best sound I’ve experienced in a home theater system. But I listen to music as well. The surround speakers on this product unfortunately do not act as loudspeakers. This is a HUGE inexcusable miss. It’s lack of enough flexibility does not justify its price. SPECIFICS: I use the HW-Q90R in my Living Room with a 2019-model RU8000 series 55” Samsung 4K television with HDR. I utilize all four HDMI’s on the television…HDMI1 for the cable box, HDMI2 for my Apple TV, HDMI3 for my XBOX ONE S, and HDMI4 (ARC) to the sound bar. I utilize two of three HDMIs on the sound bar; one for the ARC to the television, and the other for my DVD / Blue Ray player. Whether gaming or watching a movie, this product will provide a first-class theater-style experience. The subwoofer provides deep bass, and sound that envelopes your entire sitting area, with no speaker calibration. The movie “Gone In 60 Seconds” (Nicholas Cage, not Steve McQueen) is my litmus test for home theater, because I can judge the midrange and high range of the speakers (talking; fighting), as well as the subwoofer performance at the low range frequencies (Ferrari engines revving). It was phenomenal. The same is true for gaming; I tested it with Forza 6 and Red Dead Redemption. I didn’t notice any distortion at all. My issue lies with watching regular television, and especially music. I’m extremely disappointed in this product. I listen to a lot of music…using an iDevice linked to the soundbar via Bluetooth, the SiriusXM app on my Apple TV, as well as streaming my music library from my Mac to my home theater system via my Apple TV. The surround sound speakers cannot be used (no setting) as ‘regular’ speakers for listening to TV, satellite radio, Bluetooth streaming, or streaming music via Apple TV. There are many systems on the market that allow use of surround sound speakers for 5.1 or 7.1 channel output for non-movie media sources. My Living Room is rectangular, with the home theater system at one end, and my balcony at the other. Since I can’t use the surround sound speakers as loudspeakers, in order to hear television or music on the balcony, the theater system volume has to be at annoying levels. Depending on what components you are hooking up, what connections are available on them, and their age, there are so many different ways to hook a system up. I tried all or most of them. I tried an HDMI switch into the TV and into the soundbar. I tried an HDMI splitter, with the video into the TV and the audio into the soundbar via optical connection. What did work, you ask? Plugging my Apple TV into the television for video and changing the audio output from the soundbar to the television’s digital optical out into my 3-year-old receiver (the one this soundbar was supposed to replace). That receiver of course, has its own set of speakers and a sub (5.1 channel). It is absolutely, positively ridiculous. My home theater system has never been the focal point of my Living Room unless it was in use, but with two separate home theater systems, it’s kind of unavoidable. I could not be more frustrated. Samsung live chat was no help (after chatting with two separate agents); the product was so new, they didn’t even have the manuals on hand; after about 15 minutes, they read me what was in the product manual I was holding in my hand. The manual included with the product is basic at best and does not give ANY explanations of the different functions, what can be done with the remote, or especially, how to adjust the settings of the speakers / soundbar. The remote control is small, comfortable / ergonomic, and allowed you to adjust popular settings, but again, with no clear explanations, getting the settings to where you want them is a trial-and-error process. The SmartThings app worked extremely well, and was very functional. Since the audio/video inputs/outputs needs to be changed every time I watch television or listen to music, I bought a universal remote / hub with an app, so that I could have the inputs and outputs changed by merely selecting the ‘Watch TV’ activity. I put the app on an old iPad, placed other apps for my smart home on it. But all of this was never my intent. If I could go back, I would have kept my original receiver and speakers set up, and added some quality Dolby Atmos speakers.

Been using the soundbar for past 4 years. And this was the best purchase to enhance the movie experience.

This is a great sound bar. Only issue i had was that it needed a firmware update and it didn't come with a firmware usb included. Also, it took a while to be able to pair everything together. After this little hassles, sound was great. When in use, feels like you are at the theaters.

Beautiful and rich sound quality. It has the perfect balance of treble and bass to fill a small to medium size room

After having gone through several soundbars I settled on the Samsung Q90. Dialogue is clear as day, the bass has just the right amount of impact to make action scenes more intense and the rear speakers add a good amount of ambiance and surround to immerse yourself in the movie. My only complaint is the rears are fairly quiet.

It is a unique and real experience when Dolby Atmos is activated.

Great sound, fill up my living room. Only lack earc connection

The sound system worked fine for about 11 months, then I started to notice a popping sound coming from the subwoofer. I didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately, it started to happen more and more often, I tried moving the subwoofer, resetting it, re-pairing the entire system.... and then it started to happen with the satellite speakers too. A quick google search for this bar and “popping” will automatically show you what a disastrous piece of garbage this sound system is. It’s a known problem with the connectivity issues of this bar, everyone is experiencing this problem after months of use. Currently, I’m out of warranty with this piece of garbage, trying to work with the Samsung reps on a solution. This system is so expensive and it does not work. Please be aware of this problem and never buy a Samsung sound system.