Samsung HW-Q850A Soundbar Review

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a sleek, simple design. There's a metal grille covering the top and front sides, and the rest of the bar is made of plastic. There are touch-sensitive control buttons on the top middle of the bar.

The sub is mostly made of wood. There's also thin fabric covering one side.

The satellites have a metal grille covering their front and sides. There's plastic on the top and bottom. They connect to a wireless receiver module through a wired connection, much like the satellites that come with 2022's Samsung HW-Q910B.

The Samsung HW-Q850A likely won't fit between the legs of a 55" TV. That said, it also isn't very tall, so it shouldn't block your TV screen unless your TV sits flush on the table.

The sub is the same size as the Samsung HW-Q850T's sub. It connects to the bar wirelessly, so you can place it anywhere in your room as long as you connect it to a power source.

The satellites aren't very big. They connect to the bar wirelessly, but you need to wire them to their receiver module to get them to work.

The back of the bar has two openings for the inputs and the power cable. There are also universal holes on the underside, so you can wall-mount it.

There's a plastic port on the back of the sub, as well as the input for the power cable and a pairing button.

On the back of the satellites, there are inputs to wire them to the receiver module. There are also universal holes so you can wall-mount them.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has an impressive build quality. The metal grilles on the bar and the satellites help to protect the drivers inside. The rest of the bar and the satellites are plastic, which feels solid and durable. The subwoofer is mostly wood. However, the thin fabric covering the front of the sub seems like it could rip or get dirty easily.

• AC/DC adapter
• 2x power cables
• Power cord (wireless receiver module)
• HDMI cable
• 2x speaker wire for satellites
• Wall mount guide
• 2x wall mount brackets
• 2x holder screw and screws
• Rubber foot
• Remote with batteries (2x AA)
• Manual

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a great stereo frequency response. Out-of-the-box, it offers neutral, balanced mid and treble ranges, so vocals and lead instruments are reproduced clearly and accurately. That said, it struggles to reproduce a thumpy, punchy bass, so you don't feel the deep rumbles in action-packed movies and bass-heavy music. There's also a graphic EQ and presets as well as bass and treble adjustments available to help you customize its sound to your liking.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has an impressive stereo frequency response with calibration. With its subwoofer level set to '3', it reproduces a more neutral sound profile with more thump and punch in the bass range. As a result, it's suitable for listening to lots of different types of audio content.

Note: Normally, we calibrate the bar using bass and treble adjustments. We ran some passes after adjusting the bass and treble levels; however, we noticed that this didn't change the stereo frequency response at all. We're looking into this issue and we'll update the review when we have more information.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a good stereo soundstage performance. Its soundstage is perceived to be a bit wider than the bar itself. Also, it has good focus, so objects in the soundstage like voices and footsteps seem to come from an accurate, pinpoint location rather than a general area.

The Samsung HW-Q850A's dynamics performance is satisfactory. It gets pretty loud, which is handy if you want to crank up the volume to listen to audio at parties or in large rooms. However, there's some compression present when you play it at max volume.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a good stereo THD performance. At normal listening volumes, it falls within good limits, resulting in clear and pure audio reproduction. There's a jump in THD when you push the bar to max volume, but this may not be noticeable with real-life content.

The Samsung HW-Q850A is a 5.1.2 setup with a discrete center channel, which helps to reproduce dialogue more clearly and accurately. It struggles to reproduce bass on this channel, but this shouldn't be too noticeable since there usually isn't a lot of bass on the center channel.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a great surrounds performance. It comes with discrete surround speakers, so surround objects like voices and footsteps are clearly and accurately localized in the soundstage. Audio seems like it's coming from all around you, rather than just from speakers placed in front of you.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has an acceptable Atmos performance. It uses two up-firing speakers on the bar to bounce sound off the ceiling and back down towards you, which creates the illusion of height. However, this doesn't sound quite as real as discrete localization from down-firing speakers found with home theater setups. Also, its height channels don't get very loud, which can be disappointing if you like to crank up the volume on your movies.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a good selection of sound enhancement features. There's a graphic EQ to help you customize its sound, as well as some presets: 'Standard', 'Surround', 'Game Pro', and 'Adaptive Sound'. You can turn on the auto-volume mode in the app, which helps balance the volume level between different programs, as well as the 'Active Voice Amplifier', which works as a dialogue enhancement feature to make voices more clear. However, unlike the LG SP9YA, it doesn't come with a room correction feature, so it may sound a bit different depending on the room you're listening in.

This soundbar also comes with some sound enhancement features that we don't currently test. The Acoustic Beam technology is a virtual surround feature that's advertised to help immerse you in your audio. If you have a compatible Samsung TV, the manufacturer also says that you can use 'Q-Symphony' and 'SpaceFit Sound' to sync the bar with your TV to create a more 3D sound. The 'TapSound' feature lets you mirror audio from your phone when you tap it against the bar using the SmartThings app.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has several physical inputs. There's a Full HDMI In port, so you can use the bar as a hub between different devices. While there's also a micro-USB port, it's just for service and software updates, so you can't use it to play back audio.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has fantastic audio format support over ARC. It supports Dolby Digital, which is a common format for Blu-ray discs and streaming platforms, as well as DTS content.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has incredible audio format support via Full HDMI In. It can play most common formats, including Dolby Digital, as well as lossless and object-based surround formats like Dolby Atmos.

This soundbar supports Dolby Digital and DTS content via Optical. These formats are commonly found on streaming platforms and Blu-ray discs.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has a decent latency performance. It has fairly low latency over its ARC and Optical ports, so your audio and video should be in sync. That said, you may notice that the sound comes before the visuals when watching videos via Full HDMI In. Some apps and some TVs compensate for latency differently, though, so your real-world experience may vary.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has incredible wireless playback options. You can stream audio from a mobile device to the bar wirelessly via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Apple AirPlay 2.

The Samsung HW-Q850A can passthrough the highest bandwidth signals, including Dolby Vision Passthrough. If you connect the bar to your TV and another device like your PC, text on the screen appears clear and crisp. However, it can't passthrough 4k @120Hz.

The subwoofer connects to the bar wirelessly, so you need to plug it into a power outlet to get it to work.

The satellites connect to the bar wirelessly. However, they need to be wired to the receiver module, and the receiver module needs to be plugged into an outlet to work.

There's a small display on the right side of the bar behind the metal grille. It shows the volume number and the current input. Since it's only a four-character display, you may need to wait for it to scroll through longer words.

On top of the bar, touch-sensitive buttons let you adjust the volume and turn the microphone on and off. The Multifunction button lets you change inputs, enable Alexa, and wake the bar up from off mode.

The remote lets you control most of the Samsung HW-Q850A's functions. The manufacturer also says that it supports OneRemote, which lets you control your Samsung TV using your soundbar remote. However, we don't test for this.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has Amazon Alexa built-in, and you can also mute the microphone if you don't want it to listen to you.

The Samsung SmartThings app acts as a remote and lets you control some of the bar's settings. However, you have to use the remote to sync, adjust the center level or the front top level, and turn the virtual surround on and off.

The Samsung HW-Q850A has an auto-off function that shuts the bar off after a certain period. It also supports HDMI CEC, so you can control some of the bar's basic functions using your TV remote.