LG S80TR  Soundbar Review

The bar closely resembles the LG S80QR and the LG S80QY. It's a long black oblong with grilles for three up-firing drivers on top. Overall, it has a slightly more futuristic vibe than the average soundbar, but it's still plain enough to slide unobtrusively in front of a TV. A fabric wrap covers the sides, adding a refined touch, while the main body is made of high-quality plastic that feels sturdy and well-built. The back of the bar has slots for access to the various ports.

The satellites have a sharper, squarer design than many of the more oval designs on the market. Each one has a plastic body with an aluminum grille on the front that is slightly angled, adding a subtle flourish to the design. The back of the satellites has pairing buttons and ports for the power cable.

The bar is too wide to fit between the legs of a 65" TV. However, its low profile means it won’t obstruct your screen.

The subwoofer is about the size of a standard desktop computer. Its wireless design gives you plenty of flexibility when placing it in your living room.

The satellites are a touch larger than those that come with the LG S80QR system. But they're wireless, so you have some flexibility when it comes to placement.

You can mount the bar and satellites. The package comes with brackets to mount the soundbar but doesn't include brackets for the satellites.

This soundbar has great build quality. The bar and the sub are made from the same sturdy, black plastic. They also have similarly sturdy cloth covers, which shouldn't tear easily. The satellites are lightweight but decent in quality, though the plastic feels a bit cheaper than that used by the bar and sub. Their aluminum grilles add a durable, stylish touch that matches the covers on the soundbar's up-firing drivers.

• Manuals
• Mounting template
• Remote with 2x AA batteries
• 2x power cables (4.9 ft/1.5 m)
• 2x right-angled power cables (4.9 ft/1.5 m)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft/1.5 m)
• 2x mounting brackets with screws

The LG S80TR has a very good stereo frequency response. We tested this system after calibration from its AI room correction software and found that it produces a well-balanced sound that suits a variety of content. There's a little extra punch in the bass, which makes sounds like kick drums feel exciting. The bass is a little more controlled than the LG S80QR, which helps the lower mid-range feel less muddy. Voices and lead instruments are reproduced accurately, although a dip in the low-treble means singers in dense pop songs can feel a little distant.

In our testing, the 'Standard' sound mode provides the best stereo playback experience because it correctly reproduces stereo content. On the other hand, while 'AI Sound' mode and 'Cinema' mode work well for movies, they can make sung voices sound artificial and displaced, and they also virtualize stereo music to the surround speakers, which isn't an accurate representation of the content.

After calibration, the LG S80TR has great frequency response accuracy. You can adjust the bass and treble by up to +/-6 dB. We found that by setting the bass to -3, we controlled the peaky low-end, which reduced the masking of mid-range elements like voices. At the other end of the spectrum, by setting the treble to 5, percussion and sound effects had extra clarity and detail. That said, you'll want to adjust these settings by ear to account for your room's specific acoustic properties.

The LG S80TR has a decent stereo soundstage. The soundstage extends just a little beyond the width of the bar. Within that, the focus is satisfactory, so it's pretty easy to follow elements as they pan from side to side. That said, towards the center, elements can become a bit blurry or sound as if they 'jump' across the soundstage. Still, there's no roll-off at the edges, creating a mostly consistent and well-defined stage overall.

The LG S80TR's dynamics performance is great. It gets loud enough to fill an average room with sound and does so without compressing your audio at max volume. The result is clear and clear audio reproduction.

This soundbar offers great center channel performance. Its generally balanced sound trends a little bright, which lends centrally panned elements like voices extra clarity. You can also activate the 'Clear Voice' preset to further boost vocal clarity. Still, there's a bit more distortion present in this channel than in comparable soundbars, like the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 6. 

This soundbar has satisfactory surrounds performance. The dedicated satellites do a good job highlighting surround elements, making you feel more immersed in the action. It's pretty easy to make out sounds flying across and behind you. That said, their frequency response is a little uneven, with a big dip in the low mids robbing sounds of body and a recessed treble that mutes brighter sound effects like clashing swords. You can mitigate this to an extent with the treble adjustment control, but it's not a perfect solution.

Like the LG S80QR, the LG S80TR features three up-firing drivers—two designed to bounce sound off the ceiling for height effects, while the center up-firing driver focuses solely on centrally panned content like dialogue. Overall, the Atmos performance is middling, with the height drivers providing only a limited sense of verticality that extends a foot or two above the bar. Within that, it's easy to track sounds like racing cars as they move from left to right, but helicopters don't really sound like they're flying overhead. This setup does a decent job reproducing most kinds of audio content, but the drop in the treble response means some finer details lack sparkle and shimmer.

The Samsung HW-Q800F is a similarly priced bar that offers superior Height performance, though you do lose the dedicated satellite speakers.

The LG S80TR comes with a variety of sound enhancement features. There's AI Room Calibration, which automatically adjusts the audio output to suit your room's acoustics, as well as several listening modes that alter your audio, including 'Standard,' 'Bass Blast,' 'AI Sound Pro,' 'Cinema,' 'Sports,' 'Game,' 'Clear Voice,' 'Night,' 'Auto Volume,' and 'Music.' The 'Cinema' mode enhances spatial effects for a more immersive feel, while 'Clear Voice' boosts dialogue clarity. If you prefer to adjust things manually, you can tweak the bass, mid-range, and treble amounts yourself and adjust the levels of the subwoofer, center, height, and rear channels individually.

LG also offers a few features exclusive to owners of compatible LG TVs. WOW Interface integrates soundbar controls into the TV's UI, eliminating the need for the app or remote. WOW Orchestra is designed to expand the soundstage by using the TV's speakers, but, in practice, this sacrifices accuracy and focus, making it best for boosting vocal presence if the 'Clear Voice' preset isn't enough. WOWCAST enables a wireless connection to LG TVs that the brand claims supports lossless multi-channel audio. We're unable to test this feature, but we expect any impact on sound quality is likely minimal.

The LG S80TR connects to your TV via HDMI, eARC, or Optical. It's fully compatible with HDMI 2.1, and an HDMI cable is included in the package. If your TV only has an Optical connection, you'll need to purchase a separate cable. It also features a USB port that you can use to play back AAC, MP3, and WAV audio files. The back of the bar also houses the power port.

The LG S80TR offers outstanding audio format support over ARC, handling common surround formats like Dolby Digital as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

The LG S80TR has fantastic support for audio formats via HDMI In. The bar supports widely used formats like Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos, ensuring compatibility with most media, including Blu-ray discs.

The LG S80TR supports both Dolby Digital and DTS via its Optical connection.

The audio latency over ARC is outstanding. You shouldn't experience lip-sync issues while using this input, although latency handling can vary by TV and app. You can always use the AV Sync function to manually adjust the delay if needed.

The LG S80TR has fantastic latency performance over HDMI. Audio and visuals sync up well, so delays aren't noticeable. If you do notice any issues, the AV Sync feature in the app lets you fine-tune the delay.

Audio latency via Optical is good. It's not as low as the latency via eARC or HDMI In, but you can correct any issues by manually adjusting the delay using the AV Sync function.

This soundbar supports high-bandwidth signal passthrough, including Dolby Vision. You can connect it between devices like a PC and a TV while maintaining sharp, clear text on the screen—just not at 8k. It can passthrough 4k @ 120 Hz at 8-bit, but not at 10-bit, which might be disappointing for gamers who want the smoothest experience with the least banding. Gamers might also be disappointed that there's no support for FreeSync or G-SYNC passthrough.

The LG S80TR supports a host of wireless playback options. You can connect to the bar using everything from Bluetooth and WiFi to Chromecast, Apple AirPlay, and Spotify Connect.

A small display on the front of the bar shows different settings as you change them. Any setting that can be changed by the app or remote will show on the display.

The bar features touch-sensitive buttons on top for power, input selection, volume control, play/pause, and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.

The remote is very similar to the one that comes ith the LG S80QR and the LG S80QY. You can use it to access commonly used features like changing the input or volume. If you'd like to change more advanced settings like those for AI Room Calibration, you can use the LG Sound Bar app. Here is a video of the app in action.

If you have a compatible LG TV, you can use WOW Interface to integrate the soundbar's controls into the TV's UI, removing the need for you to use the soundbar's remote.

There's no built-in voice assistant, but you can connect a third-party device with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant support to the bar for voice control.