LG SP8YA  Soundbar Review

The LG SP8YA is a simple soundbar with a similar design to the LG SN8YG. It's mostly made of plastic, with metal grilles covering the front of the bar and the up-firing speakers on top of the bar.

The subwoofer is made of plastic. There's fabric covering three sides.

This setup doesn't come with satellites, but you can purchase compatible rear speakers from the manufacturer separately.

The LG SP8YA is fairly wide, so it likely won't fit between the legs of a 55-inch TV. However, it isn't very tall, so it won't block your TV screen unless your TV sits flush on your table. For a smaller 3.1.2 setup from LG, check out the LG Eclair QP5.

The sub is about the size of an average desktop computer. It connects wirelessly to the bar, so you have some flexibility in where you place it in your room.

You can mount the bar to your wall using the included brackets.

This soundbar has good build quality. The bar is mostly made of plastic, which feels solid and durable. The metal grilles help to protect the drivers, too. The sub is also high-quality plastic; however, the fabric covering seems like it could rip or get dirty easily.

• Optical cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 2x power cables (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Adapter for the soundbar (built-in cable 4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Mounting brackets with screws
• Remote with battery
• Manual with mounting template

This soundbar has a great stereo frequency response. It comes with a room correction feature called AI Room Calibration that automatically optimizes audio reproduction based on the room you're listening in. With this feature turned on, it has a bass-heavy sound profile that adds extra thump and punch to your audio, so you feel the rumbles in action-packed movies and bass-heavy music. The rest of the range is fairly balanced, making it suitable for dialogue-centric content like podcasts and TV shows. There are also bass and treble adjustments and some EQ presets to help you customize its sound.

We tested this soundbar with several different bass and treble calibration settings, but none brought the slope of its stereo frequency response closer to zero. As a result, we recommend its default settings if you prefer a more neutral sound with stereo content.

The LG SP8YA soundbar has a good stereo soundstage performance. The soundstage is perceived to be a bit wider than the bar itself, but it doesn't have any tricks to make it sound wider than that. The focus is good, too. That means that sound objects, like instruments in an orchestral recording, seem to come from pinpoint locations in the soundstage.

This bar has a great stereo dynamics performance. It gets pretty loud, and there isn't a lot of compression when you play it at max volume. As a result, it's suitable for turning up the volume for parties or listening in large rooms.

The LG SP8YA has a satisfactory THD performance. At normal listening volumes, the amount of distortion falls within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction. There's a jump in THD at max volume, especially in the bass to mid-range, but it's not very audible with real-life content.

This soundbar has an amazing center channel performance. This 3.1.2 setup comes with a dedicated center channel, which helps to reproduce dialogue more clearly and accurately in movies and TV shows. Its frequency response is quite balanced, too, especially in the mid-range, so voices are reproduced clearly and with detail.

The bar has a poor surrounds performance, which is expected. It has to downmix surround content into stereo to play it, so sound objects like voices and footsteps aren't as accurately localized in the soundstage. Audio seems like it's coming from in front of you rather than from speakers placed all around you.

The LG SP8YA uses two up-firing speakers on the bar to bounce sound off the ceiling and back down towards you, which gives the illusion of height. However, the localization of objects can sound diffused and not as real as down-firing speakers found with home theater setups. Its frequency response is a bit uneven, too, so sound effects can seem pushed toward the back of the mix.

The LG SP8YA has an incredible selection of sound enhancement features. Unlike the LG SPD7Y, it has the AI Room Calibration feature, which automatically optimizes audio reproduction based on the unique acoustic characteristics of the room you're listening in. If you prefer a different sound, you can customize it using the bass and treble adjustments. There are also some EQ presets: 'Standard,' 'Bass Blast,' 'AI Sound Pro,' 'Cinema,' 'Sports,' 'Game,' 'Clear Voice,' and 'Music,' but unlike the LG SG10TY, there isn't a graphic EQ. The 'Cinema' preset doubles as a virtual surround feature, which helps to create a more 3D sound. It also supports Dolby Atmos Music, which enhances music on compatible services like Amazon, Tidal, and Blu-ray Music. It has more features than other 3.1.2 bars, like the LG S75Q. Many of these features, like the AI Room Calibration tool, are also available through the LG Sound Bar companion app.

If you own a compatible LG TV, you can connect the bar using the 2021 LG TV AI Processor. This feature is similar to others from manufacturers like Samsung and Sony, as it links the bar's speakers with the speakers built into your TV. The resulting sound is a little louder, and though the manufacturer advertises it to create a more immersive sound, it doesn't make much of a difference in the overall soundstage.

You can connect the bar to your TV via HDMI or Optical connections. With an HDMI In port, you can also use the bar as a hub between devices for video passthrough.

The LG SP8YA has fantastic audio format support over its HDMI ARC port. It supports Dolby Digital and DTS, which are commonly found on Blu-ray discs and streaming services. Also, it supports lossless surround formats and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

The LG SP8YA also has incredible audio format support via Full HDMI In. It can play Dolby Digital and DTS content, which are common formats on Blu-rays and streaming platforms, as well as lossless and object-based formats like Atmos.

This soundbar also supports Dolby Digital and DTS via Optical, which is useful if you like watching Blu-ray discs and content from streaming platforms.

This bar has a good latency performance. It has fairly low latency via ARC and Optical, so your audio and video are mostly in sync. However, you may notice a delay when watching content via Full HDMI In. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your experience may vary.

This soundbar can passthrough many common resolutions and refresh rates, which is great if you want to use it as a hub between devices like a gaming console and a TV. With a max refresh rate of 60Hz, the screen is a little less smooth and slick than what you get with bars that can passthrough 4k content @ 120Hz. It can't passthrough any of the common variable refresh rate (VRR) technologies, either, which is a bit disappointing if you want a tear-free gaming experience.

This soundbar supports all common wireless playback formats, so you can wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices to the bar.

There's a small display screen behind the metal grille. It shows you the input you're on and the volume level. Also, it shows you when you adjust a setting.

On the top middle of the bar, there are several controls. You can power the bar on/off, change the input, adjust the volume, play/pause audio, and set up Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The remote is fairly simple and lets you control the bar's basic functions. However, it isn't a universal remote, so you can't use it to control your TV. You can also use the LG Sound Bar app to control the bar.

This bar doesn't have built-in voice assistant support. While it supports Google Assistant and Alexa, you need to connect the bar to another device that supports these features, like a Google Home or an Amazon Echo, to get it to work. You just need to set them up on the Google Home or Amazon Alexa apps respectively to use them.