Samsung HW-A450  Soundbar Review

The Samsung A450 soundbar looks very similar to the Samsung HW-T450. It has a rectangular design, and it's mostly made of plastic. There's fabric covering the front and the top of the bar, too.

The subwoofer is mostly made from wood. Its front face is covered in fabric.

This soundbar doesn't come with satellites, but you can purchase Samsung's Wireless Rear Speaker Kit separately.

The bar is a bit long, but it fits between the legs of most 55-inch TVs. It won't obscure your view of the screen either unless your TV sits flush with the table.

The Samsung HWA450's subwoofer is about the same size as an average desktop computer. Since it connects to the bar wirelessly, you can place it anywhere in your room, as long as it's connected to a power source.

The Samsung A450 has an okay build quality. The bar is made with a thin plastic that doesn't feel very durable, while the subwoofer is made of wood. On both the bar and subwoofer, there's a fabric cover to protect the speakers. However, the fabric feels loose and seems like it could rip easily or collect dust. For a better-built option, see the Samsung HW-B450.

• Manual
• Optical cable (4.9ft / 1.5m)
• Remote (2x AA batteries)
• 2x AC power cables (4.9ft / 1.5m)
• Wall-mounting brackets with screws

This soundbar has a great stereo frequency response. With its balanced sound, voices and lead instruments reproduce with clarity, and dialogue is accurate in the mix. As a result, it's suitable for listening to a wide range of audio content, from music to movies to TV shows. That said, there isn't a lot of rumble in the low-bass, which is noticeable with bass-heavy content like EDM and hip-hop.

With calibration, this soundbar has a great stereo frequency response. With the Bass set to '-3' and the Treble set to '+2', the bar has a very neutral sound suitable for a variety of audio content. However, it still struggles to reproduce a thumpy low-bass.

The soundstage is perceived to be about the size of the bar, but it doesn't do any tricks to widen it past that. Still, this bar has good focus for a 2.1 setup, so sound effects seem to come from more pinpoint regions in the space around you.

This soundbar can get loud enough to fill a large or crowded room. There are also few compression artifacts at max volume, so your audio sounds clean, even when you crank it up.

This soundbar has a good THD performance. At a normal listening volume, distortion falls within good limits, so audio reproduction is clear and pure. As with most bars, there's a slight jump in distortion when you push the bar to max volume. That said, it's quite hard to hear with real-life content.

With a 2.1 setup, this soundbar has to use its left and right channels to simulate a phantom center. Unfortunately, as a result, voices aren't anchored to a pinpoint location in the soundstage. On the upside, even though the frequency response is quite bass-heavy, this won't be too noticeable since there usually isn't a lot of bass reproduced on the center channel. Voices are still fairly clear and accurate-sounding.

This soundbar has a poor surrounds performance. Due to its 2.1 configuration, it has to downmix surround content into stereo to play it. Surround objects like voices don't seem as clear or real in the soundstage as they do with a discrete localization. The frequency response is also quite bass-heavy, which can be boomy and even overwhelming for some listeners.

This soundbar has a fair selection of sound enhancement features. Like most Samsung soundbars, it comes with a graphic EQ and presets as well as bass and treble adjustments so you can customize its sound profile. The EQ presets include 'Standard', 'Surround Sound', 'Bass Boost', 'Game', and 'Adaptive Sound'. Adaptive Sound doubles as a dialogue enhancement feature by analyzing audio in real-time to automatically provide an optimal sound field.

This soundbar doesn't come with very many inputs. You can plug it into your TV using its Optical port, but there's no HDMI support. If you want a similar bar with HDMI inputs, check out the Sony HT-S400.

This bar can support Dolby Digital and DTS content normally found on Blu-ray discs and some streaming platforms via Optical Audio in. However, it has to downmix this content into 2.1.

The bar has an excellent latency performance. It only supports Optical, but it has very low latency using this connection, so your audio and visuals are in sync. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience may vary.

This soundbar supports Bluetooth, so you can easily stream your favorite content to the bar wirelessly.

The Samsung HW-A450 has a simple interface. It's a small screen located in the middle of the bar, behind the fabric covering. It can only display a max of six characters at once, so it needs to scroll to complete words. When you're not adjusting anything, the screen isn't visible. However, it displays the volume number as well as the sound mode as you're adjusting it.

This bar has four buttons on the top middle of the bar. You can turn the bar on or off, adjust the volume, and switch inputs.

The remote is the same style as the Samsung HW-T450. It allows you to control all the soundbar's settings. Samsung also advertises a 'One Remote' feature, which lets you use the soundbar's remote to control compatible Samsung TVs.