Samsung HW-Q600C  Soundbar Review

The Samsung Q600C is a simple bar with a similar design to last year's Samsung HW-Q600B. It's mostly made of plastic, and the sides of the bar are angled to give it a hexagonal shape.

The sub also resembles the model that comes with the Samsung HW-Q600B. It has a simple rectangular design with a port in the rear.

You can purchase compatible satellites from the manufacturer separately.

The Samsung Q60CC soundbar is fairly wide and likely won't fit between the legs of a 65" TV stand. Since it isn't very tall, it won't block your TV screen unless your TV sits flush on your table.

The sub's size is comparable to an average desktop PC. It connects to the bar wirelessly, which gives you some flexibility when setting it up in your room.

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

The Samsung HW-Q600C has a good build quality. The bar itself is mostly made of plastic, and metal grilles cover the front and top of the bar to help protect the drivers inside. Rubber feet on the bottom of the bar help to keep it in place. Meanwhile, the sub is made of particle board, which feels solid but a bit cheap. Stretchy fabric covers the front of the sub, though it's quite thin and could rip easily, so you'll want to handle it with care. The port in the back of the sub is made of plastic.

• User manual
• Remote
• 2x AAA batteries
• Power adapter (4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• 2x mounting bracket
• 2x mounting screws and washers
• 2x power cables (4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• HDMI cable

The Samsung Q60CC soundbar has a very good stereo frequency response. Out-of-the-box, it offers a bass-heavy sound that adds extra punch and warmth to the mix, which is great for fans of genres like EDM and hip-hop. Thanks to its balanced mids, voices and lead instruments are clearly and accurately reproduced. Its low-frequency extension isn't the most impressive, so you don't get a deep rumble in action-packed scenes. You can customize its sound a bit thanks to its graphic EQ. Note that when we first activated the bar, the sound modes didn't work, but we could fix this issue pretty quickly by performing a factory reset on the bar.

Since this soundbar has a bass-heavy sound out-of-the-box, those who prefer a more neutral sound with stereo content may want to customize it a bit. Setting the bass to -2 results in a more even and balanced sound, so you don't have any extra punch in the bass range. Note that there is a trade-off in terms of low-frequency extension when you lower the bass, so you'll also notice less rumble in the low-bass. Depending on your preferences, you may find that the trade-off is worth it.

The Samsung HW-Q600C has a decent stereo soundstage. The width of the soundstage is perceived to be about as wide as the bar itself, but it doesn't have any tricks to make it seem wider than that. While the overall focus is decent, some holes are present in the soundstage between the center and left/right stereo channels, making it more challenging to accurately pinpoint the placement of sound objects like voices, causing them to sound like they're coming from a generalized area.

The Samsung HW-Q60CC gets loud enough to fill larger, more open rooms with sound. As you push it to max volume, there's some compression present, but it still falls within good levels, so the impact on sound quality is minor.

This 3.1.2 soundbar comes with a discrete center channel to improve vocal quality in the mix. Though the overall frequency response is more bass-heavy, it's still quite even in the mids, which is where most voices are reproduced. As a result, dialogue is clear and accurate.

The Samsung Q60CC doesn't have the most impressive surround sound performance, though this is normal for a 3.1.2 bar. It has to downmix surround sound into stereo to play it back, meaning you don't get the same clear or real feel with 5.1 content. For example, in the opening scene of the movie Gravity (2013), sound seems concentrated in the space in front of your couch rather than stretching all around your room for a more cinematic feel.

The Samsung Q60CC soundbar uses the manufacturer's Acoustic Beam technology to simulate height with content like Dolby Atmos. Essentially, a side-firing channel inside the bar sends sound across the "beam" to exit out of holes at the bar's top. It's not quite the same setup as other Samsung bars with up-firing channels like the Samsung HW-Q990C, and it can't reproduce as much height as more premium models. The frequency response on these channels is fairly even, too, so sound effects reproduce clearly and accurately.

As part of our tests, we also subjectively evaluate the bar's soundstage performance with height content. Overall, Acoustic Beam doesn't simulate a lot of height, especially when compared to setups with dedicated up-firing drivers. Aerial scenes in movies like 1917 (2019) fail to provide a sense that planes and other objects are coming in right over your head. Instead, it seems more like they're coming from the space in front of your couch. There's some bass in action-packed scenes, but it's not very extended, so you miss out on some rumble and thump. Certainly, the bar is an upgrade over those without Atmos support, but given its price, it's no surprise that it doesn't bring as real a feel as more premium models.

The Samsung HW-Q600C has a good selection of sound enhancement features. As with most bars from the manufacturer, you can customize its sound thanks to bass and treble adjustments and a 7-band graphic EQ. There are a few preset modes, too, like Standard, Surround, Game Pro, and Adaptive Sound. You can adjust the rear levels if you add rear speakers separately. However, it lacks a room correction feature like the Samsung HW-S60D's SpaceFit Sound function.

You can connect the bar to your TV using Optical or HDMI connections. A Full HDMI In port is on hand as well, in case you want to use the bar as a hub between devices for video passthrough.

This soundbar supports many different audio formats that you'll likely come across on various streaming platforms and Blu-rays. It can playback surround sound formats like Dolby Digital, though it has to downmix them into stereo to do so. You can also enjoy lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos. While it can handle DTS:X and DTS-HD MA, it downsamples it to DTS.

The bar supports many different formats over HDMI In, too. It can playback common surround sound formats like Dolby Digital as well as object-based formats like Dolby Atmos. However, it can only playback up to 7.1 PCM channels, which is disappointing compared to its support over eARC.

Dolby Digital is the most commonly found surround sound format, and the bar supports it over Optical. Plus, it can playback DTS content, which is commonly used as a fallback for higher-quality formats on Blu-rays.

This bar has passable latency via ARC. Latency is somewhat high across all formats, so you'll notice delays between your audio and visuals. Although some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, you can use the AV Sync feature to help manually adjust for delay.

Latency via HDMI In is on the high end for this soundbar. As a result, you're likely to notice some delay between the audio you hear and the visuals you see on screen. Fortunately, there's an audio sync correction tool on hand to help make up for this, which you can access by pressing the Gear button on the remote. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, too.

This bar has a better latency performance via Optical than HDMI or ARC. You'll notice that your audio and visuals are in sync, but it's worth noting that some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently.

This soundbar can passthrough many common refresh rates and resolutions. It's capable of 4k at 60Hz. Even though our rig was able to push it to 4k with a 120Hz refresh rate at 8-bit (at 4:2:0), in real-world use, we couldn't get it to work at 120Hz, and the manufacturer only advertises it as 4k at 60Hz. Otherwise, the video passthrough supports 1080p video up to 120Hz (at 4:4:4). So, depending on your usage and display, it can keep up with fast-paced games and sports at high resolutions.

You can wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices via Bluetooth.

A small display on the front of the bar shows its status, like the source, the volume, and the sound mode. As you tweak the bar's settings, the display shows the information.

A few buttons on top of the bar let you adjust its most basic settings. You can power the bar on/off, adjust the volume, and change the input.

There's no app, so you control all the settings from the included remote.