Samsung HW-Q700C with SWA-9500S Soundbar Review

This bar basically looks like a lot of Samsung products, like the Samsung HW-Q600C/Q60CC. The edges of the bar are angled, and a sleek metal grille covers the top and front of the bar.

The sub looks pretty generic since it has a rectangular design with a cloth to protect the driver. There's a port in the rear.

The Samsung SWA-9500S satellites are small and have a similar look and feel to the bar. They're made of plastic, but metal grilles help protect the two drivers in each speaker. Since they're wireless, they can also be placed anywhere in the room.

This bar is long enough that it likely won't fit between the legs of a 55" TV. It's not very tall, so it won't obscure your TV screen unless it's flush to the table.

The sub is about the same size as a desktop PC. Luckily, it connects to the bar wirelessly, making it easy to place it anywhere in the room.

You can mount the Samsung SWA-9500S satellites to your wall or place them on a pedestal. They connect to the bar wirelessly, so you can position them to your liking.

You can mount this bar to the wall; luckily, the brackets are included with your purchase.

The Samsung HW-Q700C has great build quality. It's not quite as premium as the top-of-the-line Samsung HW-Q990D, but it's still quite durable-feeling. The bar and Samsung SWA-9500S satellites are mostly made of plastic with a metal grille to help protect the drivers from damage. In contrast, the subwoofer feels cheaper since it's made of particle board and has a cloth cover, which can collect dust or accidentally rip.

• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• Remote with batteries (2x AAA)
• 4x power cables (4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• Mounting brackets with screws and template
• 4x rubber foot stickers
• Manual

The Samsung HW-Q700C with SWA-9500S has a very good stereo frequency response. Even though it struggles to reproduce rumbly low bass that you'd find in genres like EDM and hip-hop or in content like high-stakes action flicks, it packs in punch and boom to make up for it. Its mid-range is still balanced, so dialogue and instruments sound clear in mixes. If you prefer a different sound, you can adjust this setup to your liking using the EQs in the app or with the remote.

If you want a more balanced and neutral sound, you may want to play around with the EQ settings. Lowering the bass to -2 and bumping the treble to 1 results in a more even sound.

This bar's stereo soundstage is good. The soundstage is perceived as a touch wider than the bar itself. It doesn't have any tricks to make it seem wider, though. On the upside, it has great focus, so you can easily and accurately track sound objects like footsteps or voices in the soundstage.

This bar has good stereo dynamics and is loud enough to fill a large room with sound. However, if you push the bar to its max volume, there's quite a bit of compression in the bass and treble ranges, which impacts the overall quality and clarity of your audio.

The Samsung HW-Q700C with SWA-9500S has a discrete center channel, which helps ensure vocal quality. While the overall response is a bit bassy, the mids are quite even, ensuring the accurate reproduction of dialogue and voices.

This soundbar has a good surround performance, thanks to its two discrete Samsung SWA-9500S satellites. The response is even, so sound seems to stretch around your room for a more cinematic feel. Sound effects like cars racing on a track also sound clear and are accurately placed in the room around you.

The Samsung HW-Q700C has four up-firing drivers: there are two directly on the bar as well as two on the Samsung SWA-9500S satellites, which bounce sound off of your ceiling and back at you to give you the impression of height. The frequency response is also balanced, ensuring sound effects sound clear.

Additionally, we subjectively evaluated this bar's Atmos performance. Overall, this setup creates dimensionality in your audio, but it doesn't sound quite as immersive as that from the Samsung HW-Q990D. The surround speakers are quite subdued, so you'll want to boost them by one or two notches to help get a better response. Otherwise, some sound effects, like the sound of drones passing overhead, fall short of giving you a sense of range.

This bar has a lot of sound customization features. You can utilize a graphic EQ, presets, or bass and treble adjustments for sound customization. The graphic EQ is only accessible when using Standard mode when also using Advanced mode; otherwise, you'll only have two-level band control in Basic mode. There's also Adaptive mode, which automatically adjusts the bar's sound based on your content.

This bar also supports features only Samsung users can use. Its SpaceFit Sound feature allows the bar to adapt its sound reproduction to fit your room's acoustics by using your Samsung TV's mic to calibrate the bar. There's also Q-Symphony, which allows you to use your compatible Samsung TV speakers in addition to the soundbar for a larger soundstage and more immersive sound.

You can connect this bar to your TV via Optical or HDMI. There's also a Full HDMI In port, so you can use the bar as a hub between different devices. While there's a USB port, it is only for servicing the bar.

This bar supports all common audio formats via eARC. You can play surround formats like Dolby Digital as well as lossless and object formats like Dolby Atmos.

This soundbar supports a wide array of formats over HDMI In as well. These include Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos, which you'll find on Blu-rays and streaming services.

The Samsung SWA-9500S supports Dolby Digital and DTS via Optical, too, which is great if you watch a lot of content from streaming services or Blu-rays. DTS is also commonly used as a fallback for higher-quality formats on Blu-ray.

Audio latency via ARC is outstanding. Regardless of the format, your audio and visuals are synched well. That said, some apps and TVs compensate for latency, and if you find the delay unmanageable, you'll want to check out the AudioSync feature available in the companion app. It allows you to manually compensate for the delay.

The audio latency performance over HDMI In is fantastic. Your audio and visuals are in sync, so you won't have lip-sync lag. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency, though.

The latency performance over Optical is great, but the AV synchronization error is higher when using the Dolby Digital format. That said, it's not the end of the world, as you can manually correct this by using the Audio Sync feature in the companion app.

This soundbar can passthrough the highest bandwidth signals. When connected between your PC and your TV, text on the screen appears clear and crisp.

This bar also supports all common wireless playback options, making streaming audio from your smartphone to your soundbar easy.

This soundbar has a small display on the bar's right side. It displays the volume, source, input, and content type, but it can only show four characters at a time, so you may need to wait for messages to scroll to read them.

The bar has physical buttons on its top side. You can use them to turn the bar on and off, adjust the volume, and switch sources.

The Samsung HW-Q700C with SWA-9500S has a remote to control all the settings. You can also use the SmartThings companion app to control the soundbar from your phone.

This soundbar has built-in Amazon Alexa support, making it easy to control the bar hands-free. Although some regional models support Google Assistant, this feature isn't available in the US. Luckily, if you don't want your voice assistant to listen to you, you can use the microphone mute button on the top of the bar.