Samsung HW-Q90R Soundbar Review

The Samsung HW-Q90R is the 2019 high-end, flagship soundbar setup from Samsung. This is a 7.1.4 setup, which includes rear speakers. This is something that the Samsung HW-Q80R is lacking, making it a bit more immersive when watching movies. The HW-Q90R's main competitors are the Bose Soundbar 700 complete setup with a subwoofer and rear speakers, and last year's Samsung Samsung HW-N950, which has the same bar.

This is a wide and heavy soundbar, and its sides are covered with metal grills, aside from the back which is made of solid plastic. The entire bar gives off a premium feel.

The subwoofer is mostly made of wood. The speaker on the side is covered with a round fabric that can get easily damaged or dirty. Like most subwoofers, it has the port on the back.

The satellites have a metal grill to cover the speakers at the front and on top, but the sides are made of plastic. They're slightly large, but nothing too bad.

The Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar is very wide and won't fit between the legs of any 55" TV stand. Although it's a little taller than most bars, you shouldn't have issues with it obstructing your view.

The subwoofer resembles a large desktop PC, and you shouldn't have issues finding a place to put it.

The satellites are slightly larger than average, but they contain the power transformer so you don't have to plan where you'll place the power brick, like with the Bose Soundbar 500. All you need is a power outlet.

This bar has only one opening for the input ports. The power cable connects at a different point. You can wall-mount the bar using the universal holes that are on the underside with the included brackets.

The subwoofer's back has the port and a button for pairing. The power cable connects at the bottom and won't stand out much.

The satellites are labeled for left and right, so make sure you place them accordingly. There are a pairing button and a universal hole for wall-mounting each of them.

The Samsung HW-Q90R's build quality is great, very similar to the Samsung HW-Q80R. It's very robust and the entire setup feels premium thanks to the materials used and its rather heavy weight. Although we don't expect you to have any issues with the build quality, care should be given to the fabric on the subwoofer as it can get dirty or damaged easily.

• Manuals
• HDMI Cable
• Remote & Batteries
• Bar power cable
• Subwoofer power cable
• Satellite power cables (x2)
• Screws
• Wall mounting adapters

The Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar has a great frequency response that results in a neutral sound profile. It also has a very extended bass, which will accurately reproduce the deep thump and rumble in music, movies, and games. The overall sound of this soundbar is great for stereo content and will be suitable for a wide variety of music genres, as well as dialogue. There's also a good amount of customization you can apply to this bar, including an available EQ.

When listening to the Samsung HW-Q90R, the soundstage is good. The bar is pretty wide and the soundstage feels about the same width. Sound isn't diffused, resulting in a focused soundstage, which is good because objects seem to be coming from a more accurate pinpoint location rather than from a general area. Although the bar is wide, it didn't sound as large as the Sonos Beam or the Bose Soundbar 700.

The Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar can get very loud and is great to use in large rooms or a crowded environment. It performs quite well at maximum volume as well, as you don't get much compression, which is excellent.

The THD performance is excellent at normal volume (80dB SPL), and you'll get a clean sound and great fidelity of audio reproduction. However, when pushing the bar to its maximum capacities, there's a small jump in THD in high-bass and low-mid. You might not hear this on real-life content.

This is a 7.1.4 setup that has excellent performance in the center channel. Due to its configuration, the Samsung HW-Q90R has a dedicated center speaker, which results in a more clear and accurate audio reproduction of the dialogue in movies.

When sending surround content to the bar, the Samsung HW-Q90R has an okay performance. Content comes out from the side-firing speakers on the bar, and while it has satellites, they only work if you send them a rear signal. This means this setup won't provide the most accurate and clear representation of surround objects in the soundstage, and won't feel as real as a discrete surround like with tower speakers. If you prefer dedicated surround speakers, take a look at the Vizio SB36512-F6, or the unique Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2Ch with its four dedicated surround satellite speakers.

The Samsung HW-Q90R supports Atmos for a more immersive experience, especially when watching movies. While this setup sounds fairly big and wide thanks to the up-firing speakers on the bar and satellites, the localization of objects is diffused. It doesn't sound as real as a discrete localization provided by down-firing speakers.

The high-end Samsung HW-Q90R lacks some of the most important sound enhancement features such as a night mode and Room Correction. Without room correction, this soundbar may sound a bit differently depending on your room. On the upside, it does offer a lot of control and customization options to manually make it sound the way you like.

The Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar can serve as a hub between your TV and your other devices thanks to its nice set of inputs. Unfortunately, there's no Analog Audio In to directly connect to older devices through their Audio Out. You can't play files from a USB and you can only connect to your network wirelessly.

Apart from the common Dolby Digital and DTS, the Samsung Q90R soundbar supports Dolby Digital Plus that can also serve as a carrier for Dolby Atmos. If you have such content, the bar will deliver a more immersive sound experience as it will decode and playback surround sound.

Note 11/11/2019: There have been numerous comments about some of Samsung's soundbars supporting eARC. We confirmed with Samsung that this is in an upcoming update. At this time, there's still no eARC support. We will retest it when the future firmware update is available.

This soundbar has excellent support for surround sound and object-based sound formats, which results in an immersive experience when watching movies, like from Netflix and Blu-rays, or for gaming.

Using the Optical Audio In, you can enjoy Dolby Digital and DTS content usually found on Blu-ray discs and streaming platforms like Netflix.

You can connect to the soundbar via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to play your content, but in the absence of that, you won't be able to cast using Chromecast built-in or Apple AirPlay.

When used as a hub, the Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar has no issues passing through the highest quality signals. If you connect it between your PC and your TV, the text on the screen will be clear.

The subwoofer connects wirelessly to the soundbar and the only wire you’ll need is the power cord.

The only wire connected to the satellites is the power.

The small screen in the front serves as the interface and can display the volume level and the input source. It's simple and easy to read, but it's rather small and sometimes it has to scroll to display its message.

The buttons on the bar are found on the rear edge of the top side. They can power on or off the system and control the volume, or choose the input source.

The remote has the same style as the remotes of the latest high-end Samsung TVs. It sits well in your palm and allows you to control all of the functions of the soundbar, but it can't act as a universal remote to control other devices.

The app that pairs with the Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar is the same that pairs also with the latest Samsung TVs and many other Samsung house appliances. There are a few things the app can't do, like changing the sound profile, so it can't really replace the remote.

The Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar can turn itself off after some time of inactivity. It also supports HDMI CEC, which allows your TV remote to control basic features of your soundbar like the volume and power.