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    Samsung HW-Q70R soundbar review: This easy-to-install soundbar delivers Dolby Atmos and DTS:X

    If you wish to deliver wealthy, detailed, and immersive sound into your front room with a minimal of parts and fuss, Samsung’s HW-Q70R soundbar needs to be close to the highest of your buying listing. At $700, the HW-Q70R is as expensive as some higher-end soundbars we’ve reviewed, however on condition that Samsung’s top-of-the-line soundbar sells for twice as a lot, $700 seems to be the brand new mid-range.

    Price tags apart, the HW-Q70R soundbar and its wi-fi subwoofer make for a straightforward technique to get dazzling Dolby Atmos and DTS:X {surround} sound, whereas a convincing pseudo-surround mode provides shocking depth to different content material. If you need true {surround} sound, nonetheless, you’ll must drop a further $100 for Samsung’s SWA-8500S wi-fi rear speaker equipment (available on Amazon). Samsung didn’t ship the equipment for evaluate.

    Configuration

    Boasting Harman Kardon-designed audio (Samsung acquired Harman International in 2017), the HW-Q70R is a 3.1.2 soundbar, which implies it has devoted left, proper, and middle drivers (with the middle channel being notably necessary for delivering clear dialog); up-firing left and proper drivers for immersive, object-based Dolby Atmos and DTS:X with audio top cues achieved by bouncing pontificate your ceiling; and a wi-fi subwoofer for deep bass response and low-frequency results in film soundtracks.

    Measuring 43.3 x 2.3 x 3.9 inches, the principle soundbar unit can sit straight in entrance of your TV, or you may mount it on the wall with the included bracket, whereas the 15.9 x 15.9 x 8.1-inch subwoofer can sit close by on the ground.

    Inputs and outputs

    On the underside of the soundbar, you’ll discover a pair of cavities the place the assorted ports and buttons sit. A button on the left-hand facet lets the soundbar hook up with your Wi-Fi community (with somewhat assist from the Samsung SmartIssues cell app), together with a microSD service port and a 19V DC energy port. The cavity on the right-hand facet hosts one HDMI enter, one HDMI-ARC (so your TV can ship audio from its onboard tuner and video-streaming apps again to the soundbar), and a TosLink (optical) digital audio enter.

    Setup and set up

    Setting up the HW-Q70R was a reasonably simple course of. Once I’d positioned the soundbar in entrance of my TV, I related the ability adapter after which plugged the included HDMI cable into the soundbar’s HDMI output (which helps 4K 60Hz video and HDR passthrough) and related the opposite finish to one among my TV’s HDMI inputs. I then related my Apple TV 4K (which is able to Dolby Atmos audio output) to the soundbar’s HDMI enter.

    Ben Patterson/IDG

    The Samsung HW-Q70R includes a single HDMI enter, an HDMI-ARC output, and a Toslink enter.

    Since the HW-Q70R solely has a single HDMI enter, you’ll must manually swap out the cable if you wish to swap to a different video supply (comparable to a sport console or a Blu-ray participant).This is important if you need Dolby Atmos output by way of the lossless Dolby TrueHD format (a Toslink connection can not present sufficient bandwidth)..

    If you don’t wish to be switching cables on a regular basis, you too can join all of your video sources to your TV, after which ship audio again to the soundbar utilizing HDMI-ARC. The disadvantage to counting on ARC for audio is that you just’ll should accept lossy Dolby Atmos by way of Dolby Digital Plus. If the speaker supported Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC, which presents extra bandwidth), this wouldn’t be a problem.

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