I owned the Q950T a week before returning it today. I’m going to do an unbiased review about what I liked and what I didn’t coming from an N950
PROS: The biggest change I noticed with this soundbar compared to the N950 was how deep the bass goes. I was very impressed by the new subwoofer which seems to be a big upgrade from the N950’s sub.It was punchier and definitely handled a higher range of frequency.
Another thing that impressed me was the additional 2 surround speakers on the soundbar, this had a more convincing “sound bubble” effect than the N950 did.
the soundbars slim profile and design looks very stylish but I have some reservations about it which I will discuss below
CONS: The worst part about this soundbar isnt even related to sound quality, its design issues. I found it very annouing having the LED display on the top of the soundbar as opposed to the front. You dont know what sound mode you’re in, what decoding source is playing, what input you’re on or what volume the soundbar is without either standing up and checking the display on the top or using the horribly designed smartthings app to check. This might not sound like a big deal but in practice its a major pain and headache.
The sound overall doesn’t sound as clear as the N950, things sound slightly more muffled, primarily voices. This is a big drawback because I loved how well the N950 could handle voices and how clear everything sounded. I’m not sure if the Q950T has 32 bit HD audio upscaling because it’s not mentioned anywhere and I’m wondering if the N950 sounds clearer because of its 32 bit HD audio upscaling possibly or if its because Harman Kardon worked on the N950 but not the 950T. The upfiring atmos speakers also aren’t very convincing and sound slightly worse than on the N950.
The build quality isn’t as go as the N950. Touching the top of the soundbar can make audible creaks and cracks due to the material under the fabric being plastic, the N950 had no such problem as it is all metal at the top. Speaking of the fabric, it is very diffcuilt to clean and there were a few loose stitches after only a few days of use which makes me question what this would look like after a year or two.
and the last problem I had with the soundbar was connection issues. Multiple times the soundbar had stopped playing what it was supposed and was instead replaced with a loud static sound that sounded like a lawn mower, this would persist until I reset the soundbar. This soundbar also has drop outs over eARC/ARC and the eARC implementation seems half baked as I couldn’t under any circumstances get lossless atmos or DTS:X to play via eARC on an xbox one x. This would only work if The xbox was plugged directly into the soundbar which destroys the purpose of this soundbar having eARC for me! I’m not sure how many of these connection issues could be fixed in firmware updates but at this point in time its pretty bad.
I ended up returning the soundbar today for the cons I have listed and will continue to use my N950 until I decide what to get next. Overall I see this soundbar as less of an upgrade and more of a side step to samsungs previous flagship soundbars, but as it stands, the overall sound quality appears to be better on my N950 and the only thing I’m really missing from the q950T at the moment is the better bass response, slim profile and more convincing surround sound effects.