Samsung HW-Q990F Soundbar System

Michael Hornback

September 23, 2026

Should have bought two.

Upgraded my Q9970F Soundbar to this and honestly, I was not expecting as much of an improvement as it actually was. Firstly, dialog is much more clear. Secondly, the surrounds are much more present, adding to that Atmos sound stage. Finally, the bass is much tighter, and clearer at higher volumes. I overall, I wish I would have bought two.

Equipo con golpes

Caja maltratada y equipo golpeado..dejaron marcas al abrirlo, aun así funciona bien, no lo devolví porque la caja estaba en muy mal estado y la verdad con lo que pesa el equipo no sería fácil

Excellent sound, large rear speakers

The rear speakers are larger than what I expected. So keep that in mind if you have a small space like mine.

Movies Sound Completely Different Now

Within the first movie, I was hearing background sounds like people clapping, quiet conversations, and little details that I had never noticed before.

I bought this because I wanted something that would actually make movie nights feel different, not just making everything louder. I have had it for about a week now, and it has completely changed the experience of movies and TV.

Setup was easy. The soundbar, subwoofer, and rear speakers paired quickly, and I spent more time deciding where I wanted to put everything than I did setting it up. I am using it with a Samsung TV, so Q-Symphony was easy to enable and creates a really full, immersive sound. It automatically turns on when my TV does. Everything has stayed connected without any issues over the past week, which was something I was a little concerned about with wireless rear speakers.

The soundbar itself is fairly large, but the larger size helps deliver such a wide soundstage. It makes everything feel more realistic, and I have found myself noticing details I never heard through my TV speakers.

The bass is also impressive and has enough power to rattle one of my walls during action scenes. Even with that much bass, voices stay clear, so I am not trying to turn the volume up for conversations and back down during loud scenes. I also like that you can adjust the bass, rear speakers, and overall sound to match your room and personal preference instead of being stuck with one sound profile.

I recommend taking a few extra minutes to position the rear speakers because it really helps create the surround sound effect. The system also gets much louder than I would ever realistically need without sounding distorted, but it still sounds great at lower volumes for late-night watching.

I have been really impressed. It is definitely an investment, but considering the sound quality, wireless connectivity, customization, and overall experience, I think it offers good value if you are looking for a premium home theater system.

Okay now I like soundbars .. well this one at least.

Awesome soundstage. I have never been a sound bar type guy. I thought of them as being gymicky when it came to surround sound. This has an awesome sound stage and while it is not the same as a dedicated front center and left right Chanel it IS a quality substitute. Very impressive

Love the wireless rear speakers. The sub is very good but I’m the type of person that doesn’t love every thing to drown in base. So you may want to turn your sub up

Individual Chanel control is impressive but th rear left and right is only adjustable as a pair not individually. All said and done I am very impressed. This is a true surround experience in a sound bar. Is dedicated surround better sure but this is impressive enough for me to be glad I have it.

OMG, it is Loud and Clear!

I replaced my older LG OLED with a larger LG OLED77C5PUA because IMO LG OLEDs have a fantastic picture. I thought my LG soundbar system with subwoofer and two rear speakers sounded great. I was unlucky that about three months ago my LG subwoofer died, but lucky that it gave me the opportunity to research new soundbars. I was looking at new LG soundbars because of compatibility and Bluetooth connectivity that I knew to work well. I ran across more than one person in some audio forums raving about the sound quality of Samsung for a price point below $1500.00.

I conducted more research and liked the look of this Samsung (HWQ990F 11.1.4). Setup with my new LG was plug and play, zero compatibility issues. My iphone connected via bluetooth with zero issues. I mean setup was a snap. The app to adjust the sound is easier than using the remote control. I used CHAT to dial in the settings for my room setup. OMG, this soundbar blows away my old LG soundbar, no comparison, hands down night and day difference.

This systems looks great in front of my OLED. I was afraid that the bar would be to tall for the low profile t.v. stand, but that is no problem (I wish I could wall mount, but someone only used 1" X 4" to frame the basement walls). I am not a fan of the remote control, but as said the phone app works best. As far as actually controlling the volume once i adjusted the settings, my LG remote controls the volume with zero issue. The base is deep as in not hollow "trying to sound deep, but more just loud and distorted deep). The rear speakers are amazing and with the Dolby DTS Atmos, blah, blah is awesome. This is as close as one can get to a home movie theater experience for what I consider fairly cheap. I am sure there are sound systems that people swear by and scoff at my silly, entry level, sound system, but I am not willing to spend thousands of dollars on a sound system either. Don't let the haters fool you, this is a premium system. I don't paid for this, I didn't receive anything free, I took the time to write this because I am truly impressed and so happy that i didn't listen to the stories of blue tooth issues with the sub woofer and connectivity between brands, etc.

0:19

Samsung top of the line soundbar

The Samsung q990f soundbar is enormous. Sounds incredible. Subwoofer and rear surround speakers make it a complete home theater experience.

Defective sound bar with bulge

Sound bar had defect. There is bulge in the plastic.

Buy Earplugs!

It was pretty easy to install and one of the questions or troubleshooting items. I had setting it up as easy to find online and all my speakers are in sync sounds great.! Good for movies, gaming TV and music!!!! The football and the Call Of Duty sounded like it was in the living room!!!!! Love the vibes

0:44

Not looking good so far

I’ll start off with what I like. First impressions, packaging it came in was generous thankfully. A lot of companies have recently been getting cheaper in that department, but given the price point Samsung delivered. The design is sleek and modern in my opinion, I do hope that in the future companies offer at least a silver and a white option, but you can never go wrong with black. The product feels of high quality construction and doesn’t feel cheaply constructed. The woofer as well feels premium, although it is somewhat small given the other components size, nonetheless it delivers ‘enough punch’ for its size. The surround speakers are fantastic as well, premium and larger than I had expected. As far as sound, I’m no audio engineer, but I am highly critical of sound especially at higher volumes. This q990f delivers exceptionally well from 20-50 on the volume scale. My living room is where this is situated and it has more than enough sound to be immersive and it gets very very loud without any distortion. The content you watch has to be in Dolby Atmos to get the most out of it although I have found that the adaptive audio setting does well even if the content you’re watching isn’t exactly the best quality. Just know that to get the best you have to watch in native Dolby. The remote is decent, I pretty much only used it for the initial setup and that was that. I don’t have a Samsung tv with this so compatibility isn’t the best unfortunately, we’re missing out on the q-symphony feature, bummer.

Now for the cons and the reason for leaving 2 stars, for NOW. The connectivity is absolute hit or miss, extremely confusing, altogether massively frustrating and annoying. On initial setup the subwoofer would not sync to the soundbar despite several attempts until it worked. How or why this happened? Your guess is as good as mine. Hold the light on the sub until it blinks then immediately after press and hold the up button on the remote and it should pair. It worked the first time. That was connectivity issue number one, two happened when I tried adding the soundbar through the smart things app to “my devices” the app would not sync to the soundbar until I finally performed a hard factory reset and then followed all the steps to get it to work the second time around. For a sound bar that is supposed to be plug n’play it took almost two hours to get it to work properly. After that initial quirk I did consider returning just for a brief moment but I endured.

Now 4 days later, I get home start watching a movie, notice the sound profile is ‘really thin’ I notice the subwoofer blinking red and blue, meaning it’s not paired. So I go through the process of re-pairing and after a minute, more or less, the signal drops again. Repeat and again time after time it fails. Okay. Now a factory reset. Still nothing fixes the issue for the subwoofer signal. So, I ask ChatGPT. Turns out it’s a router configuration interference issue. Yeah. So now fast forward 2 hours and I’m deep into router settings on my computer tweaking channel and frequency configurations and other stuff I have never needed to mess with with in order to hopefully get this thing to work. If it hadn’t been for ChatGPT I have no idea what I would’ve done honestly. But after many failed attempts I finally got it to work. (The whole process was very tedious and unfamiliar, I can’t go through every step as it was too many steps to remember accurately but just now it was not a “simple and obvious fix” by any means).

So this is it. I have made up my mind. If I have to re-pair this thing one more time it’s going back. It’s just not worth the hassle and frustration of having to mess with settings and the works every couple of days. Moving forward Samsung should consider adding a physical cable to link the sub and the soundbar just in case wireless connectivity is compromised at minimum. What they should really do is fix this issue.

If this problem ceases to exist I’ll reconsider my position and perhaps raise the stars but for now 2 stars is me being generous.

Edit: 5/5/2026

Now the eArc port on the sound bar is giving me problems. It’s become way too loose to keep the hdmi cable secure and constantly has to be adjusted.

On a different note the connectivity issues have stopped ever since I set my local WiFi to be at 5ghz permanently. However all the other gadgets that used to operate on the 2.4ghz band are now unavailable for WiFi use. So there’s that issue.

Overall, another half baked Samsung product, surround sound is meh. Honestly wouldn’t really recommend it with all the issues I’ve had with it.

Plug and Play Dolby Atmos - Unparalleled Sound

I spent a ton of time researching the best wireless Dolby Atmos systems and it came down to this versus the Nakamichi Dragon. I had an older Nakamichi system and knew the quality, but I hated all the tweaks I had to make to get the right sound.

This system is just easy.

You plug it in, connect to the TV, turn it on, and you’re at the theater without all of the hassle and tweaks of other systems. The bass level is great and the sound clarity and some created by the rear surrounds is unreal.

Love the AirPlay built in as we are an apple house. I will say the unit is BIG, but the design blends it in with the black backdrop behind.

Will mount to soundbar mount kit. Bass is thumpy. Louder=$2500

Used Q990F has Great sound with Music and regular TV. Hearing back ground sounds my last JBL didn't produce, makes it feel real. Bass is thumpy and crisp. Smart Things Connection was automated. Literally did nothing. Found old hdmi wasn't working. Replaced with hdmi in box and works perfect. Good individual speaker volume control. Eq in your phone is better choice. Estimate $2500 to find amplifier and speakers to compare.

Removed my music speakers, a edifier s360db, due to Q990F is way better for music.

The Sound bar is Massive. Heavy, thick, deep, and wide. However it does hang fine below my tv on sound bar mount. See pics.

The soundbar has excellent bass too. Very pleased with my used purchase.

Outstanding Sound System

This sound bar is more than I expected. With the surround sound, it makes us feel as if we are in a movie theatre. All the pieces of the sound aren't in the picture. It's great, you will love it as much as we do.