7.1.4 from Samsung’s soundbar

Having been well impressed by Samsung’s HW-K950 soundbar when it was released for the Christmas 2016 season, we were keen to hear Samsung’s updated version, the HW-N950, launching at the same $1999.

If that sounds pricey for a soundbar, and a Samsung one at that, take a look at the specs. This is a full 7.1.4 immersive sound system with dedicated drivers for each channel, rather than virtualisation (other than the side-surround position being delivered by side drivers on the front bar). There are separate physical wireless rear speakers, and four drivers dedicated to the height channels of Atmos and DTS:X — a pair of upfiring drivers on the bar, and two more at the rear, one on each rear speaker.

At the Sydney demonstration we asked for a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 tone test to be played, and the result was impressive localisation even in the room Samsung had chosen for the demo, a screening cinema for Universal Pictures, which had a ceiling so high it disappeared into the darkness — nothing off which the Atmos-enabled drivers could bounce their ceiling sound.

The choice of a real cinema for the demo was to emphasise the aim of bringing real home cinema sound back to the home. The N950 uses 17 drivers, and the lower N850 model 13 drivers — that N850 version comes without the rear speakers, and so might be considered a 5.1.2 system, with rear channels thrown sideways by the front bar.

Samsung’s sound tuning has been revolutionised in recent years by its California Audio Lab, set up under the leadership of Allan Devantier, formerly of Harman (which Samsung subsequently bought). During his time at Harman, Mr Devantier worked and learned under the great Floyd O’Toole, and it’s not too far a stretch to say that in the new Audio Lab, Mr Devantier is creating a modernised version of O’Toole’s legendary facilities at the National Research Council of Canada.

The original 2016 K950 was developed prior to the new Lab, but in time to be tuned there. The new N950 model benefits from the Lab having been involved from the beginning at the hardware level. It incorporates the long excursion drivers which performed so well in the company’s Sound+Image award-winning MS650 and the MS750 reviewed this issue, and also the software distortion cancellation developed by the team’s Pascal Brunet, which aims to introduce corrections via DSP which are the precise inverse of the distortion that is predicted to occur in the system from the current input. These distortions are established by the precise measurements available in the Audio Lab, but of course will vary with specific real content, so it requires, as Devantier says, a clever algorithm. The result, he says, is greater bass extension, with corrections also ensuring that the soundbar’s woofers (and the subwoofer too) will never bottom out at high levels.This cleverness makes us wonder why Samsung chose to have this bar certified by Harman Kardon (which, after all, it owns), rather than building Samsung’s own audio reputation with another promising TV audio product.

In addition to playing native 7.1.4 material from Dolby Atmos and DTS-X, the N950 can ‘upscale’ lower channel-count material to its additional channels, and further upscales input signals to 32-bit depth for processing. There are additional smarts, including Alexa compatibility, Bluetooth, and Samsung’s ‘Smart Things’ app. www.samsung.com.au