LG OLED55B8PLA
SYSTEM PRICE £2499…
…PLUS the cost of your chosen Sky Q package
Now it’s just possible that we at What Hi-fi? may have mentioned in the past that flatscreen TVS (as we used to call them, in the days when the cathode-ray tube was still able to provide the best picture from the ‘box’) , tend to sound really rather disappointing. And, while it’s undeniably true that things have improved beyond most expectations, we stand by the fact that, to enjoy the full home cinema experience that today’s larger screens provide, you really owe it to yourself to improve the sound as much as possible. It’s amazing just how much the viewing experience is enhanced with top-notch sound.
First things first, though; we need something to watch to kick things off. Our choice of television is relatively straightforward. There are loads of excellent TVS around, but probably the best bang for your buck as far as picture quality goes is this hugely impressive set from the king of OLEDS, LG.
Once up and running, there's very little sense of any actual 'settling' going on – the OLED55B8PLA is one of the most pound-for-pound impressive TVS currently available.
We head straight to Alex Garland’s excellent sci-fi thriller Annihilation on Netflix (it's a film we strongly recommend) and the picture we are met with is as welcome as the greeting from an old friend. The lush greens and the more muted khaki tones of the army uniforms come through with familiar richness and refinement. The LG is not only a natural with tones but also in its handling of shading – its colour reproduction as grounded as the B8’s feet are to the stand on which it sits.
This is an OLED TV, of course – so black levels plunge deep too. And we like the LG’S easy-on-the-eye refinement.
Stable and well defined
Image stability isn’t a problem either. We move to the armies of World War II in Dunkirk via Ultra HD Blu-ray, and the soldiers in the background on the beach remain well outlined as the plane passes over them in the foreground.
Thankfully, there’s lashings of detail between the black bars not only in bright daylight scenes but also in darker moments. So, when Harry Styles et al are underneath the boat, you can make out hair strands in the array of black mops.
It’s one of the many ways the LG makes the most of the disc’s 4K HDR presentation. The transparency to make clear the content’s leap in resolution and colour range is there in spades.
With the LG TV’S clear strength with a 4K picture, it makes sense to have access to plenty of 4K material. And Sky Q is one of your best bets for getting a regular 4K fix. There are now frequent broadcasts in UHD on Sky Sports, and Sky movies and the search function within Sky Q makes tracking down your 4K content a piece of cake.
All around the house
Sky Q is the biggest overhaul Sky has given to its package since it introduced Sky+, aiming to do for television what Sonos did to music – and make it truly multi-room.
The package is built around the Sky Q 2TB box (formerly Sky Q Silver), which essentially works as a hub, delivering content to up to two separate Sky Q Mini boxes and two tablets simultaneously around your home. In total, the Sky Q 2TB box allows you to record six channels and watch a seventh simultaneously – if you can find enough screens.
4K Ultra HD content on Sky comes in the form of movies, TV shows and, most recently, Netflix. One thing missing is HDR video. HDR support should arrive at some point in 2019.
Sport in 4K looks great. From the club crests on player shirts to the native 4K animations, you can pick out all manner of detail in the Premier League coverage. Switch between HD and UHD broadcasts and there's a subtle lift in the nuanced details displayed on your telly.
Sky's 4K Formula 1 content easily matches the football for quality. Details on the race helmets and the logos on the cars are clearly visible, and the shots of cars cornering are wonderfully stable. 4K movie content on Sky Q comes in two varieties. ‘Remastered’ at the top of the programme preview page indicates the title has a master in a higher resolution than HD and has been upconverted in post-production and remastered to 4K resolution.
Anything that doesn't say ‘Remastered’ has either been recorded in Ultra HD or the studios (or Sky) have gone back to the original material and processed it with an Ultra HD workflow in postproduction. It’s all very impressive, and shows off the LG’S skills beautifully.
As an overall package, Sky Q feels utterly contemporary, combining almost every way of watching TV and allowing you to access them all over your home (and, to an extent, outside). This is as good as TV gets – if you can bear the not-inconsiderable cost.
Soak up the Atmos
Which brings us, finally, to the all important sound – no point having all that lovely 4K material if it sounds as if it’s all coming down a tin-can-and-string speaker. And Sony’s Award-winning Dolby Atmos soundbar has been, until very recently, the best-sounding bar we’ve come across. Sennheiser has got something to say about that now – but for a considerable sum more (see p14). For this system, then, we stick to our old favourite. And it doesn’t let us down.
HT-ST5000 is fantastic, pairing a real sense of height with a sophisticated sound quality. It’s a great, fuss-free way of getting Dolby Atmos into your home.
We play Star Trek Beyond, which has a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, and there’s a distinct sense of space and movement provided by this soundbar’s drivers, both in front of you and above you. Rather than having audio sound like it’s coming from above the television the HTST5000 pushes it overhead, so the whoosh of spaceships becomes part of a more immersive soundstage.
Plenty of power
There’s no need to shy away from pushing this soundbar to its sonic limits either. We can turn the volume up loud and not experience any harshness in the treble or any strain on its dynamism.
In the low end, the bass is earthy and textured, and during fight scenes it has a decent punch to it. It might appear to be expensive for what it is, but this Sony is a superb-sounding product, packed full of features.
And it delivers beautifully on the promise of the entertainment offered by the LG TV and Sky Q combination. This is a soundbar system that you’d struggle to beat for its fair price.
“To enjoy the full home cinema experience that today’s larger screens provide, you really owe it to yourself to improve the sound as much as possible”