PURE AND SIMPLE

Systems don’t come simpler than this one

You can’t really get a more simple home cinema system than this – it comprises just a TV and a soundbar. But this system is also remarkably effective at drawing you in to the home cinema experience – especially for those with a room that errs towards the diminutive.

The trend for television screen sizes over the past few years has been rising ever larger – to the extent that we at What Hi-fi? sometimes struggle to find any ‘smaller’ sets to review. The very fact that we’re entertaining a 49in TV as a relatively small screen speaks for that fact. This screen acreage would have been considered positively outré a decade or so ago. No longer.

That’s got much to do with the technological advances that we’ve seen television manufacturers introduce. Ultra high definition and high dynamic range both mean that larger screens can be viewed from far closer than they could a decade or so ago – and as we all now know, the picture quality on very large-screened sets is now superb.

Here, then, is a screen to fit in with the dimensions of the more real-world living room. You won’t find Samsung’s One Connect box (a separate box for all inputs, with one thin cable connecting them all to the TV itself) included here, or in any model within the Q70R range – that’s the preserve of the more expensive Q85R and Q90R ranges. The four HDMI ports (one with ARC support) and two USB inputs mean you aren’t short of spots to hook things up; they sit alongside a digital audio optical out, ethernet, satellite main and satellite sub antenna ports – plus of course your aerial socket.

Strong support

Menu options feature across a white background on the bottom half of the screen, with Netflix, Prime Video, BBC iplayer, ITV Hub, Apple TV, Google Play and More 4 all present. Every app that should support 4K HDR does just that via the Samsung.

To get the best possible performance from this Samsung QLED, we recommend switching the Ambient

Light option under the main Eco Solution tab to off, as well as turning off the picture noise reduction setting, called Digital Clean View.

We up the brightness a little, and switch the Local Dimming and Contrast Enhancer levels from low to high, to help eliminate the overly pink skin tones the Samsung is occasionally guilty of, and to add a huge amount of extra clarity and detail. These tweaks are worth a moment of your time, because from here on in there’s an awful lot to enjoy.

Blacks are inky and deep in hue, yet still textured and discernable as more than a single black shape. There’s remarkable depth of colour in general, but with no lack of information.

We cue up Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 in 4K HDR. Here, Quill’s leather jacket is as rich and crisp in colour as Yondu’s blue complexion. The latter’s mind-controlled arrow zips around the screen with clarity and no observable lag.

The Q70R’S authentic colour representation and textured detail is terrific. There’s impressive definition, tonal variation and depth to the image.

There’s a predictable drop in quality when we switch to standard definition, but reducing the sharpness and brightness back to the default settings helps. Skin tones remain true and ultimately the Samsung’s SD performance is more than acceptable.

The Q70R is a belter for picture detail, colour palette, intensity, solidity and three-dimensionality. Indeed, its sound capabilities, for a flat-screen TV, are surprisingly competent. But that is not what concerns us in this set up, of course. Because, no matter how decent the sound a TV makes, it will always be bettered by a well-chosen soundbar. And the Sonos Beam is a well-chosen soundbar, even if we say so ourselves.

Lighter Beam

The Beam is significantly more compact than its older siblings, the Playbar (£699) and Playbase (£499). At just 65cm wide and weighing 2.8kg, it’s smaller and significantly lighter than the Playbar.

Inside are four full-range drivers, one tweeter and three passive radiators, plus five class-d amplifiers. As on the Playbar and Playbase, the drivers and radiators are positioned along the front and far edges of the bar, helping to drive sound around your room for a more immersive, room-filling experience. Voice control is handled by five far-field microphones, which ensure the Beam can hear you from almost anywhere in the room.

The Beam, available in black or white finishes, can best be described as a typical Sonos product. Which means this isn’t simply a soundbar: it's also a wireless, multi-room speaker that can play music from almost any source. Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Deezer, your phone, network-connected hard drives – it’s all supported and all can be combined in on-the-fly playlists and queues.

The Beam can talk to any other Sonos products you have in your home, playing the same music as the One in your kitchen or the Play:5 in your dining room. Sonos will also support Airplay 2, allowing you to build a multi-room system with products from different manufacturers. Of course, the Beam can also connect to your TV, and deal with TV and movie sound too. What’s more, it does so via an HDMI connection, unlike its ’bar and ’base siblings.

You can connect two smaller Sonos speakers (One, Play:1, Play:3 or Play:5) to act as rear speakers in a cinema system or add a Sonos Sub. The former is worth considering if you’re after surround sound from a discreet system, but at an extra £700, the Sub is possibly overkill. Because the Beam sounds exceptionally good, particularly for its size. Sonos has managed to overcome the usual limitations of compact speakers. Given the Beam’s dimensions, the width and spaciousness of the soundstage is astonishing – it has no right to reproduce with anything like the depth and authority it does. This is chunky, solid, grin-inducing bass. It can go loud, too – few will complain about this soundbar not being loud enough.

Despite the weight and width on offer from the Beam, dialogue is clear and direct, and never drowned out by the rest of the action. The Beam is more than enough speaker for most people, to the extent that spending the extra £300 to get the Playbar could, in many cases, be entirely unnecessary. For the average person in the average lounge, the Beam is a superb choice.