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HW-N950 Woes

(Topic created on: 22-06-2019 10:05 AM)
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banjax
First Poster
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So I've had the n950 for a couple of months now and am having a few real issues.

 

It's linked via HDMI 2.0 to a LG OLED65E8PLA.  Sources are the TV itself, Apple TV 4k, Sky Q and Panasonic UB 9000 UHD player all connected direct to the TV.

 

The room is 16 1/2 foot square with the TV on one side and the Speakers on the other. 

 

1) It frequently loses connection using TV ARC.  Generally, I can turn Anynet + off and on but sometimes only a power cycle seems to cure it.

2) It also frequently loses auto power so I've got to also reset that.

3) I had a Sonos amp connected via optical but that seemed to make issue 1 worse.  I think may have read somewhere that this isn't an intended use so I can't have multiple devices running at the same time.

4) The rear speakers (Not checked the sub) are a bit like Jack the Ripper.  They occasionally appear out of the fog of silence, kick into life briefly and are really notable but generally, you hear hide nor hair from them.  I do live in a block in central London which I'm sure does have a reasonable level of interference.

 

When it's all working its' fab....Dolby vision, ATMOS going lovely but at the moment I'm at the point that I'm thinking that this was a complete mistake and I should have gone for the SONOS, not atmos, solution.  In fact, I far get better performance out of the Bean/Sonos 1 pair solution I have in the study.

 

Any suggestions to troubleshoot/resolve the issues gratefully received.  

 

I would be grateful for any suggestions that anybody has because I'm pulling my hair out.  

60 REPLIES 60
KU2019
Journeyman
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Hi Miguel

 

I've had the system for a few months now and definitely can agree with you that the rears and sub can be very low for most content. After a few months however, I would say that the system does work as it should (but maybe not quite to our expectations) . 

 

 

 

Try playing ATMOS content; either by using the test clips on Dolbys website, or by playing a Bluray with an ATMOS audio track (remembering to change your player settings to output via Bitstream and making sure the audio setting in the actual Bluray movie menu are set to Dolby). You'll then see the rears and sub come alive as if it were a sleeping dragon. It will tear the roof off. 

 

 

 

That said, I agree that Id like the same amount of power when playing music or other content. The truth is, this system is powerful, but it needs equally powerful source material. Sadly, at the moment, not much is available. Its almost like this soundbar is ahead of its time and we just have to wait for the content to catch up and match up to what this soundbar can deliver. You can have the finest paintbrush, but if only cheap paints are available then the result will be below expectation and you cant then blame the paintbrush. Thats the best analogy for this situation.

 

 

 

 

 

There are a couple of things you can try to help however:

 

 

 

1. Placement. Positioning the sub and speakers optimally can enhance the experience. Play around with the sub position especially. Mine is behind me and bouncing the bass off a wall which works much better than firing the soundwaves into empty air (for me at least)

 

 

 

2. Play with the settings. You can increase the sub power level using the "sub" volume level on the remote. However you can also increase the levels for each speaker channel by pressing the settings button on the control and cycling through each customisable setting. You can also increase the treble, soundbar bass and turn Virtual Surround on/off this way.

 

 

 

3. If you connect to SmartThings via a Samsung phone you also gain access to an equaliser which you can use to fine tune sound levels. This can also be accessed by the remote control (I think by holding down the settings button for a few seconds)

 

 

 

4. Try changing the "Surround mode". I find that 'Smart' works best. But on some content 'Surround' worked better. Try watching a particularly intense movie scene a few times on each setting to see which works best. Note you may need to then switch occasionally to get the best as one mode wont necessarily suit every situation. Also try mixing the modes with VIRTUAL Surround on and off to see if that makes a difference.

 

 

 

For now; we have to wait for the audio content on media to improve on things like Netflix and Sky/Virgin etc but I can assure you, you have an insanely powerful bit of kit and playing ATMOS content will prove that to you!

 

 

Zazadj81
Journeyman
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I bought this soundbar yesterday, but there is the vague possibility that it will improve the sound of the rear speakers, the effects come in dolby atmos, but although the volume is at maximum for these the sound does not seem balanced between the front and the rear

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Andyspencer100
Student
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You may have done what I did. I didn’t realise the rear speakers were actually left and right handed. 

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Zazadj81
Journeyman
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I will check when I get home if I have correctly positioned to the right and left, but the fact remains that the volume is not adequate for the front, there is need for more thrust from the rear, I believe that the q90r also suffers from the same problem. you need to be able to go more than 6db for the rear if you want to balance the sound well. at the moment it is too silent and does not seem to have them.
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Zazadj81
Journeyman
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I checked the rear speakers correctly on the left and right, now I was looking at aquaman and in the underwater scenes the effects can be heard a lot, but still the front is much stronger, I will try to lower the front to -6 to see if the back gets better. but in my opinion there is a need for software intervention by Samsung to improve the rear speakers.

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Zazadj81
Journeyman
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yesterday I looked at wonder woman, in dolby atmos, English language there are back effects, but I had to turn up the volume, in Italian 5.1 the volume is much higher I brought the volumes to 0 db. however in the average I am satisfied.

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Zazadj81
Journeyman
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I tried dolby atmos with Xbox and the rear speakers sound much louder than Apple TV. why this volume difference?

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Zazadj81
Journeyman
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some news from samsung on volume of the rear speakers, now they were busy with the q90r disconnection problem, I hope they can fix something with an update

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Wpc1
Student
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I was on the verge of buying one of these but from what i have read they lose the rear speakers all the time and if used as i would have used it (optical TV feed) if you were on a freeview that only had 2 channels the rears never worked anyway. Sticking with Yammy it's clever enough to reproduce a sound with any feed

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KU2019
Journeyman
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Thanks for your post. 
I'm not saying that users/people who have purchased these speakers are not experiencing problems. Clearly there are common problems experienced, however, I do think that perhaps there is some element of user impact in these problems. I can certainly say that in almost a year of having these speakers (using them on a daily basis for TV/Movies) I have never once experienced the rear channels losing connection (and mine are about 15-20ft away from the main soundbar/front channels). I think that as long as you've set them up corrrectly, turned them on in the correct order, and identified them as per the instructions, you should have NO issues with connection at all. Also worth noting that everyone should be using high-quality cables correctly connected. The sound is phenomenal when playing media with ATMOS content. It's great with 5.1 and 7.1 content but yes, I agree its not as loud or pronounced as Atmos content... 

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