HW-N950 Woes

[banjax]

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.  

[Sean84]

I suppose you may be right about people coming from systems with better DSP for a "fake" surround mode. I have no illusions that this soundbar can make a 2.0 source sound like true 7.1.4 sound. That's ridiculous. For film content that is not coded for Atmos/DTS:X I prefer the "smart" mode or the "standard" mode for a true representation of the content. My gripe with the rear speakers in "surround" mode come from playing 2.0 music content. I don't need individual instruments and unique mixes coming from the rears. I just want them to play the same content as the soundbar in order to fill my living space. The manual's description of how "surround" mode works lead me to believe that that was the case.

Granted, some songs sound better through the rears than others, but that's just inconsistancy with the way the "surround" mode processes the content.

In the end I guess I can sum it up by saying I want all the speakers to consistantly play my music regardless of the song in order to fill my living space. If that's not something the HW-N950 can do then that's just lesson learned and I move on with my life.

It still blows the roof off with Atmos/DTS:X content. For that it was worth the purchase.

Sean

[KeeSheng]

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Hi KU2019

How did u solve the rear speakers and subwoofer problem in the end? 

I am having the same issues too. 

Thanks, 

KS 

@KU2019 wrote:

I've had the HW-N950 for a month now and similar to Banjax and many other users youll find on other forums, there does appear to be a potential issue with the soundbar. 

Despite using high quality HDMI cables and compatible TV with HDMI ARC, and a Virgin Tivo box connected to the soundbar via Optical Cable, the rear speakers and bass are mostly ridiculously low.

There are many suggestions that the bass unit shouldnt be far from the main soundbar and placed in a corner and thats why the bass might sound low. This isn't the issue nor an issue in my set up as my sub is placed in a corner and I've tried various placement. There are also suggestions to turn up the individual volume parameters for the rear speaker channels, an upward firing rear and upward firing front speakers. Ive set all of these to +6 (the max) but still, the bass lacks punch and power for most media sources, and the rear speakers output barely a whisper even when the main soundbar is blasting out audio at high levels. Most of the time you have to put your head and ear right up to the rear speakers just to be sure that they are even on. 

What Ive found is that the rear speakers and sub DO come to life when watching media with an ATMOS audio track. For example, the sub and rear speakers tear the house down when watching a bluray with an ATMOS audio soundtrack via my PS4 (Gravity or Mad Max Fury Rd in my case). However, when streaming high quality audio via Bluetooth, watching a Dolby 5.1 coded Bluray, playing a PS4 game, or watching anything on TV; the sub and rear speakers pretty much go to sleep and the volume and bass is massively lower (the front soundbar however, remains working just fine). I'm on the latest firmware 1005.1 so that's not the issue either. It clearly is a case of the soundbar underperforming whenever it's tasked with outputting anything other than ATMOS audio content. Dolby 5.1 content isnt too bad, you do get the occassional sound effects diverted to the rear speakers, but the bass still lacks punch. When playing audio, its almost embarassing that no sound comes out of the rears and the bass is so low. Ive had other soundbars and 5.1 speaker systems before and playing audio, even from a stereo audio source, would still output sound to the rears at the same volume level as the front channels and the bass on my older systems when playing music content and dvds/blurays is far better. Changing the sound mode between Surround, Smart and Off doesnt seem to make any noticeable difference. I'd be greatful if anyone had a solution to this although I suspect this may get fixed with a future firmware update. Clearly the sub and rears have the capability of being ballistic (as I do experience thunderous bass and surround effects when playing ATMOS encoded content)...just not on anything else. Naturally I'd expect sources like YouTube or cable tv to be inferior (as they dont usually output in high quality/dolby audio) , but playing music froma bluetooth source or watching a 5.1 encoded Bluray disc should not result in muted sounds and performance from the sub and rears (especially since older, cheaper systems can clearly do a much better job).

Sadly, Samsung dont seem to understand this problem despite many forums and users complaining of the same thing and other users sometimes seem to think the issue is solved by increasing the individual parameters of each channel. I assure you, that isn't the issue and if you think it is, please try ATMOS content compared to playing music from a Bluetooth source or a 5.1 Blueray movie and you will notice the huge difference is bass output...and you wont notice the rear speakings kicking in more than just a whisper (especially when playing music)!

Banjax; as to your comment about losing connection to TV Arc; I'm sorry I can't comment on this as my connection seems stable. You might try this however: Pull out the plugs to soundbar, sub and rears and your TV. Wait 5 mins. Now, plug in the TV, then the Sub, then the rears and finally the soundbar. On the back of the sub and rears, press and hold the reset button until the indicator light flashes blue quite fast. Once all the rears and sub are flashing blue, turn on the soundbar and on the remote, press and hold the UP button for 5 seconds until you see ID.SET on the soundbar display. The sub and rears should no longer be flashing and instead have a solid blue light and you should be connected again. The TV then should output sound via Arc and hopefully you shouldn't lose connection again. The instructions for this are in the manual... but this order of turning things on with soundbar LAST seems to have better results. Also you may want to just make sure your connections are secure and youre using high quality cables with interference/insualation protection to avoid loss of data which might also be causing the issue.

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[MiguelBarata]

After more than 2 months trying to increase the volume of the rear speakers into +6 and also watching Netflix movies under 5.1 audio output....guess what? I can only hear whispers form the rear speakers and the sub-woofer is also super low and can’t  hear anything. I spent £1,500 in a audio 7.1 system on which only the front soundbar seems works and the rest is just for decorating my living room. Samsung knows the problem and instead of recalling the product and refunding users like us, Samsung decides to ignore it and keep selling this useless product. This will be the last time I buy something from Samsung. What a rip off product and I feel completely misleading and at minimum this is a viloation of any sort of consumer rights. Shame on you SAMSUNG. At least remove the product form the market.

[KU2019]

Hi KeeSheng

So I never managed to "fix" the problem... I actually realised that there isn't a problem and that the rear speakers arent always going to be as loud as the front bar. Thats just the way they are made. I completely agree that it would be nice if they could just maybe even sound as loud as the front bar when playing audio. It should maybe have a "music" mode so at least all speakers play as loud front and back. The sub could also benefit from this. Lets hope Samsung release a firmware update that allows this. However... if playing 5.1, 7.1, 7.1.4 or ATMOS content (with high quality cables and correct set up) the sound is truly shattering! My tip for users is to place the sub near a wall to bounce the sound off...and use SURROUND mode to enhance the bass. Also dont forget to set the rears, sub AND the front bar bass parameters to +6 using the remote control. 

[Wpc1]

"for the TV channels that support it, the N950 most definitely outputs discrete audio to the rears via Dolby Digital.

As for your last sentence, really?"

Maybe your right as I never bought this product I will never know and can only go on others opinions, but my research did make me feel this was not a Soundbar for me.

[MiguelBarata]

Thanks for your post. but I'm still furstated with the fact that I mostly watch freeview and Netflix under 5.1 audio and I can rarely hear the rear speakers and sub-woofer. Do you know how to update the soundbar internal sofware? Perhaps I have an old version and if updated into a more recent one the sound would get better....

[Zazadj81]

I mainly use the sound bar with Apple TV 4k, when it is set to send lpcm signal, the rear speakers work well depending on the film, sometimes I have to raise the other db even lower to 0. also with Dolby atmos on Apple TV depends on film with Matrix Tomb rider, jumanji the back is much more, with aquaman no. Even when I watch blu ray it is a lottery despite the fact that I send a beatstrem signal. As I have already written, in addition to the adjustment of the db for the individual speakers, Samsung must add a separate volume adjustment for the rear speakers, as on the Sony soundbar. Then yes you would have more control and this soundbar would be perfect.

[qUAan]

Same problem with my rear speakers.receieved a return label to ship sound bar for service.
Let’s see what happens.....

[daomen]

+1 so that an update allows to play on all the speakers of the music, and in my case allow me to hear the voices without too much sound at night. sorry I go through a translator

[phneutral]

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@Sean84 wrote:

I suppose you may be right about people coming from systems with better DSP for a "fake" surround mode. I have no illusions that this soundbar can make a 2.0 source sound like true 7.1.4 sound. That's ridiculous. For film content that is not coded for Atmos/DTS:X I prefer the "smart" mode or the "standard" mode for a true representation of the content. My gripe with the rear speakers in "surround" mode come from playing 2.0 music content. I don't need individual instruments and unique mixes coming from the rears. I just want them to play the same content as the soundbar in order to fill my living space. The manual's description of how "surround" mode works lead me to believe that that was the case.

Granted, some songs sound better through the rears than others, but that's just inconsistancy with the way the "surround" mode processes the content.

In the end I guess I can sum it up by saying I want all the speakers to consistantly play my music regardless of the song in order to fill my living space. If that's not something the HW-N950 can do then that's just lesson learned and I move on with my life.

It still blows the roof off with Atmos/DTS:X content. For that it was worth the purchase.

Sean

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you're right, this is a weak soundbar for music if you're looking to utilise the surrounds to their potential, it's a shame as we know they're capable. I would lean towards Sonos or Bose for better music playback, but then you're giving up the Atmos features.

One thing I've noticed is that the surround levels vary substantially from TV channel to channel, e.g. channel 5 (UK) is very loud on the rears, while others aren't.

+1 for a music mode in a future update