2 weeks ago I purchased a QN94A TV – connected to an old Samsung 2.1 channel soundbar (HW-E450) – no issues. Shortly after, I changed the soundbar to a HW-Q600A to avail of Q-symphony on the TV, along with Dolby Atmos. Setup was certified High speed HDMI with ethernet cables connected to soundbar via TV HDMI 3 (eARC). Note: Soundbar does not support eARC, but does support ARC. I then started to notice blips, audio drop out, when playing Dolby Atmos content via the native TV Netflix app through the soundbar – this disconnect/reconnect was obvious, as the ‘Dolby Atmos’ logo scolled across on the soundbar. Frequency was random, but typically anywhere between 3 and 40mins. I suspect these dropout were on other not Atmos content, but it wasn’t as noticeable due to the lack of the dolby logo.
I tried some basic troubleshooting – replaced HDMI cable with 3 others, disabled eARC on TV, factory reset of both TV and soundbar, and Firmware check – soundbar running 1001.1/0071, TV running 1506.0 – issue remained. I changed the cable from high speed with ethernet to high speed, and I thought issue improved, but returned 3 days later, and is back to previous frequency – I believe this is just coincidence now and the issue is not cable related, as I didn’t touch the cables before the audio drops returned.
I reported the issue to Samsung, through their online chat, and after a number of days of carrying out basic troubleshooting, yesterday they came back and told me the following:
“We are aware of the Sound dropout on certain Soundbar model including your Soundbar. We are still investigating this and we are awaiting from Headquarters for their feedback or resolution. Most likely your Soundbar will have a software update to fix this however we can confirm this once we have a feedback/resolution from Samsung Headquarters.”
I pointed out there was a previous similar issue reported here: https://www.samsung.com/us/support/troubleshooting/TSG01211322/
From this, it appeared that the US site firmware update from 1000.9 -> 1001.1 would resolve the audio drop out issue, but obviously if this was applicable to my soundbar model, it didn’t fix it – is it normal for US and UK updates to be different, even with identical naming??
Finally I asked the rep to confirm and this was the response:
“Samsung is aware on the audio dropout of the certain models including your Soundbar HW-Q600A”
I am partly glad this was the response, but partly worried that there will be an update and the issue will remain – or there is something wrong on the TV side…. Has anyone else experienced audio dropouts or other audio issues with this soundbar and/or TV?
