I bought the Q990b about 3 weeks ago from Bestbuy got a great deal $1085 US or 1499 CAD(bestbuy price matched the current price a Centre HiFi in Montreal). For reference I also have the Sony HT-A7000 with the SA-RS5 surrounds and SA-SW5

photos of living-room set-up of Q990b My first impressions It sounds amazing, better than the 5.1 AVR set up with klipsch speakers and Denon receiver at my parents place. The Build quality seems great. The weight of the bar and surrounds as well as the metal grill makes it feel premium. Q990s Atmos effects are fantastic and very noticeable, no need to look hard to find the effects.I feel the Atmos affect about 50-60% of the Atmos effect I was looking for when comparing to my experience with the in-ceiling demo. 50-60% may not sound high but it is and it’s great being that there aren’t actually speakers in the ceiling. To test I put the first 30 seconds of “Andor” on Disney+, the first scene is him walking during a thunderstorm and you’d swear that the thunder is above your head from the middle of the ceiling. Next I have the 4K UHD Dune blue-ray that I played through my PS5 and it sounds great but the height effects are there but not as in your face as the other movies I tested, but are instead very immersive with great sound separation. Being a 11.1.4 Channel system the wide and side firing beam speakers on the bar and the added 3rd side firing speakers on the surrounds made my room feeling massive. Both the spice harvester scene and the scene where they are being chase into the sand storm felt very immersive. also gave dr strange multi verse of madness a listen during the scene where they fall through multiple dimensions and the atmos again is very present. Finally there is the forest chase scene in “no time to die” which I have a 4K UHD blue-ray for as-well. The sound of the helicopter distinctly comes from above your head and not from the surround ear levels which really caught me by surprise. Originally the rear surrounds were mounted about 6-8inches above ear level but it was only after putting them at ear level that the sound went from great to amazing (especially when it came to atmos and surround effects) as there was more clear separation between the ear level sounds and the Atmos sound effects. This goes against the traditional “slightly above ear level” position people say to do but from my experience when you add atmos speakers it shines best when the placement is lower and closer to ear level maybe even an inch below. The base is great, it’s deep, clear and has power. The base is amazing (mind you I’m in a condo so can’t turn it to max) but it blends well and the base seems to come from every direction when firing which is Great. The sound bar also gets very loud! and doesn’t distort. I normally keep the volume around 20% and it’s loud. I wouldn’t dare going above 30-35%. My SETTINGS for the best listening experience I kept it in adaptive mode(sound mode) with auto EQ and Spacefit+ on and then in the SmartThings app I increased the channel levels of the front up firing speakers to +4 and the rear up firing to +6(max), I increased the rear surrounds to +3 as well as the front sides and sides to +2. The center channel i left as is or lowered to -2 to -4. I haven’t had any connection issues between the speakers. I like that I can manually adjust channels and still get the benefits of the Spacefit+ and Auto EQ features as they can stay turned on even with manual adjustments unlike my Ht-A7000 and it’s 360 spatial audio which turns off if you manually make adjustments.

The cons of this system There is no HDMI 2.1 Pass through(which simply means you need to plug directly into one of the tvs 2.1 ports for those features) no big deal as most new tvs will start having lots of 2.1 ports but sucks if you don’t have a newer premium TV. Also I feel the calibration doesn’t inspire confidence as most of the calibration is done by its Spacefit+ and auto EQ features which are more hands off when compared to competitors and it doesn’t calibrate by playing all those fancy sounds out of each channel like Sony or Sonos, which less reassuring as you just need to hope it knows what it is doing. But hey is if it’s sounds amazing I guess it’s not needed. I also feel the that though the front sound stage is very wide during action scenes, I can more noticeably hear and tell that the sound is coming from the sound-bar itself as opposed to the larger front area especially during scenes with more dialogue and I haven’t noticed this issue as much when using my Sony HT-A7000 with SA-RS5. Maybe a firmware update and help to spread and separate dialogue out a bit more. When you notice the sound coming from the sound-bar and not the wider sound stage it can take away that immersive feeling. The sound is very immersive and blends great front to rear however I found myself looking for maybe just a bit more space separation between voices at the front and all the little sounds but I’m picking at straws here as the sound separation is by no means bad, it’s really good.

Q990b In short: I felt that the Q990b lived up the the hype and more. It creates a massive and immersive sound stage, the surround and atmos effect are amazing and likely the best you can get without actually putting speakers in your ceiling. The sound is clear, well separated and powerful. The 3 channel rear surround with Atmos are really the star of the show in my opinion and bring a lot of power/volume to easily match the the output of the soundbar and they blend perfectly. I also really like the features of the SmartThings app and how everything just works. You can configure and adjust when you access it through the app. I do wish it had HDMI 2.1 and that the sound clarity could be a bit better at times as things can sometimes get lost when it the system has all of its 22 speakers firing which my HT-A7000 with SA-RS5 does a better job at Don’t let it lower cost fool you when compared to its Sony Competition. It is the best out there. I love it, it’s amazing, I can’t say enough good things about this Q990b system. It would be very hard to recommend anything else regardless of price