Soundbar for about £300 - anything better than the SAMSUNG HW-MS650?

V_R · 22 Nov 2018 at 20:06

SAMSUNG Sound+ HW-MS650 is on offer for £300 at Currys, I've seen good reviews, anything else out there that I should consider over that?

Not interested in 5.1 due to cables and baby.

TheVoice · 23 Nov 2018 at 17:53

I've had that one (with the rear speaker kit) since earlier this year, it's very good. Bass is fairly decent without being obtrusive or annoying my neighbours below, and I'm really happy with the sound quality.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Nov 2018 at 18:28

I was looking at it for our Samsung TV too,but I saw a Yamaha YSP-1600 for £200 - is that any good?? AFAIK,the MS650 can do HDR via the HDMI and the Yamaha can't?

TheVoice · 23 Nov 2018 at 19:54

I briefly had that Yamaha one, aside from the fact it didn't seem to play nicely with my Samsung TV when using Dolby Digital audio (e.g. Netflix) I was never particularly impressed with the audio quality. It sounded great in the Richer Sounds demo room and the sound reflection tech actually worked, but in a real living room I could never seem to get it to sound the way I wanted. I didn't like the lack of display on it either, just a series of green LEDs that don't mean anything to you when you can't read the tiny labels for them.

In the end it went back and I bought the Samsung instead, and I'm much happier with it.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Nov 2018 at 21:27

Thanks for the comparison!

V_R · 27 Nov 2018 at 10:28

So I got this on the Friday gone. I like it, sound quality is very good, bass is decent, without being too obtrusive. I may get the sub in time though.

What sort of settings are you using?

Psycho Sonny · 27 Nov 2018 at 12:35

TheVoice said:
I briefly had that Yamaha one, aside from the fact it didn't seem to play nicely with my Samsung TV when using Dolby Digital audio (e.g. Netflix) I was never particularly impressed with the audio quality. It sounded great in the Richer Sounds demo room and the sound reflection tech actually worked, but in a real living room I could never seem to get it to sound the way I wanted. I didn't like the lack of display on it either, just a series of green LEDs that don't mean anything to you when you can't read the tiny labels for them.

In the end it went back and I bought the Samsung instead, and I'm much happier with it.

if you used the yamaha app to control the soundbar rather than the remote you could see what the lights mean and also calibrate it for your room. the app is much better than the remote.

TheVoice · 27 Nov 2018 at 12:41

Psycho Sonny said:
if you used the yamaha app to control the soundbar rather than the remote you could see what the lights mean and also calibrate it for your room. the app is much better than the remote.

I did, I set it to the way my living room is laid out and while at times the surround effect did work surprisingly effectively, most of the time it didn't and because all the speakers are positioned in the centre, I never felt like stereo channel separation was much good either.

Like I said, in the RS demo room when they were testing it for me, it sounded excellent and the bass was definitely better than the Samsung but overall, I was never quite happy with it. The fact it didn't seem to play nicely with my TV was probably fortunate really.

Ryan-3 · 27 Nov 2018 at 16:05

Sound quality of the MS650 is really good. Had mine about a year and just decided to get the rears and sub to complete the set. Very good for the price.