LG S90QY Soundbar Review

The LG S90QY has a simple design. It's mostly made of plastic, but compared to the LG SP9YA, it has a tight fabric around its sides instead of a metal grille. On top of the bar, there are three metal grilles covering each of the up-firing drivers.

The LG S90QY's sub is different from the version that comes with the LG SP9YA. The port is in the front, and there's a speaker on the side that's covered in fabric. It's mostly made of wood-like material, and there's a plastic covering on the back.

The LG S90QY doesn't come with satellites, but you can add on the SPQ8-S rear speaker kit or purchase a model like the LG S75QR that has the satellites included.

The LG S90QY is fairly wide, so it doesn't fit between the legs of a 55" TV stand. That said, it's not tall enough to block your TV screen, which is nice.

The sub is about the size of an average desktop computer. It connects to the bar wirelessly, so you just need to plug it into a power outlet to use it.

The LG S90QY has a great build quality. The bar is mostly made of solid-feeling plastic, and the fabric around the sides is tight and sturdy. Compared to the LG SP9YA, there's no metal grille to help protect the drivers inside. The subwoofer is made of wood-like material with fabric covering the speaker on the side. This material isn't as tight as the fabric found on the bar, and our model tore slightly after unpacking it.

• Manual with mounting template
• Mounting plates with 2x screws
• 2x power cables (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Remote with 2x AA batteries
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)

The LG S90QY has a good stereo frequency response. Like most premium models, it has a room correction feature that automatically adjusts audio reproduction based on your room's unique characteristics—it's called AI Room Calibration. With it on, the bar's sound is fairly bass-heavy, especially compared to the LG SC9S, so you notice lots of rumble in bass-centric genres like EDM and hip-hop. The dip in the low-treble means that higher-pitched sounds like cymbals are duller and darker in the mix than the LG S90TR, which reproduces treble frequencies very accurately. Thankfully due to its bass and treble adjustments, you can calibrate its output more to your liking. It doesn't offer a full graphic EQ like the Samsung HW-Q800C though.

There are some bass and treble adjustments to help you customize the LG SP90QY's sound. With its bass set to '-5' and its treble set to '5', it has a more neutral sound suitable for more types of audio content. The bass is present and accurate, and vocals and lead instruments are clear in the mix. There's still a slight dip in the low-treble, though, so higher-pitched vocals and lead instruments are nudged towards the back of the mix.

The LG S90QY has a good stereo soundstage. Its width varies slightly depending on where you sit on your couch—if you're in the center of the sofa, the soundstage seems to be a bit wider than the bar itself, but if you're on the edge of the sofa, it seems to extend a little past that point. The focus is good, too, so sound objects like instruments in an orchestra seem to come from an accurate location that matches the action on the screen.

The LG S90QY has a great stereo dynamics performance. It gets pretty loud, meaning it can fill an average living room with sound. At max volume, there isn't a lot of compression present, so audio quality remains clean and pure.

The LG S90QY has a fair stereo THD performance. At normal listening volumes, distortion falls within good limits, so audio reproduction is clean and pure. However, there's a jump in THD when you push it to max volume. Most listeners don't notice the change, but if you're an audiophile, it's not ideal for accurate listening at loud volumes.

The LG S90QY has a great center channel performance. Since it's a 5.1.3 setup, there's a discrete front-firing center channel like you see with most soundbars, but there's also an up-firing center channel on top of the bar. The channels' frequency response is balanced in the mids, where most voices reproduce. However, the additional up-firing center channel doesn't make a huge difference when it comes to the bar's sound—overall, it performs similarly to other setups with front-firing center channels only.

The LG S90QY has a poor surrounds performance. It doesn't come with discrete satellites, so it uses side-firing drivers built into the bar itself to simulate a phantom surround. However, sound objects like racing cars or gunfire don't seem to come from an accurate location that matches the action on the screen—instead, it seems like they're coming from a speaker placed in front of you. If you want to improve its surrounds performance, you can always add a rear speaker kit. For a bar with satellites, check out either the LG S80QR or the LG S95QR.

The LG S90QY has an okay Atmos performance. It provides a little bit of height with Atmos movies, and it offers a lot of rumble in the bass during action-packed scenes. Scenes feel immersive, and sound extends to the left and right sides of the room with accuracy. However, the bar struggles to reproduce sounds that are meant to come from above or behind you, so it's not quite as impressive as the more premium options on the market, like the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 with Speakers + Bass Module. If you want to improve its overall performance, you can add on the LG S90QY with SPQ8-S Speaker Kit.

The LG S90QY has an incredible selection of sound enhancement features. You can customize its sound using its bass and treble adjustments as well as its EQ presets: 'AI Sound Pro', 'Standard', 'Music', 'Cinema', 'Clear Voice', 'Sports', 'Game', and 'BassBlast'. The 'Cinema' preset acts as a virtual surround mode, which replicates a more three-dimensional sound. You can also find a Night Time Mode feature in the app to balance the volume level at night, as well as the AI Room Calibration feature.

Like many other soundbar manufacturers, LG offers a feature that lets you pair the LG S90QY with compatible LG TVs—it's called TV Sound Mode Share. Check your TV's Sound Menu to make sure you're in 'Enjoy Soundbar Sound Mode' instead of 'Enjoy TV Sound Mode' to get the feature to work—otherwise, it might downmix higher-quality formats like Dolby Atmos into PCM content. The manufacturer says that this feature enhances the sound quality, but like most of these features, there isn't much of a difference in the sound with it turned on. You can see the results of the bar's frequency response here—there's hardly any difference between 'Soundbar Sound Mode' and 'Off', but the degradation in quality with 'TV Sound Mode' is clear.

You can connect your LG S90QY to your TV using an HDMI connection or an Optical connection. Also, the manufacturer says that you can use the bar with LG's WOWCAST feature, which lets you connect the bar to your TV with a wireless connection, so you don't have as many wires behind your TV. The feature was only available in Europe at the time we tested the bar. You can still plug the bar into your TV using a cable.

The LG S90QY has fantastic audio format support via ARC. You can watch common surround sound formats like Dolby Digital and DTS, which are often found on streaming platforms and Blu-rays. It supports lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

Over its Full HDMI In port, the LG S90QY also has incredible audio format support. If you watch a lot of movies on streaming platforms, you can take advantage of surround sound formats as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

Over Optical, the LG S90QY supports Dolby Digital, which is the most common surround sound format. DTS isn't used as often, but it's the fallback for DTS-HD MA, which is often used on Blu-rays.

The LG S90QY has a decent latency performance. Its latency measurements aren't as low as other bars on the market, but you still aren't likely to notice delays between the audio you hear and the video you see. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience may vary. If you have any issues, the AV Sync feature in the LG Sound Bar app can help.

The LG S90QY can passthrough high-quality bandwidth signals, letting you use the bar as a hub between different devices like your TV and your PC. There's Dolby Vision Passthrough support, but you can't passthrough 4k @ 120Hz.

You have lots of options if you want to stream audio to the LG S90QY over a wireless connection. You can send audio via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as Chromecast built-in and Apple AirPlay.

There's a display on the right side of the bar, behind the fabric. It shows you the settings that you change using the remote and the app, including the volume level, the input, and the sound preset.

There are some touch-sensitive buttons on the top of the bar. You can power the bar on/off, change the input, adjust the volume, play/pause your audio, and access Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. If you don't want to get up from the couch, you can also change these settings with the app.

The LG S90QY comes with a typical LG remote. It's pretty simple, with basic features like the input and the volume level, so you need the LG Sound Bar app to access additional settings like AI Room Calibration and the Auto-Volume mode.

The LG S90QY doesn't have built-in voice assistant support. However, if you have a third-party Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device, you can connect it to the bar to control it with your voice.