The LG S95TR is a top-of-the-line soundbar from 2024. Replacing the LG S95QR, this 9.1.5 setup offers a couple of changes, including an up-firing center channel, which is advertised to improve its height performance. It also supports LG-centric features like WOWCAST Ready, so you can wirelessly connect the bar to your LG TV, and WOW Orchestra, which uses your TV's speakers to further amp up the bar's sound.
The LG S95TR is great for mixed use. This bar offers a versatile performance, thanks to its well-balanced, although slightly boomy, sound. There are a few sound enhancement features at your disposal, and the bar supports a lot of different audio formats, including Dolby Atmos. When it comes to immersivity, the satellites help reproduce sound effects well in the space around you, but their height performance is a little lacking since they're quiet compared to the bar's volume.
The LG S95TR is great for dialogue and TV shows. Its dedicated center channel ensures that speech sounds clear and accurate. You can also use the dialogue enhancement feature to further emphasize voices. The bar also has low latency, but if you still notice any lip-sync delay, the app has a tool for manually adjusting for delay.
The LG S95TR is great for music. This bar has a well-balanced sound suitable for most genres. If you find it a little boomy, you can even adjust its sound using the EQ presets available in the app. The bar can also reach high enough volumes to help fill your room with music, and it supports all major wireless connections, so you can easy cast your favorite tunes to the bar or let others take their turn as a party DJ.
The LG S95TR is great for movies. This bar can get loud enough to fill up your room with sound, and its balanced sound can help emphasize sound effects like explosions in action flicks without drowning out dialogue. You can easily follow cars whizzing past you on screen, too. This bar also supports common audio formats that you'd find on streaming platforms and Blu-rays, including Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos. That said, the satellites lack volume compared to the bar, which can lessen the feeling of height. Even if you adjust the satellites' volume, it still doesn't significantly improve the experience.
The LG S95TR comes in one variant: 'Black,' and you can see our model's label here. If you come across another variant of this soundbar, please let us know in the comments, and we'll update our review.
The LG S95TR is a top-of-the-line 9.1.5 setup from 2024. It replaces the LG S95QR, and while there have been small improvements such as a center up-firing channel and WOWCAST Ready (allowing you to wirelessly connect your bar to your LG TV), the cumulation of the changes result in a great performance that will please most people. That said, if you're looking for the best of the best, the Samsung HW-Q990D offers up a fight for the crown. Its surround and height performances are significantly better, which can make all the difference when it comes to an immersive audio experience. The Samsung also supports full 4k at 120Hz—if you have a latest-gen console, you'll be able to passthrough audio to your TV.
Check out our recommendations for the best soundbars, the best soundbars for movies, and the best Dolby Atmos soundbars.
The Samsung HW-Q990D and the LG S95TR are top-of-the-line soundbar models, but the Samsung has the edge. Its sound is a bit more balanced out of the box, and it has a better overall performance across all of its channels, including surround and height, which gives you an immersive, dimensional sound. It also supports 4k at 120Hz 10-bit compared to the LG's 4k at 120Hz 8-bit, so you can hook it up to your latest-gen console for crisp, vibrant gameplay on your TV. You may still enjoy the LG if you have an LG TV, thanks to features like WOWCAST Ready, allowing you to wirelessly pass audio from your TV to your bar.
The LG S95TR is a better soundbar than the standalone Sonos Arc. The LG is a 9.1.5 setup with a standalone subwoofer and satellites, so not only can it get louder, but its center and surround performances are better. It comes with more sound enhancement features, and, in addition to ARC and Optical, it supports HDMI In. Its sound is a lot more balanced, too, with better bass extension to help you feel all the rumble of action-packed scenes. However, the Sonos is still worth considering if you're already invested in the Sonos ecosystem, thanks to the app, which allows you to easily connect the bar to other speakers from this brand. Its soundstage is wider, too.
The LG S95TR is the next generation of the LG S95QR and a couple of small differences make the S95TR a better choice for most. The S95TR has triple up-firing speakers, including one center up-firing driver. Overall, this results in a more balanced sound out of the box, although its height performance doesn't really stand out, especially as the satellites sound fairly quiet in comparison to the bar. That said, one notable change is the addition of WOWCAST Ready, which allows you to wirelessly connect your bar to your LG TV for a cable-free experience.
Between these premium models, the Samsung HW-Q990C is a bit better than the LG S95TR. The Samsung may have been eclipsed by the Samsung HW-Q990D model as the brand's top-of-the-line flagship model. However, it still offers better overall surround and height performances than the LG, giving you a more dimensional sound to help immerse you in your audio. It offers a graphic EQ if you want to fine-tune its already-balanced sound to your liking. You may still go for the LG if you already own an LG TV, though, as you can connect this bar to your LG TV wirelessly, which is a nifty feature.
The LG S90TR is the mid-range variant of the flagship LG S95TR. While the S95TR has a 9.1.5 configuration, this has been paired down to 7.1.3 for the cheaper S90TR. The lack of two upfiring channels compared to its more premium sibling means that the S90TR's height performance isn't as solid, and there's not as much focus in the center channel. It performs very similarly in terms of stereo frequency response, soundstage, and dynamics. The two bars also share a similar suite of sound enhancement tools and can be paired with the speakers in a compatible TV via the WOW Orchestra feature. It's hard to justify the extra expenditure on the LG S95TR unless you're dead set on the additional height provided by the extra upfiring drivers.
The LG S95TR is a better soundbar than the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9. The LG is a larger setup with satellites and a subwoofer, so you really get a deeper, more rumbly bass, as well as a more immersive overall sound, whether you're listening to stereo or surround content. It can reach a higher volume with less compression, and there are EQ presets to help you adjust their sound to your liking. It even has an Optical port, which some users may prefer. The Sony supports full 4k at 120Hz passthrough, which is good if you want to use your bar as a hub between your latest-gen console and TV.
The LG S95TR looks very similar to the LG S95QR, although the latest-gen has a metal grille across the front and sides of the bar instead of fabric. That said, the left and right channels are protected by rectangular grilles, while the center channel has a round grille.
The subwoofer looks very similar to that of the LG S95QR as well. A fabric covering protects the speaker, and the back is mostly plastic.
The satellite design hasn't changed from its predecessor, the LG S95QR, either. It has an angular design with its front and sides covered in fabric to shield the front-firing speaker. The rest of the satellite is made of plastic, with a circular grille to protect its up-firing driver.
The LG S95TR has a great build quality. It's mostly made of plastic with a metal grille to protect its front and side faces as well as the center channel, which helps it feel durable. Similarly, the satellites are made of plastic but have fabric to cover the front speakers, while the up-firing speaker has a metal grille. Finally, the sub is a melanin-like material with fabric to protect its speaker. This fabric cover can be prone to ripping.
Using Standard mode, the LG S95TR has a well-balanced sound. Thanks to its subwoofer, it can deliver satisfying bass, especially when compared to standalone bars like the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9, making it a solid choice for music genres like EDM and hip-hop or action-packed movies, thanks to its deep thump and rumble. Some people may find its sound a little boomy, though. That said, vocal-centric content renders great, as it's clear and easy to follow.
There are a couple of EQ presets you can use to adjust the bar's sound to your liking, and you can see how they perform here. Using the Cinema mode, intended for watching movies, your audio sounds a bit more immersive. However, the treble is slightly less extended, so content lacks a minor amount of brightness. Music mode also makes the audio sound a bit fuller and wider when used with the corresponding media. AI Sound Pro mode, on the other hand, doesn't sound good, subjectively, even after running the AI Sound Calibration feature. Audio sounds boomy, and mids (which include vocals) are pushed back. Treble sounds like cymbals also seem piercing.
There are bass and treble sliders to help you achieve your desired sound. For a more neutral sound, you can set the bass to '-2' and the treble to '3.' The bass is a bit more balanced, so it isn't as boomy. Vocals and instruments are still clear but have more detail, presence, and airiness to them.
The LG S95TR has a good stereo soundstage. The soundstage feels a bit wider than the bar itself, but it doesn't have any tricks to help make it seem wider than that. At the same time, the bar has very good focus, so it's easy to pinpoint sound objects, like voices, accurately around you.
The LG S95TR has great stereo dynamics. The bar can reach a loud enough volume to fill open spaces with sound. Compression is pretty low until you hit max volume, and even then, only a small amount is still present. That means that your audio sounds clean and pure all the way up to max volume.
This bar has a great center channel performance. Although the overall frequency response is treble-tilted, the mids still remain fairly flat. As a result, dialogue sounds clear, bright, and easy to follow.
This bar's surround performance is decent. Thanks to its discrete satellites, it can better represent surround objects in the soundstage than bars with phantom surround setups. In scenes like a car chase, you can easily follow the car in space as it moves on screen. That said, the response here is a bit dark and lacking in detail, as there's some treble roll-off.
This bar has two up-firing drivers built into the bar in addition to two on each of the satellite speakers. Together, they bounce sound off of your ceiling and back down to you in order to create the illusion of height. Although the frequency response here is a bit boomy, this can be a boon if you're listening to scenes with a lot of bassy excitement, such as explosions or revving car engines.
We also subjectively assessed this bar's Atmos performance and found that the satellites don't create very much of an overhead experience by default. They're fairly quiet and don't seem to be level-matched with the bar's volume. That said, we played around with the Overhead Height volume settings, and even at max, there was only a little improvement. Still, it performs better than the LG S90TR, which only features upfiring drivers on the bar. Content like a tower toppling to the ground sounds detailed, with plenty of rumble from debris falling, but the sound lacks elevation.
This bar has plenty of sound enhancement features, including a room correction feature, which allows the bar to optimize its audio reproduction based on your room's unique acoustics. For sound customization, there are bass and treble sliders as well as the following EQ presets: 'AI Sound Pro,' 'Standard,' 'Music,' 'Cinema,' 'Clear Voice,' 'Sports,' 'Game,' and 'BassBlast.' There's even a night mode to help level out the volume level between content and surround, rear, and overhead level adjustments.
In addition, this bar supports WOW Orchestra, which allows you to use your LG TV's speakers in addition to the soundbar to create a more immersive sound.
This bar supports quite a few inputs, including Optical and HDMI. It also supports WOWCAST Ready. This feature wirelessly connects your soundbar to your LG TV for a cable-free look. That said, you may experience higher latency than wired connections like HDMI. You can see a video demonstrating AV sync here, but keep in mind that these results don't account for TV sync error, and our results are limited to our setup. When we connected this bar to our LG C4 OLED, we noticed a slight AV lip-sync delay with movies. If you prefer the wireless look, the delay isn't enough to be a dealbreaker. However, if you're sensitive to delay (such as if you're gaming), then you'll want to make sure that you use a wired connection instead.
The LG S95TR has outstanding audio format support via ARC. It supports common surround formats, including Dolby Digital and DTS, which can be found on streaming platforms as well as Blu-rays. It also supports lossless and object-based formats, such as Dolby Atmos.
Similar to its ARC connection, this bar has fantastic audio format support using the HDMI In port. It can play common audio formats, including lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos and surround sound formats.
This bar has incredible audio format support via Optical, too. It supports Dolby Digital, which is the most common surround sound format and found on many streaming services.
The LG S95TR has an amazing latency performance via ARC. It's worth mentioning that some apps and TVs compensate for latency, though. Luckily, if the delay bothers you, there's an AV Sync feature available to manually adjust for it.
Via HDMI In, this bar has amazing audio latency, too. While some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, you can also use the AV Sync feature to manually adjust for delay.
The audio latency performance over Optical is good. While the latency is a bit lower across the board compared to the LG S95TR, it's still somewhat high, especially with Dolby Digital. That said, you can use the AV Sync feature in the app to manually adjust for delay.
This soundbar can passthrough high-quality bandwidth signals, so you can use it as a hub between different devices like your PC and TV. The text looks crisp and clear on-screen too. On the downside, if you're using this bar with your newest-gen gaming console, you can't passthrough 4k at 120Hz 10-bit. We were able to get the bar to 4k at 120Hz 8-bit, with a 4:4:4 refresh rate though, as well as to 4k at 60Hz 8-bit 4:4:4. The difference in bitrate means that there isn't quite as much color depth, but it's still quite serviceable and vibrant.
The LG S95TR has outstanding wireless playback support. You have a lot of options available, including via Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay, and Spotify Connect, which is handy if you want to play audio from your phone.
There's a small display on the front face of the bar, slightly right to the center. Unlike the LG S95QR, it doesn't display letters but only uses LED light indicators. You can't see the volume level either, but there are lights that change from green to yellow to red based on the volume's safety for your ears. Since it can be difficult to know what settings you're using, you may want to use the app for a bit more insight. While there's voice feedback for the settings and presets, there's some delay present, whether you're using the controls or the app. The voice feedback can also lower the audio level while you change controls, which can be annoying.
The bar has touch-sensitive controls located on the top surface. You can turn the bar on and off, as well as switch inputs, adjust the volume, and activate Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi pairing. When it comes to voice prompts, the physical controls are faster to respond compared to the controls on the remote. You can also use the LG Soundbar app to access these controls and additional settings. You can see the app in action here.
The LG S95TR doesn't have built-in voice assistant support. However, if you have a third-party device like an Amazon Echo or Google Home speaker, you'll be able to connect them to your bar and control it with your voice.