LG SC9S  Soundbar Review

The LG SC9S is a fairly simple and nondescript soundbar designed to blend into your home decor. It has a plastic build with metal grilles covering the drivers in front, as well as the up-firing center channel on top of the bar. Touch-sensitive buttons on top of the bar let you adjust some basic features.

The LG SC9's sub looks quite different from last year's models. It's mostly made of plastic, with tight fabric over the front and the sides. The port is located on the rear of the sub.

Satellites aren't included. However, you can purchase a compatible model from the manufacturer separately.

The bar is fairly wide and doesn't fit easily between the legs of a 55" TV stand. Since it's not very tall, it shouldn't obscure your TV screen, unless your TV sits flush on your table.

The sub's size is comparable to an average desktop computer. It connects to the bar wirelessly, but you'll need to plug it into a power outlet to get it to work.

There are some mounting brackets included, but they aren't designed to mount the bar to your wall. Instead, they attach the bar to certain compatible LG OLED TVs. You can see an example of how it looks here, but essentially, the bracket connects into an opening at the back of the TV. The bar then sits underneath the screen, as you can see here and here.

The LG SC9 has a great build quality, especially compared to other models like the LG S77S. The bar itself is mostly made of plastic, which feels quite solid and durable. The metal grille in front helps to protect the drivers within, including the up-firing center channel. Meanwhile, the sub has a similar solid feel, thanks to its plastic build. The fabric covering the front and the sides has a tight fit, so it doesn't seem like it could rip easily. That said, it's likely to collect dust and debris over time.

• Manuals
• Screws for brackets
• Remote with batteries (2xAA)
• HDMI cable (1.5m / 4.9 ft)
• Adapter for soundbar (1.5m / 4.9 ft)
• 2x power cables (0.9m / 3 ft and 1.5m / 4.9 ft)
• Spacer for bracket
• TV Synergy Bracket (Front)
• TV Synergy Bracket (Rear)

The LG SC9S has a great stereo frequency response. It comes with a room correction feature designed to automatically calibrate the bar based on your room's unique acoustics, which is common for premium models. The sound profile is quite neutral and balanced, making it suitable for listening to lots of different types of audio content. The sub brings solid low-frequency extension too, though it does struggle a little with low-bass. In songs like 'Stay' from the Interstellar soundtrack, you notice less deep rumble and thump. That said, this isn't as noticeable in content without a lot of bass mixed in, such as vocal-centric TV shows and podcasts.

If you prefer a sound similar to our target curve with stereo content, we recommend using the bar's default settings.

This soundbar has a good stereo soundstage. The soundstage is perceived to be a little bit wider than the bar itself, though it doesn't have any tricks to make it extend to the walls of your room. Still, it has very good focus, so sound effects are accurately localized to pinpoint locations in the space around you. For example, an instrument meant to come from the left side of the room sounds like it's coming from the left.

The LG SC9 has a great stereo dynamics performance. It gets loud enough to fill larger and more open rooms with sound. Even when you push it to max volume, there isn't much compression, so audio reproduction stays clean and pure.

This 3.1.3 bar has a unique design that's similar to LG's 2022 models. It adds an up-firing center channel in addition to its traditional front-firing center channel to improve the overall quality of vocal reproduction. Sure enough, vocal reproduction is clear and consistent, and you easily follow along with dialogue in movies and TV shows. That said, the extra up-firing center channel doesn't make a huge difference in the overall sound, especially compared to other bars with only one front-firing channel. Voices seem a touch more elevated in the soundstage, so it's a bit more immersive, but you have to focus to notice much of a difference.

On its own, the LG SC9 downmixes 5.1 surround sound content like Dolby Digital into stereo. The resulting sound is less immersive than what you get with a discrete setup. Sound effects aren't as clear and real in the space around you. For example, a car racing past on screen seems like it's just coming from a speaker placed in front of you, rather than speakers positioned all around you. You can always add on separate satellites from the manufacturer if you want to improve its performance.

Like the LG S80QY and the LG S90QY, this soundbar comes with three up-firing channels. It's important to note that only two of these are designed for Atmos content, while the third is an up-firing center channel only. The two up-firing height drivers bounce sound off the ceiling to create the illusion of height in your listening experience. While we registered a significant dip in the high-bass to low-mid during our tests, with real-life content, the lack of bass isn't noticeable at all. We performed the tests a second time to confirm our results, and sure enough, the lack of bass was registered a second time. It's possible that our tests picked up an issue in the hand-off between the bar and the sub, which is why the results are inconsistent with the real-world experience.

Our subjective impressions of the bar with Atmos content found an overall enjoyable listening experience. The bar reproduces sound effects with clarity and detail, providing a more clear and real sound. As expected, without satellites, you don't notice as much sound in the areas beside you, or above you. Instead, the sound is more focused to the front and center of the room, but you aren't missing any part of the action.

Like most premium bars, the LG SC9S comes with a lot of different customization options. You have more traditional bass and treble adjustments as well as lots of different preset modes: Standard, AI Sound Pro, Cinema, Clear Voice Pro, Sports, Music, Game, and Bass Blast. The AI Room Calibration tool automatically adjusts the bar's output based on your room's unique acoustics, too, which is great if you aren't interested in adjusting the sound manually. Adding on compatible satellites also gives you access to a surround level adjustment feature.

You can connect the LG SC9S to your TV over an HDMI or Optical connection. Also, its HDMI In port means that you can use the bar as a hub between different devices like your PC and your TV for video passthrough.

Whether you watch from streaming platforms or Blu-rays, this soundbar supports many commonly-used audio formats via ARC. It supports 5.1 surround sound formats such as Dolby Digital, as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

Via HDMI In, the LG SC9 supports many different audio formats. It can play back common 5.1 surround sound formats like Dolby Digital as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

Over Optical, this soundbar can playback common 5.1 surround sound formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS. Dolby Digital is considered to be the most popular 5.1 format, so you'll run into it on both streaming platforms and Blu-rays. DTS is the fallback for the higher-quality DTS-MA format that's also quite common, especially with Blu-rays.

Audio latency via ARC is great, meaning you're less likely to encounter issues with synchronization between your audio and video. That said, different apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, and you can always use the AV sync feature to manually adjust for this.

Latency using the HDMI In port is amazing. Although different apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, you can always use the AV sync feature to manually adjust for this.

Audio latency via an optical connection is higher than with other connection types but still falls within good limits. If you encounter any sync issues, you can always use the AV sync feature to manually adjust for this.

You're able to use the LG SC9 as a 'hub' between different devices, such as a TV and a gaming console. Gamers who use consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S can take advantage of 120 frame-per-second signals, as well as virtual refresh rate technologies like HDMI Forum for a tear-free gaming experience. Without HDMI 2.1 support, it can't support a 4k @ 120Hz @ 10-bit signal, though. That said, it can passthrough some higher resolutions, including HDR10 and Dolby Vision, both of which are common on both streaming platforms and Blu-rays.

You're able to wirelessly stream content from your mobile devices to the bar over a wide variety of platforms.

While there isn't a display, a few LED lights on the front right side of bar give you some indication of the bar's status. They turn different colors and flash different patterns depending on what you adjust, and the manual provides a full list so you can understand what it means. There's also some audible feedback when you change certain settings, like switching to a new input or a new preset mode.

On top of the bar, there are a few touch-sensitive buttons that let you adjust some basic settings. You can power the bar on/off, change the input, adjust the volume, play/pause your audio, and activate Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi. If it's more convenient, there's also a remote included, as well as the LG Sound Bar app to adjust the bar from your phone.

The remote is fairly simple, and it lets you control the bar's basic functions. The LG Sound Bar app is also available if you want to control the bar from your phone, and you can see a video of it here.

While there's no built-in voice assistant support, you can always attach a third-party Amazon or Google device to control the bar with your voice.