LG Sound Suite H7 review: sadly proves to be another example of an underwhelming soundbar from LG
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We’ll lay our cards on the table here; LG’s home audio products have never really captured the same spot in our hearts where its stellar OLED TVs reside.
Previous models that have found their way into our AV testing room from the last three or so years have all occupied the three or four-star space, unable to topple the likes of Sonos, Sony, Samsung and Sennheiser.
That all being said, we’re here today to focus on the headliner in this new range: the Sound Suite H7 Dolby Atmos soundbar.
It’s the latest competitor to take the Sonos Arc Ultra head-on, and with huge sonic promises from LG itself, a premium build and the fact that it’s the first FlexConnect-enabled device to enter our AV testing room, it’s also building a lot of excitement here at What Hi-Fi? HQ.
So does LG’s Sound Suite sound sweet? Or does it leave a sour taste in our mouths?
Price
Officially retailing for £900 / $1000 (around AU$1700, Australia availability is TBC), the Sound Suite H7 is placed squarely in flagship Dolby Atmos soundbar territory.
It’s tackling Award-winning industry heavyweights head-on, including the Sonos Arc Ultra and Samsung HW-Q990F. While all of these ’bars officially launched at higher prices than the Sound Suite H7, they are now subject to almost constant discounts that price them on par with the LG H7.
For those with more generous budgets, the Sony Theatre Bar 9 looms large with its five-star cinematic sound, while the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus is another alternative for those with more cash to splash.
There are also other components of the system to consider if you plan on fleshing this soundbar out with surround speakers and a subwoofer, but we’re testing this soundbar as it comes with none of the other Sound Suite options attached.
Build
If there’s one aspect of the Sound Suite H7 that we can’t fault, it’s the build and design. It’s crafted from aluminium and clad in a dark grey acoustic fabric which leaves it looking smart, functional and understated, while still justifying its premium asking price.
It is, however, quite a substantial soundbar, measuring in at 6.3 x 120 x 14.3cm (hwd) and weighing 7.7kg. You’ll need a suitably wide media unit to support it, although LG does include wall-mounting brackets in the box for those who wish to suspend it below their wall-mounted TV.
LG Sound Suite H7 tech specs
Connectivity HDMI eARC, Bluetooth 5.4
Format support Dolby Atmos, Dolby Atmos FlexConnect
Streaming? Yes (wi-fi, Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect)
Voice control? No
Dimensions (hwd) 6.3 x 120 x 14cm
Weight 7.7kg
Along the top edge of the soundbar, you’ll find a handful of bold, clicky buttons for changing the volume and input, as well as a customisable “heart” button which can be linked to instantly play music from LG Radio+ or your Spotify library.
You can, of course, stick to the included remote, which feels nicely made and features all of the required buttons we’d want and expect, or use the companion app.
These buttons are joined by a small yet very useful OLED display on the front edge, which lights up to clearly show us the selected input, sound mode and current sound format, as well as a tasteful LED bar that lights up in a pleasing range of colours depending on what the soundbar is doing. Our favourite is the groovy shade of purple that glows during the soundbar’s automatic calibration process.
The H7 may not have the smooth curves of the Arc Ultra, or the sharp lines of the Samsung HW-Q990F, but its quietly luxurious looks and high-quality build ensure that it scores top marks in this department.
Features
And this sentiment continues when it comes to available features, too. The H7 justifies its considerable price tag through the inclusion of countless wireless connectivity options, sound features and speaker technologies – and that starts with the surprisingly overkill processor inside.
LG has imbued this soundbar with the powerful Alpha 11 AI Processor Gen 3 processor; the very same chipset that powers its new flagship OLED TV, the G6.
As the name suggests, it serves as the foundation for a wide range of AI-backed features on this soundbar, including an AI-supported Room Calibration Pro system and a couple of AI sound modes, which we’ll get onto shortly.
This processor is also responsible for supporting Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, and while we’re on the subject, we have to give the H7 kudos for being the first FlexConnect-enabled soundbar on the market. Considering that LG has worked closely with Dolby to develop this FlexConnect-enabled system, it should come as no surprise that DTS:X is not supported.
Using the LG ThinQ app (which is considerably more organised, reliable, and smoother to use than LG’s old soundbar app), users can pair other Sound Suite speakers to the soundbar in various configurations to create up to a 13.1.7 channel system.
This can include up to two pairs of Suite Sound wireless speakers – either two pairs of M5 speakers, two pairs of M7 speakers, or a mix of both – and a W7 subwoofer (an update is coming soon to support dual subwoofers). And you don’t have to worry if you don’t have an LG TV, as this soundbar enables FlexConnect regardless of the TV it’s connected to. Nor do you need to worry much about positioning, as the draw of FlexConnect is its ability to calibrate and tune the sound to accommodate less-than-ideal speaker placements.
We have an expanded review of the H7 with more Sound Suite components coming soon.
Extensive software support is a bonus, but the Sound Suite H7 is no slouch in the hardware department either. It’s equipped with eight full-range drivers from Danish audio brand Peerless, alongside four built-in woofers and eight passive radiators for low-range frequencies, all of which are arranged in a 5.1.3 configuration.
Three of the full-range drivers are lined-up across the front of the ’bar, with a side-firing driver situated at either end for horizontal sound dispersion. There are also three upward-firing drivers, which are joined by the four dedicated woofers along the top edge of the soundbar. These are supported by the front and rear facing passive radiators, which sit below the woofers.
Speaker levels can be adjusted through the LG ThinQ app manually; however, LG’s Room Calibration Pro system takes much of the hard work out of determining these. In practice, calibrating the ‘bar takes merely seconds and is as easy as pressing a button in the ThinQ app and waiting for the calibration tone to sweep through your listening space.
It’s completed via the on-board microphones, which can be physically disabled via a switch on the rear of the soundbar for the privacy-conscious among us. It’s worth noting that, despite this soundbar featuring an onboard microphone, it doesn’t seem to be compatible with any of the available voice assistants.
Enthusiasts can dig into a wider array of fine-tuning settings, including the ability to adjust bass, treble and midrange frequencies, as well as a custom EQ which feeds into the sound mode settings. There are also dynamic range control and night listening settings to be found within the app.
Speaking of which, LG offers five different sound modes (which it calls Sound Effects) in total: Standard, AI Sound Pro+, Base Boost, Clear Voice Pro+ and Custom EQ – all of which are fairly self-explanatory.
The interesting additional sound setting is AI Upscale, which (as the name suggests) upmixes any signal (including stereo) into 9.1.6 spatial sound. This setting can be layered over the other modes, though it’s worth noting that it is automatically switched on and cannot be disabled when using the AI Sound Pro+ setting.
For those with an LG TV already in their living room or home cinema, WOW Orchestra is on board, which allows the TV’s built-in speakers to work alongside the soundbar.
Another AI feature that LG seems to be quite proud of is Sound Follow, which lets the soundbar analyse not only the room, but your position within it, meaning it can direct the sound towards you regardless of your seating position.
LG says that this feature relies on Dolby Atmos FlexConnect and “requires a minimum of two M5 speakers or one M7 speaker to be connected”, so we’ll have to investigate this feature further in our upcoming review of the Immersive Suite 7 Pro.
Interfacing between the H7 and a TV is entirely handled by HDMI eARC – there is no optical socket, which is understandable (yet worth noting) for a soundbar with this great a focus placed on Dolby Atmos.
Sadly, there are also no additional HDMI passthrough sockets, which feels like a missed opportunity considering LG has prided itself on featuring four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets on its TVs for quite some time.
Wireless connectivity is, thankfully, better thanks to the inclusion of wi-fi, Bluetooth 5.4, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Apple AirPlay 2. LG also states that this soundbar can be connected to some of its TVs wirelessly via Bluetooth, though we’d recommend avoiding this as it will impact sound quality compared to a wired connection.
Sound
While the soundbar has made a strong first impression with its premium design and extensive feature set, it becomes quickly apparent that when it comes to sound quality (the most important factor), LG hasn’t hit the mark.
We pair the H7 with the Award-winning C5 OLED TV and our trusty Oppo UDP-203 Blu-ray player for our testing, and we’ve retrieved the Product of the Year-winning Sonos Arc Ultra as a frame of reference. We’ve also selected Civil War, Thunderbolts, Blade Runner 2049 and Unbroken from our library of reference discs to test this soundbar’s capabilities.
We’ll start with the positives, as, despite what the star rating may suggest, there are many to note. First and foremost, the H7 produces an incredibly detailed sound, especially when it comes to environmental and background effects.
Ambient sounds throughout Officer K’s apartment in Blade Runner 2049, such as creaking cupboard doors and clinking glasses, are realised with impressive fidelity, and dialogue in all of the films that we test is clear in our preferred Standard mode setting.
The H7 also handles bass like an absolute champion. While there isn’t oodles of tonal variation, it does dig deep and low in Blade Runner 2049’s notoriously tricky chapter two sequence. This is genuinely impressive bass depth and weight from a single soundbar unit.
And that bass is well controlled; the thumping helicopter blades in Civil War’s Charlottesville military base scene are delivered with punch and agility in equal measures to create a well-defined and rhythmic sound.
Lastly, the way that this soundbar handles Dolby Atmos effects is worthy of a shoutout. The H7 does a great job of spreading ambient and environmental sound outwards and upwards, which is especially apparent in a scene from Civil War in which Lee consoles Jessie in a forested area.
The sound of wind rustling through leaves, a bird chirping above, and even a distant helicopter flyby all sound superbly atmospheric and do a good job of drawing us into the scene as a result.
Overall, we can’t deny how detailed, spacious and punchy the H7 sounds. The issue lies in how the soundbar conveys some of these positives, and when it introduces its hard-to-ignore sonic deficiencies, those positive aspects become overshadowed and, in some cases, end up working against the soundbar.
Characteristically, the H7 is a very brash, shouty and unrelenting soundbar, and truthfully we feel this comes from a place of overexcitement rather than anything else. Even with the volume turned to the middle point or below, the H7 can’t help but yell everything, including softly spoken lines of dialogue.
This robs literal explosive moments, such as a missile hitting a building in Civil War, of impact, as the soundbar has nowhere to go dynamically. This leads to limp-sounding dynamic shifts, which contribute to this soundbar’s often uninteresting sound.
This extends to dialogue, too. While we don’t have an issue with vocal clarity, the H7’s handling of voices overall is, unfortunately, very poor. It’s lacking in key areas such as tonality and low-level dynamics, which leaves the usually witty Yelena from Marvel’s Thunderbolts and the dryly sarcastic Phil from Unbroken sounding flat, uninteresting and unnatural.
Unnatural is the word we’ll stick with, actually, as the H7 seems incapable of producing natural vocals in any of its sound modes. Switching on the AI Surround Pro+, which also enabled the AI Upmix feature by default, highlights this, as the processing leaves dialogue with a boxy, muffled and detached effect.
We also try the AI Upmix feature with the Standard sound setting, but it introduces an unpleasant synthetic vocal effect, which leads us to believe that these AI modes are better left switched off.
Even with those modes switched off, the H7 is laden with heavy amounts of sibilance, which is unfortunately mostly revealed with dialogue. Paired with a noticeable amount of strain (evident in quiet and loud instances alike), the H7 can often sound bright and fatiguing.
All of this becomes much more outwardly apparent when we introduce the Sonos Arc Ultra into the mix. While the LG takes the win in the bass department, the Arc Ultra’s rounded, rich and authentic sound is the clear winner in every other department.
It quickly reveals that the H7 has been pushing background effects too hard in an effort to create a more “spatial” effect, and the difference in dialogue is night and day. While detail isn’t being pushed as hard, it’s definitely there on the Sonos, and we appreciate its more textured and tonally varied sound, which digs up far more pleasant sonic subtleties compared to the LG.
The Arc Ultra’s broad, rounded and rich cinematic sound is the equivalent of a big scoop of soothing ice cream after chomping down on a particularly fiery chicken wing – that’s to say it’s a welcome relief.
Switching to music, and it’s a very similar story. The LG’s over-excited nature is once again revealed, as The Marias’ Heavy – a soft, harmonic track – is presented in a manner far too forthright for our liking.
While those strong detail levels and good bass depths persist, they manifest in an overbearing nature, with random bumps of bass and shouty lyrics taking the track over.
We find that it’s also not a high achiever when it comes to organisation and timing either. Bad Bunny’s NUEVAYoL feels frantic and cluttered, with Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s lyrics strangely struggling to cut through the overcrowded backing track.
The Sonos is clearly the superior ’bar when it comes to music too, with a much more natural and considered sound with better organisation skills and cohesion.
Verdict
We had genuinely high hopes when unboxing the LG Sound Suite H7. After a string of LG soundbars ranging from “good but not great” to “sonic misfires”, we had our fingers tightly crossed that the H7 would break the spell. Unfortunately, it ended up in the “sonic misfire” category.
It’s got the looks and the smarts, but the Sound Suite H7 unfortunately doesn’t have the sound to match, which is why we’ll continue to rely on the excellent Sonos Arc Ultra for our Dolby Atmos soundbar needs.
SCORES
MORE:
Read our review of the Sonos Arc Ultra
Also consider the Samsung HW-Q990F
Read our Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9 review
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