Samsung HW-Q900A 7.1.2ch Soundbar w/Wireless Subwoofer & Dolby Atmos

I've been waiting for the release of the Klipsch 1200 for some time. This week Amazon had what appeared to be a one day killer promotion (1k even) which lured me into trying this. This soundbar is intended to replace a Monitor Audio RX Silver 3 channel setup. And I have 4 MA RX/FX surrounds in the box because my current living room layout does not lend itself to setting up those fairly large surrounds. I was quite skeptical about buying any soundbar, thinking that despite the Atmos effects, the presence and ability to fill a large room with 20' ceilings would disappoint. Last Black Friday I bought a Klipsch 600 on sale for another much smaller room, and later added real surrounds, and while it is OK for that space, I wouldn't consider it for my large LR, so I still had uncertainty about how well a soundbar would work in the large space. (After experiencing how good this sounds, it has lowered my opinion of my Klipsch soundbar since, even with the added Klipsch rears, it pales in comparison to the rich spacious sound that this Samsung produces. I know they are at different price points, but the difference is enough to make me consider replacing them already.) The bottom line is that once I figured out how to Auto EQ the soundbar, I can't begin to express how much the sound fills the room. The sound quality and detail is for me very impressive, and I think you have to be a hardcore audiophile to be disappointed in some meaningful way with this system. I spent thousands on that MA system and feel that at a fraction of that price the audio experience is topped by this. I used to have an SVS sub but got rid of it due to its ridiculously large size and had been using a much smaller ML 700, which was good enough. I would say that by comparison the sub provided and the low frequency performance is even better than what I'd been using, and I like the fact that it has a tall, space-saving form factor. Within days the Klipsch was finally released. I liked the fact that it allows for a second sub, which this Samsung does not. Note I have a much larger LR than most reading this review, 20x20x20, and open on two sides to other rooms, but honestly I am not sure I really need that larger Klipsch 12" sub paired with a second sub. I was debating if I should buy it and try it, but I like the narrow Samsung sub and the integration of features with a Samsung TV. And I should mention that this system is an 11.1.4 system vs the Klipsch 5.1.4. I suspect that is a big reason why it sounds so rich, so I'm not too likely to bother with the 1200s. Just look at the pictures on both websites--I don't know how 5 speakers can compete with 11 (of comparable quality of course) for a surround system. With that said, I have several criticisms of this. 1) Go to the Samsung website and download the full manual. The paper mini-manual is not enough to understand all the functions and proper setup/calibration. Navigating through the configuration setup was completely un-intuitive without the benefit of the detailed steps in the full manual. 2) Display on top is a disadvantage while you are in tinkering and set up mode. Even afterwards, if say you want to adjust the subwoofer volume, you won't know what level you are going from/to unless you open your Smartthings app. Of course if you're not tinkering with settings it doesn't matter. 3) I had an extremely frustrating weekend setting this up in Smartthings. It would go offline, and I tried numerous things like unplugging and removing. I couldn't get it registered within the app for days until the one time I disabled WPA3 and all the advanced security features on my Eero 6 routers and unplugged it. However, once registered, after re-enabling all those and unplugging one more time, it seems to be working and compatible with WPA3. It seems flaky on setup, so I'm offering this experience as something to consider if you have issues with WiFi or registering in the app. The other thing I seemed to notice is that within my Samsung TV, if I switched input from the Q950 ARC to Q950 Wifi, that seemed to go badly. With an HDMI cable, I don't see a need for now to try it again. 4) Honestly, the big disappointment for me is not really getting a sense of anything flying directly overhead. I'm guessing it is due to the 20' ceilings, and/or inability of the calibration to compensate, and the limitations of the room configuration/speaker layout. However, I do experience some sensation of height, and a satisfying sense of sound from all other directions. I have a 2018 Samsung TV, so I don't have the ability to use the SpaceFit feature, so I suspect that upgrading my TV would improve the height sensation. According to the manual, the AutoEQ feature merely calibrates the sub for the low end frequencies, and from my limited experience using the system without it, it made a huge difference in filling the room even before I got the rears working. I suspect that reviewers complaining about the lack of bass may not have AutoEQ'd their system, which is another reason to read the full manual. 5) A big part of my initial problems too was that the surround speakers were producing no sound at all, despite being confirmed paired (by the blue lights). I read on some forum someone mentioning enabling bass enhancement in the app would create this problem. I don't recall if disabling that did resolve the problem, but in the process of troubleshooting with known sources of Atmos enabled video content, once I started testing youtube Atmos test videos, the surrounds finally started working and have worked since. It's completely baffling what made this start working, but now that I'm past that, I'm happy. Hopefully issues like this do not randomly occur over time, as I've only owned these for less than a week now. 6) Maybe on select vocal tracks where the dialog is very prominent, this seems to sound thinner than what my center MA speaker produces, even with AVA on. Maybe it's my imagination. But I don't consider this a valid reason to hang on to the MAs given everything else I'm benefiting from. Samsung support was very responsive. I contacted from within the app and exchanged emails, but none of that really helped to resolve any of my issues. Lastly I will say that I enjoy listening to music (and video) in surround mode. If you're old enough to appreciate The Beatles, try the Atmos mix of Abbey Road available on Apple Music (and maybe elsewhere), which sounds amazing. I'm not sure why people might prefer listening to music in stereo mode with this system, except that it might be more accurate if that is how the source material was designed. I'm not bothering to change modes from surround. Curiously, rtings didn't evaluate this system in surround mode and hence didn't utilize all the speakers.