I tested Samsung’s most affordable premium soundbar + subwoofer — and I felt like I was at a private movie theater built just for me

The Samsung Q600F is the most affordable soundbar in Samsung’s Q-Series range. At $599, but seemingly on perma-sale for around $480, the 600F is one of the lower-cost ways to achieve cinema-quality sound at home.

Sure, it’s one of the best soundbars if you prioritize surround sound, floor-shaking bass, and crisp dialogue over smart home features like app control and AirPlay. After the initial bamboozlement, I found my user experience wasn’t dampened by the lack of features, as you can easily play music via Bluetooth if needs be. But really? I was mostly just shook by the movie-theater-level sound coming from my TV.

I think the Samsung Q600F certainly has a place in most home cinema setups, but I’ll go through all the features and sound quality in this Samsung Q600F review.

Samsung Q600F review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The most affordable soundbar in Samsung’s premium Q-Series range
• Who is it for? If you want a home cinema setup good enough to feel alive without the big spend
• What does it cost? $599 / £599, but seemingly on perma-sale
• What do we like? The sound quality is bombastic and powerful
• What don’t we like? There’s a weird lack of features — no app integration or AirPlay/Chromecast

Samsung Q600F review: Specs

Samsung Q600F review: Price & availability

The Samsung Q600F is the entry-level model in Samsung’s premium Q range. I’d recommend it as your first premium soundbar if you have a Samsung TV too. I tested with the Samsung S95F OLED.

The Samsung Q600F is new in 2025, but it’s already majorly discounted at mainstream retailers. While the MSRP is $599/£599, it’s discounted — and has been for a long time — on both Samsung’s website and at Amazon.

You can get the Q600F for just $472 at Amazon U.S. and £247 at Amazon U.K.. If you can snag the Q600F for this price, it’s one of the best-value soundbars I’ve reviewed so far. At the MSRP of $599/£599, it’s a little pricey for its performance, though.

The MSRP of $599 places it firmly in the mid-range of soundbars. The Q600F is much better value than the Bose Smart Soundbar, which is $549 and has no subwoofer included, but it’s not as good value as the $449 Polk Audio Signa S4 soundbar and subwoofer combo — although it does have slightly better sound.

The Q600F is also much better value than Samsung’s Ultra-Slim soundbar S801D, which is a massive $899 but performs at around the same level as the Q600F. If you want a cinematic mid-range Samsung soundbar with a subwoofer, I’d recommend the Q600F over the S801D.

Samsung Q600F review: Design & controls

• Looks like all other Samsung Q-Series soundbars
• Angled sides and mesh, plastic casing
• Buttons on top and remote

The Samsung Q600F looks like all other soundbars in Samsung’s Q Series, which isn’t necessarily a positive or a negative. I happen to like how Samsung’s soundbars look: they’re inconspicuous and modern-looking, but they’re not breaking the boundaries of soundbar design.

It’s very long, at over 40 inches, so it wouldn’t be suited to small houses like mine. If you need a smaller soundbar, I’d recommend the 33-inch Samsung B650 ($249).

On top of the soundbar are four buttons: power, volume up, volume down, and input. The buttons are nicely tactile, but I found myself leaning towards using the remote over the buttons. Still, it’s nice to have in case you misplace the remote — unfortunately, the Q600F cannot be used via Smart Things, so cannot be controlled remotely.

The remote itself is nice and long, not the stubby nonsense Bose provides you with. I particularly like the volume buttons due to their tactile nature. There’s a range of options on the remote: ‘sound mode’ being my most used, and also individual channel volume adjustments.

The Q600F is also compatible with the SWA-9250S rear speakers, priced at $149 on Samsung U.S.. As these speakers are not provided with a purchase of the Q600F, though, I did not include their performance in this review.

Samsung Q600F review: Features

• No smart home integration, weirdly
• Surround, game, adaptive, standard sound modes
• SpaceFit Sound Pro only on a select number of Samsung TVs

My biggest qualm with the Q600F is the lack of features for the price. It would be a worthy sacrifice for awesome, cinematic sound quality, but if you want a particularly modern and smart-home-ready soundbar, this probably isn’t the one for you. I’d recommend the Bose Smart Soundbar instead, but then you’d have to buy an $899 subwoofer to go with it.

I tested the Q600F with a new Samsung TV, the S95F, but there was still no SpaceFit Sound Pro compatibility. This is majorly disappointing, especially as I was using a state-of-the-art 2025 OLED TV. Surely, surely, this top-of-the-range Samsung TV should be able to use SpaceFit Sound Pro?

Anyway, there’s also no smart home compatibility. This includes Smart Things app and wireless playback options like Chromecast and AirPlay. I’m not sure why Samsung didn’t include these features in the Q600F, as other similarly priced products have them. Perhaps because this is primarily a cinema soundbar, not an everyday soundbar.

Maybe this would be better suited to a dedicated entertainment room, and you could get a more ‘smart home’ soundbar for the basic living room TV. But then surely you would just get a hi-fi setup? Sigh. Anyway. That’s the fact of the matter: no smart home integration.

So, if you just want a soundbar for movie watching, then I suppose it’s not the end of the world. I use my Bose Smart Soundbar for a lot of music listening (I know — I’m a terrible audiophile), but it’s not as good for blockbuster movies as the Q600F.

However, I’ll choose to end on a positive note. There’s a range of sound modes in the soundbar: adaptive, game, surround, and standard. Obviously surround was the best for movies. ‘Surround’ mode accentuated the side channels and bass, which tricked me into believing I was using rear speakers during some particularly epic scenes.

Samsung Q600F review: Sound quality

• Floor-shaking bass thanks to the subwoofer
• Clear separation between dialogue, sound effects, and soundtrack
• More immersive in some scenes than others, but overall impressive

I test every soundbar with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ on 4K UHD Blu-Ray (amongst others, but ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ is the control test), TV shows on Netflix, and music on Qobuz.

Movies

First, I watched ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. This movie is excellent for testing soundbars due to its range of sounds and settings: jet planes flying overhead, bass-heavy soundtrack and radioed dialogue, to name a few.

In the opening scene, ‘Danger Zone’ was bassy and groovy, and the ‘80s gated percussion was clear and prominent over the diegetic jet engine sound effects. I couldn’t hear as many of the high-frequency sounds — like ropes whooshing and wheels clinking — as I could on the Denon Home Sound Bar 550.

While the bass was awesome throughout the movie, I couldn’t help but long for more immersion. The Dolby Atmos performance was good, but not excellent. When the jet planes were flying overhead, I couldn’t follow the sound through the room. There wasn’t as much height as I’d want from a soundbar at this price point, but that doesn’t mean it performed poorly.

I loved the bar scene. In this scene, ‘Let’s Dance’ by David Bowie sounded as if it was coming from beside the TV, rather than the TV itself. This was the first time I was genuinely impressed with the Q600F’s 360° audio performance. Even over the soundtrack, the hushed dialogue was clear and audible.

The practice dogfighting scene is one of the best ways to test a soundbar. Thanks to the radioed dialogue, roaring jet engines, and layered, bass-heavy soundtrack, there’s a whole melee of sounds to really push a soundbar to its limits.

The subwoofer growled when the jet planes were soaring overhead, and I could still hear the soundtrack over the engine sounds. However, this scene suffered from the same issue as the previous flying scenes: not enough height.

After ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, I watched ‘The Batman’. I used ‘surround’ mode for this movie, as opposed to the ‘standard’ mode for ‘Top Gun’. The string and piano motifs in the soundtrack were piercing, but not overpowering of the husky, growled dialogue in the opening scenes. A few of Batman’s lines were muffled, but this was almost certainly a creative choice.

About twenty minutes in, there’s a scene of Batman motorbiking through Gotham with ‘Something in the Way’ by Nirvana playing. This scene was by far the most immersive and thrilling of them all; the creepy voiceover by Pattinson, the harrowing acoustic guitar from Cobain; the diegetic news broadcast playing over it all. The soundbar did well with all these different elements, and left me wanting to rewind it just to experience it again.

There are a number of nightclub scenes in the movie; all of these have pounding bass, which sounded excellent through the subwoofer, and a range of indistinguishable chatter laid over computer-generated sound effects. Everything was balanced perfectly, with a great amount of depth. There wasn’t a huge amount of height, as with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, but I was able to overlook this.

I’d heard great things about the famous Batmobile-Penguin chase scene, so I was really excited to reach this point in the movie. The flame sound effects, roaring engine and screeching brakes were loud and immersive throughout the scenes. However, I couldn’t hear the rain sound effects as loudly as I would’ve liked. Still, for a 3.1.2 channel soundbar, the performance was impressive. My heart was racing throughout the scene, and I couldn’t look away. I felt like a toddler watching Cocomelon.

A scene that really surprised me was when Batman and Gordon enter the abandoned orphanage. The Dolby Atmos performance blew me away; I could hear raindrops coming from all around me, and the metallic clinking of boots on staircases reverberated around my brain. This was a great scene, and one of the best surround performances of the entire movie.

Lastly, I watched ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (2025 version). The dialogue was crisp and close in the mix, specifically Hiccup’s voiceovers. Every note of the soundtrack was audible, and not lost in the action-heavy scenes. I loved the dragon fight scene at the end of the movie; the roaring, the metal clinking, and the crowd screaming was all room-filling and cinematic.

I found the flight scenes particularly enjoyable; Hiccup and Toothless’s first flights were immersive. Every time they fell into the water, it felt like it was splashing from behind me. Toothless’s purring sounds in particular were awesome, very carefully layered thanks to the subwoofer.

Seeing as this is just a 3.1.2 channel soundbar, it’s not outrageous that it suffers from lack of height. You can purchase additional rear speakers, though, which should mitigate the issue.

For $472 — its seemingly permanent-discounted MSRP on Amazon, this performance is impressive. Even so, if you were to pay the full MSRP of $599, you’d still be happy with the sound, I’m sure. When I was testing the Q600F, I felt like I was in a private movie theater.

TV

As I’d watched 4K UHD movies for my movie testing, I switched to basic Netflix — so no Atmos or DTS Virtual:X. Not everyone has access to 4K movies, so it’s only fair.

I watched ‘Wednesday’ on Netflix, which has a great mixture of muttered, moody dialogue, an infectious soundtrack, and action scenes. While, obviously, the basic tier of Netflix has no Dolby Atmos performance, I still found that the show sounded great.

All dialogue was clear, even Wednesday’s monotonous delivery. There were a number of sound effects that struck me as particularly strong: crackling fires, gargling Venus fly traps; the ticking of clockwork.

I didn’t need Dolby Atmos to enjoy the show. As the Q600F has great elemental separation, I was able to pick out dialogue, high-frequency sounds, and the soundtrack easily.

Music

To test music performance, I listened to a variety of genres using Qobuz, our best music streaming service for audiophiles. I listened via Bluetooth, as there’s no Chromecast or AirPlay in the Q600F. Bizarre choice from Samsung, but I suppose we must make do with what we’re given.

Even so, I connected via Bluetooth, which was easy using the remote. I played ‘Play Me’ by Fcukers, which has a DnB-inspired bassline and a breathy female vocal. The bass was punchy and vibrated so much I could feel it in the floor. The quieter synth notes were eclipsed a little, but it’s a soundbar, not one of the best speakers.

Afterwards, I played ‘Bird Song’ by M.I.A, which has discordant vocal riffs and an infectious, all-consuming percussion section. The instrumental separation wasn’t great in this track, but the vocal performance was solid.

To switch up genre, I played ‘About A Girl (Remastered)’ by Nirvana. I particularly loved Kurt Cobian’s voice in this track — the soundbar did a really good job of preserving his natural growl — and the bassline was clean. There wasn’t any muddiness whatsoever, which I suppose some people like, but this could be down to the remastered file rather than the soundbar.

Overall, the Q600F performed well with electronic, rock, and pop. While no, the music performance wasn’t equatable to the second coming of Christ or anything, I was generally impressed. The basslines were loud but not overpowering, and the vocals were all really strong. There just wasn’t as much instrumental separation as you might want.

Samsung Q600F review: Verdict

On the whole, the Samsung Q600F is a bit of a no-brainer. It’s the most affordable Q-Series soundbar, so it's the best option for those who want premium performance on a mid-range budget. I would be more than happy to swap out my Bose Smart Soundbar for the Q600F, although I would miss being able to AirPlay my music straight from Qobuz to my soundbar.

However, playing music on a soundbar is actually one of the cardinal sins of being an audiophile, so my membership card should be revoked for doing so anyway. My membership card would not be revoked, however, for saying the Q600F soundbar is one of the best ways to get cinematic sound at home.

The bass is floor-shaking and the dialogue is crisp, even in dramatic action scenes. On the whole, the Dolby Atmos performance is admirable, especially in ‘The Batman’. I think serious movie lovers can overlook the lack of smart home features in lieu of awesome sound, and that’s exactly what the Samsung Q600F has: awesome sound.