The LG S80QY is a great sound quality system that will enhance both the way you watch and the way you listen. It is rich in bass, offers solid Dolby Atmos performance, and has a great app to help you adjust it all.

LG S80QY is a 3.1.3 build released as part of LG’s 2022 series. It’s a feature-packed mid-range setup with a unique design and, like the LG S90QY and LG S95QR, features an additional central ignition channel at the top of the bar. There’s an AI room calibration function that optimizes the line’s sound based on your room’s acoustics, and it also supports WOWCAST technology as well as TV audio sharing with compatible LG TVs.

There are no surround channels, and if you want discrete rear speakers, you’ll have to buy them separately from the manufacturer. While this may not sound particularly impressive on paper, it greatly improves not only your TV’s built-in sound, but many competing soundbars as well. Dialogue clarity is the main reason most people buy soundbars, and the S80QY excels at this key parameter.

In addition, the S80QY is a 3.1.3-channel Dolby Atmos soundbar with a separate wireless bass subwoofer and DTS:X soundtrack processing. Its film and TV performance is very good, which puts it well in competition with the best Dolby Atmos soundbars in its price range.

The design of the LG S80QY Soundbar is very similar to other LG 2022 models such as the LG S90QY and LG S95QR. The body element is made of plastic. The fabric covers the front and sides. At the top of the case are his three metal grilles that cover each of the upward-facing speakers. The soundbar itself is 1000mm wide, 62mm high and 135mm deep. On the one hand, the soundbar is low. This allows you to place it under the legs of your TV.

On the other hand, it’s a meter width that doesn’t fit under a 55-inch TV. The subwoofer is 405mm high, 202mm wide and 401mm deep. In other words, the subwoofer size is very similar to a desktop computer case. Thanks to its wireless connectivity, this subwoofer can be placed anywhere in the room. To activate the subwoofer, it is enough to connect it to power. The back of the S80QY soundbar has openings for the power cable and inputs.

If the panel is to be wall mounted, the holes are below the panel. The back of the subwoofer is also very simple. Nothing but a network cable connector. The USB port is on the front. The front drapery is fairly dense. Don’t worry about breaking easily. The wooden structure of the subwoofer also has a solid feeling. However, the fabric that covers the sides is looser than the fabric on the front.

LG’s soundbar is a 3.1.3 model that supports Dolby Atmos and DTS: X soundtrack formats. It’s also IMAX Enhanced, though the benefits of this feature aren’t clear, aside from the IMAX requirement for built-in DTS: X processing. A total of 480 watts of amplifier power is available for its nine total speakers, with 220 watts dedicated to the subwoofer alone. Along with its front speakers, subwoofer and two up-firing drivers for Atmos ambient effects, the S80QY uniquely features a third up-firing driver that is used for dialogue delivery.

As we will discuss in the Sound Quality section, this works very well both for improving dialogue clarity and for “lifting” voices to screen level where they will sound more natural. Both HDMI eARC and regular HDMI ports are provided and these support Dolby Vision high dynamic range pass-through, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). There is also an optical digital input for connecting the audio output of an old TV without HDMI eARC or ARC.

Along with wireless Bluetooth 5.0, the S80QY supports audio streaming using built-in Chromecast and AirPlay 2. Another wireless connection option is LG’s Wowcast, which allows you to stream audio wirelessly to the soundbar from a TV. using an optional adapter that connects to the HDMI of the eARC Output set.

The unit doesn’t stray far from what you’d expect from a mid-tier soundbar. As such, the number of ports available is fairly limited, and many home theaters are equipped with streaming devices, media players, disc players, and even With things like game consoles, the need for an HDMI port has increased as it can certainly cause problems in certain situations.

You get one HDMI input, one HDMI output, one digital audio optical input, and one USB port for streaming content from external storage devices. that’s all. One thing that needs to be mentioned is that all HDMI ports are old HDMI 2.0, so they don’t support 4K@120Hz. This means that if you want to connect your game console to a soundbar for high frame rate games, you’re out of luck.

In such cases, the only option is to use eARC to connect the console to the TV and from there to the soundbar itself. The difference this year is that all ports support both VRR and ALLM so if you’re gaming but don’t really care about HFR you can plug your console into a soundbar and then into your TV and There are many benefits… The HDMI port also supports 4K passthrough, Dolby Vision, HDR10 and CEC.

Movies and TV shows sounded great on the S80QY with only minimal setup effort. In addition to running AI Room Calibration Pro, we simply selected Standard processing mode and let things rip. The integration between the soundbar and the subwoofer was smooth, allowing deeper voices to sound full and natural both when watching movies and listening to music. Bass from the S80QY’s subwoofer was tight and punchy.

It didn’t have the low-frequency extension you’d get from a more expensive, purpose-built sub, but its output was consistently clean and added impact. The overall performance of the LG was well demonstrated when we saw a scene from John Wick 3 taking place in an antiques warehouse. In it, Wick is battling a gang of would-be assassins, and the sound of shattered shop windows, gunshots and punches and feet making solid connections with their targets, all had a dynamic quality.

Dolby Atmos ambient effects were also clearly in evidence with the S80QY bouncing off my room’s flat 9-foot ceiling. They could be heard in JW3 scenes when it’s pouring rain on the city streets, but I got an even better demonstration when we saw a scene from 1917 where a mouse triggers an explosion in an underground bunker. In it, as soldiers are engulfed by falling debris, the sound literally seemed to come from my ceiling – a vivid and somehow scary effect.

LG’s S80QY launched in April 2022 for $899 / £749 / AUD $999, but the street price has since dropped significantly below that amount. At its original price, the S80QY sits near the high end of the soundbar market, but is roughly in the middle of LG’s full soundbar lineup.

A direct competitor is Sonos Arc, an all-in-one solution that adds an angled driver to give virtual surround his sound, but without the S80QY’s wireless subwoofer. Another similarly priced competitor is the Samsung HW-S800B. This is a fairly slim soundbar and subwoofer package with a 3.1.2 Dolby Atmos speaker configuration. So the S80QY is exactly like its competitors.

The LG S80QY sounds pretty good out of the factory. A wireless subwoofer adds depth to the bass. Voices and lead instruments in music and TV shows are reproduced very clearly, but the high frequencies are slightly shifted. The S80QY has a number of settings that users can set to their ‘preferences’. It also supports Dolby Atmos. Additionally, the soundbar can play surround sound formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS.

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