The SN11RG is LG’s flagship soundbar for 2020. Its $1,600/£1,499 price bags you a substantial main soundbar unit, a similarly substantial external wireless subwoofer, and a pair of meaty wireless rear speakers.
There’s more to these components than initially meets the eye, too. Tucked cleverly away in the main soundbar, for instance, are no less than seven actual (rather than virtual) audio drivers: front left, front center, front right, side left, side right, and two up-firers. The side and up-firing drivers are both designed to bounce sound off your walls and ceiling respectively, to deliver the side and height audio effects that are so important to a truly convincing Dolby Atmos/DTS:X audio experience.
The two rear speakers also carry up-firing as well as front-firing drivers. This allows the SN11RG system to complete the dome of three-dimensional audio associated with Dolby and DTS’s ‘object-based’ sound system.
The LG SN11RG soundbar is an impressive new entry into the 7.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos soundbar ... [+]
Photo: LG ElectronicsThere are plenty of soundbars out there that claim to do Dolby Atmos and DTS:X using far fewer real speakers than the SN11RG gives you. From my experience, though, not even the cleverest ‘virtual’ audio systems, which use processing and soundfield manipulation to recreate the effect of audio channels that aren’t actually physically present, can truly replace the precision and soundstage you can get from real speakers.
Despite this, soundbars that actually provide real height channels - especially at the rear - are few and far between. Probably because you could argue that a) people want soundbars precisely because they don’t want lots of speakers in their living room, and b) the sort of price LG is asking for the SN11RG system could get you an at least passable separates system comprising an AV receiver and a set of 7.1.4 speakers.
The SN11RG counters these potential arguments against its existence very well, though. For starters, the main soundbar manages to look elegant and refined despite housing so many real speakers. It’s pretty wide (56.8 inches) and deep (5.8 inches) by soundbar standards, but it stands just 2.5 inches high, meaning it should still slot under the screens of most 2020 TV designs without obscuring any of the picture or getting in the way of your TV’s IR sensor.
Detail view of one of the LG SN11RG's up-firing drivers.
Photo: LG ElectronicsIt also sports a very attractive metallic-looking grey finish on its top edge, and the upfiring speakers are cutely cut flush to this top edge.
The front and sides of the soundbar contrast handsomely with the polished top plate thanks to a tasteful black grilled finish broken only by the welcome appearance of a bright, easy to read LED. This LED helps you track which input you’ve got selected, which sound format you’re receiving, and which sound mode you’re using.
Note that the LED automatically dims down when you haven’t pressed any buttons on the SN11RG’s remote for a few seconds, so that it doesn’t distract you from what you’re watching.
Compared with the elegance of the main soundbar, the rears are essentially just surprisingly heavy and robust black boxes. But they’re remarkably compact considering they each house not one but two substantial drivers.
All the sound processing and amplification is built into the SN11RG’s four components, of course; you don’t need an external AVR.
Only the chunky subwoofer doesn’t really offer a more elegant solution than you’d get with a typical separates system. But you can always hide the sub down the side of a sofa or under a sideboard given that it produces a relatively directionless sound.
All four components of the LG SN11RG soundbar.
Photo: LG ElectronicsAlso helping to sell the SN11RG over a separates system is its ease of set up. Its four elements all communicate wirelessly, removing the need for long cable runs around your living room. They all recognized and joined forces with each other with minimal manual input too, as soon as I plugged them in. Plus you don’t have the hassle of either building speakers into your ceiling, or perching separate (and likely pricey) up-firing drivers on top of standard speakers to achieve the Dolby Atmos height effect.
The only complication during installation is the need to download two separate apps to your smartphone or tablet in order to optimize first set up. Though once you’ve done this, it actually makes the rest of the set up process much more straightforward.
With a healthy claimed audio power of 770W to spread around its 7.1.4 channels, the omens for the LG SN11RG’s performance look good. Especially as it’s another result of LG’s generally successful collaboration with acclaimed British Hi-Fi brand, Meridian. The only potential concern is the odd performance of a much cheaper soundbar in LG’s 2020 range, the SN7CY. My review of that one can be found here.
The SN11RG is fairly well featured, as you’d hope for such an expensive soundbar. Its connections, for instance, include two HDMI inputs, a USB port, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless options, and support for so-called eARC functionality over its HDMI output. This means the soundbar can receive lossless Dolby Atmos or DTS:X tracks from compatible TVs if you don’t want to connect Dolby Atmos/DTS:X sources directly to the soundbar’s HDMI inputs.
You can optimize the LG SN11RG's sound for your room using an auto-calibration system.
Photo: LG ElectronicsThe soundbar’s HDMIs also support passthrough of 4K, high dynamic range and Dolby Vision HDR pictures. They do not, though, support the HDR10+ system which, like Dolby Vision, carries extra scene by scene picture information to help compatible TVs deliver better HDR image quality.
If you had to pick between Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, you’d likely go for Dolby Vision. There is, after all, much more content available in Dolby Vision than there is in HDR10+. Since there are now TVs out there, though, that support both, it might have been nice to find a soundbar as high-end as the SN11RG supporting both too.
The SN11RG also carries an AI Sound mode that applies proprietary LG processing to try and continually optimise the SN11RG’s capabilities to suit different types of audio source, and a Surround Sound mode that remixes any sound format, even stereo, to use all of the system’s 12 channels.
It’s mercifully clear right away that while not flawless, the SN11RG is a far more sure-footed, focused and effective performer than the SN7YC.
For starters, it’s seriously powerful. Every driver in the system propels its contribution forth with real intent, creating an impressively large and three-dimensional audio field that admirably creates that familiar Dolby Atmos sensation of you sitting at the heart of an immersive hemisphere of sound.
This hemisphere of sound feels outstandingly complete, too. By which I mean there are no gaps in the sound in front of you, to the side of you, behind you or even above you. Hardly any other soundbar systems that carry Dolby Atmos decoding manage to achieve such a perfect ‘sound dome’. In fact, arguably the only other one around at the moment is Samsung’s 2019 (but still available at the time of writing) model, the HW-Q90R.
The LG SN11RG soundbar system in a much tidier room than mine.
Photo: LG ElectronicsThe SN11RG’s ability with height effects, in particular, is uncanny. Even the most subtle vertical details are clearly positioned at their correct height in front, behind or directly above you. But the system also does aggressive overhead effects and transitions (helicopters circling overhead, for instance, or planes flying by) with plenty of power to keep the positional accuracy company.
The front-firing drivers in the rear speakers are as sensitive as the up-firers too, making them much keener to get involved in the action than the slightly reluctant rears you get with the Samsung Q90R system. This helps LG’s system create a startling sense of scale with exterior locations, as well as portraying differences between interior spaces uncannily accurately.
The SN11RG’s powerful soundstage is underpinned by some proper bass, too. The subwoofer is far less polite than the oddly shy one provided with last year’s LG soundbar flagship, delivering more than enough grunt and rumble to both underpin an action scene or surging score, and keep the startlingly transparent detail grounded and balanced.
Partly because of this and partly because the drivers are so excellent at handling even the brightest, twinkliest sounds, there’s scarcely a hint of harshness or thinness in any of the intense amounts of detail the SN11RG brings forth.
The SN11RG's main soundbar element is pretty long, but still looks attractive and should sit ... [+]
Photo: LG ElectronicsVoices sound rich and naturally placed within the wider sound mix (rather than sounding like obvious overdubs), and the system has way more gears to shift through in building action scenes than its predecessor.
While the SN11RG is built for movies, it’s no slouch with music either. Again the amount of detail it ekes out of even basic stereo recordings is hugely impressive. As is its stereo staging, which spreads music right across your room without sounding thin or stretched. Its dynamic range is expansive, too, with the subwoofer’s strong bass sliding nicely onto the lower end of the main soundbar’s expansive mid-range while high voices, twinkly piano keys, shrill strings and screeching guitars are aggressively delivered without sounding brittle or exaggerated.
The SN11RG’s Surround Sound mode also does a surprisingly effective job of remixing stereo or other sub 7.1.4-channel music into all of the SN11RG’s available speakers. The mode actually seems to intelligently redesign the way a stereo mix has been constructed so that each channel added to the mix sounds as if it’s truly contributing something specific to the soundstage, rather than the Surround mode just doubling up channels and/or simply filling the height channels with high trebles.
More good news comes with the stability of the SN11RG’s wireless connectivity. I never once experienced a lost connection between any of the speakers throughout the time I spent with the system, whereas I had to manually reset the wireless connection of Samsung’s Q90R three or four times while I was testing that one last year.
The SN11RG’s combination of extreme dynamic range, plenty of swelling volume and exceptional amounts of soundstage-building detail adds up to a seriously attractive USP. There are, though, still a few areas where the SN11RG could be better.
Top-down view of the main soundbar component of the LG SN11RG system.
Photo: LG ElectronicsThe biggest issue is a lack of attack and aggression from the front - especially center - speaker drivers when trying to portray heavy or hard impact sounds. So gun fire, car crashes, the front edge of explosions and so on can go a bit AWOL at times.
In The Invisible Man on 4K Blu-ray, for instance, during the sequence where the transparent bad guy goes to town on a bunch of security guards at a psychiatric hospital, there’s a shot where a guard’s head crunches pretty unpleasantly against a reinforced glass window. But you just don’t feel the grim impact of this hit on the SN11RG like you do on some other soundbars - including the Samsung Q90R.
While clean and well contextualised, meanwhile, voices can occasionally sound a little dislocated from the onscreen action. As if people are talking from below the image rather than from where their mouths are moving. This appears to be because the center speaker doesn’t give voices quite enough vertical dispersion as they emerge from the soundbar’s shallow front edge.
Next, while the subwoofer’s presence is consistent and solid, it isn’t very varied or fleet of foot in its moment to moment response to complex film mixes.
Finally, at really high volumes the most extreme soundtrack moments can cause momentary drop outs to occur. But the sort of volumes I’m talking about where this happens are higher than most people will likely want to go in any sort of normal-sized living room.
Verdict
LG’s SN11RG flagship soundbar is as good as the brand’s SN7CY is not, offering real competition for the Samsung Q90R system it shares so many similarities with.
That’s certainly not to say, though, that the two ‘true’ 7.1.4-channel systems are by any means identical. The LG stands out for the detail and precision of its rear and height effects, while the Samsung delivers more center-channel impact, livelier bass and more raw grunt.
All these differences are just fine with me. For in a market still as relatively niche as the ‘fully-speakered’ Dolby Atmos soundbar world, I’d much rather find a new option like the LG SN11RG adding some genuine variety and choice for consumers than just trying to ape what’s gone before.
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If you found this article useful, you might also like these:
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The Link LonkAugust 24, 2020 at 05:02AM
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LG SN11RG Soundbar Review: The Real Deal - Forbes
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