Samsung HW-F751 review

We’re big fans of surround sound here at Expert Reviews, but we understand not everyone has room for multiple speakers and all the wires that come with them. The best soundbars, which attempt to emulate surround sound from a single speaker, are growing in popularity, and Samsung’s latest is aimed right at the high-end. The HW-F751 is a gorgeous-looking aluminium bar, with a matching wireless subwoofer that should be able to replace a multi-speaker setup.

The silver brushed metal finish gives the HW-F751 a beautifully high-end appearance, although it’s available in black (Samsung HW-F750) if you think it’ll clash with your TV. A small window takes pride of place in the middle of the bar, giving you a glimpse of the valve amplifier within. Samsung is a strong believer that valve amps produce warmer, more natural tones than digital ones, and whether or not you agree, it undoubtedly looks fantastic, especially when powered on. It glows orange, with the touch-sensitive buttons below it lit by complementary white LEDs. There are Power, Input Select, and Volume controls on the device; all the other functions can be accessed through the remote control.

The subwoofer, a plain yet sturdy box that’s roughly the size of a waste paper basket, has no ports bar the power connector, it connects to the sound bar wirelessly. You don’t even need to sync the pair: just plug them both in and they’ll find each other automatically.

As the bar can be positioned flat or wall-mounted, Samsung has fitted two single-line LCD displays (one on the side and one to the left of the amplifier) so you can see it regardless of its orientation. It’s a little on the small side, despite there being plenty of room for a larger display, and this can be irritating when trying to change sound effect presets; you must wait for the line of text to scroll in order to see what you’ve just enabled or disabled.

There’s a single USB port on the top of the bar, but the majority of the inputs are at the back of the unit. You get one HDMI input, one ARC-compatible HDMI output to send data to an amplifier or other device, a 3.5mm auxiliary jack and a digital optical input. With HDMI, you won’t have to worry about extra cables solely for audio, although there’s no standby pass-through and there’s no on-screen interface. As everything is controlled through the single-line LCD display, you have to remember which settings and presets you’ve enabled. All the ports are recessed into the unit, so they won’t get in the way if you wall-mount it.

If you already own a Samsung TV, you can use Samsung’s SoundShare feature to pair it to the sound bar wirelessly using Samsung’s own HD audio codecs. It’s neater than running a cable between the devices and sound quality barely changes.

The USB port reads the MP3s, WMA and AAC tracks on a flash drive or portable hard disk and plays them by file name. There’s no option to shuffle or create playlists, so you’re better off using the HW-F751’s secret weapon: Bluetooth.

Rather than just play audio from your Blu-ray player or games console, with Bluetooth you can turn the sound bar into a streaming music player. It uses A2DP rather than the higher quality aptX, but you’ll be hard pushed to tell the difference. You must change the input on the sound bar to start the music, but after that you’ll have complete control from anywhere in the room, using your phone or tablet.

We tested the HW-F751 with Blu-ray films, games and music tracks from a range of genres. Using the bundled calibration microphone, it set itself up for our testing room with a series of test tones, although it made little improvement over the presets because we had placed it dead centre. If you’re looking for a sound bar to sit in one corner, it’ll make a much greater difference.

The sound bar automatically adjusts its audio processing depending on its orientation, so we tried it in both orientations, but preferred to have the valves facing upwards. Audio sounded clearer and more precise because we weren’t blocking one set of speaker drivers.

For films, a sound bar needs to create a sense of virtual surround, which the HW-F751 mostly delivered. If you’re in an average-sized room and sit no further than seven feet away, there’s a real sense that sound’s coming from the sides and above the speakers. It can’t quite mimic rear speakers, but it does a very good job. In a larger room, the effect is somewhat muted and not quite as convincing. Enabling the 3D sound setting produced an echo effect that we didn’t like.

You can see the valve amplifier inside through a small window

Despite the presence of valve amplification, its sound quality’s best described as crisp, rather than warm. Audio sounds disappointing on anything bar the music and Auto Sound Calibration (ASC) presets, but once we’d enabled these presets it sounded fantastic, with great balance between the mid-range and high-end. It’s not quite as well-rounded as the Sonos Playbar, but it’s still good.

We couldn’t hear any delay between sound bar and subwoofer when watching films or playing games, although the bass it produced wasn’t quite as room-shaking as we’d have liked. You can increase its volume, but it then gets stuck on more complex layers of bass, producing general rumbles rather than perfect thumps and booms.

At its current price, the HW-F751 has one big advantage over its main rival: it comes with a wireless subwoofer in the box. That makes it around £600 less than a Sonos Sub and Playbar combination, and although it lacks the ability to upgrade to 5.1, and you’re limited to Bluetooth audio playback rather than the excellent Sonos player, Samsung’s soundbar still looks like fantastic value. Yes, there are cheaper alternatives, but none with as many features and such an eye-catching design.