- UK pricing for LG’s new Sound Suite Dolby Atmos FlexConnect soundbar and speakers has changed
- The flagship soundbar now costs £900, the sub costs £600 and the wireless speakers now cost £400 and £250.
- This brings them closer to Sonos products, but the system is more flexible
LG has changed the previously announced UK price for its Sound Suite modular system consisting of soundbar and Dolby Atmos FlexConnect speakers, and this price makes it a real threat to Sonos equivalents.
H7 soundbar now costs £900 instead of £1,000; W7 subwoofer costs £600 instead of £700; and the M7 wireless speaker is down to £400 from £450.
However, one price has increased. The M5 wireless speaker, the cheapest in the range, has been revised in price and now costs £250 instead of the previously announced £250.
In the US, you’re looking at $999 for the H7 soundbar, $599 for the W7 sub, $399 for the M7 speaker, and $249 for the M5 speaker.
I suspect the pricing will cause a few furrowed eyebrows at Sonos headquarters: not only do the H7 Soundbar, W7 Subwoofer, and M7 Speaker match or be cheaper than equivalent Sonos products (the Sonos Arc Ultra, Sonos Sub 4, and Sonos Era 300), but they’re also more flexible.
That’s because Dolby Atmos FlexConnect isn’t just a brand; It’s a smart way to set up surround sound speakers that means you don’t have to play by the old rules of home theater.
Why flexibility might be FlexConnect’s best feature
As with many AV companies, Sonos’ surround sound is excellent, but it expects you to have a simple setup: soundbar centered in front, surround speakers on either side behind you, you’re perfectly positioned in front of the center of the screen.
And that’s one of the reasons I don’t have a Sonos setup, because like many homes, my front room is actively hostile to symmetrical layouts. It was built in the 1960s, back when a 20-inch CRT was considered a big-screen TV.
There’s only one place in the room where my TV can be installed, and to do that I have to place my surround speakers in odd, unbalanced places. That’s why I opted for a wired setup: My AV receiver lets me specify the height and distance of my speakers, then it does the sums and sets delays and levels to compensate for imperfect placement.
If I were purchasing a new system now, I would definitely consider FlexConnect instead.
FlexConnect basically does what my AV receiver does, but even more conveniently: I had to get out the measuring tape, but provided you have a suitable hub, FlexConnect automatically maps the room for you. In the case of LG, the soundbar or a new LG T can act as a hub.
This means you can have a soundbar and a rear speaker, or maybe three speakers in a weird triangle if that suits you, and the system will adjust their output to resemble a traditional surround setup.
We’re still in the early stages of this technology, but what we’ve seen – and more importantly, what we’ve heard – is very impressive. If it delivers on LG’s promises and is adopted by several TV and audio makers, it could give the best soundbars some serious competition.
That leaves Sonos like an old duddy, with its increasingly advanced speaker system still locked to static positions – and according to my colleague Matt Bolton, the LG system sounds the business too…
The best soundbars for every budget
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