Sometime in the last five years, Samsung reached peak soundbar. After years of material updates to its flagship surround-sound HW-Q990, a multi-channel, multi-speaker whiz of a Dolby Atmos system, Samsung achieved what it looked to achieve. Once you put 22 speakers into an 11.1.4-channel masterclass of home theater efficiency, it becomes hard to improve upon materially. Audio physics only go so far, and processing only gets so much better.

The last several models of the Q990 have seen only minor updates. We’ve gotten a slightly smaller and more efficient subwoofer, new software features, and—in the case of our current favorite, the Q990D—an upgrade to its HDMI ports for HDMI 2.1 support. These changes are nice, and the HDMI change is especially notable if you’re connecting a couple of game consoles to the bar directly, but otherwise they’re not exactly groundbreaking, and they certainly don’t affect the sound much.

For years, A/V editor Parker Hall and I have recommended high-end soundbar buyers just snag the prior year’s Q990 series for about a thousand bucks off. Looking for the best Dolby Atmos soundbar for the money? Why buy new if the experience is so similar?

This wouldn’t seem like much of a revelation—older models of anything are often only slightly worse than newer ones, and they’re often cheaper—except for the real price discrepancy between this year and last year’s Q990.

Herein lies the rub: Samsung’s 2025 model HW-Q990F retails for around $1,800 (sometimes dropping to $1,700), while at the time of writing, the Q990D sells for nearly half that price, at around $998. We found the Q990F remarkably similar in performance to the Q990D (and even previous Q990 models). While the new Q990H has yet to arrive, it appears to offer mostly minor software updates. I suppose there’s a chance it brings a notable leap in performance, but consider those of us who have heard the last several models dubious.

That’s a big reason why 2023’s Q990C was our pick for the Best Dolby Atmos soundbar for two generations, and why I’m confident the Q990D will have similar staying power. At under a grand for 11.1.4 channels between the bar, subwoofer, and wireless surrounds, you won’t find a more fluid, musical, and downright cinematic system for the money. For most folks, it just doesn’t make financial sense to grab the newer models (sorry, Samsung).

The Key to Great Atmos? Lots of Speakers

When Samsung revamped its 9.1.4-channel HW-Q950T to the curiously titled HW-Q950A (the prototype that would become the Q990 series), it somehow found a way to add even more speakers. The secret was to load up on side-firing drivers, not just in the main soundbar, but also in the wireless surrounds for a total of four side-firing drivers and four upfiring drivers to bounce sound all around the room. At the time, it seemed like overkill—the audio equivalent of stuffed-crust pizza. But damned if it didn’t work, providing a serious upgrade to the spherical immersion from Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks. Since the debut of the Q990 series, though, the system’s general hardware has remained largely unchanged.

The Q990 has seen plenty of competition to its reign, but nobody has figured out the excellent mix of processing that lets Samsung’s bar sound so natural. LG found its own way to add more speakers with models like the LG S95AR, which includes an upfiring center-channel speaker on the main bar for a phantom Dolby Atmos channel. Going up a tier, the Sonos Arc Ultra can be bundled with the company’s fabulous Era 300 speakers for an even more immersive and potent ride than Samsung’s bar. Still, no system I’ve tested offers the same bang for the buck as the older Q990 models, leaving Samsung to rest on its laurels like an unopposed political candidate.

Newer Isn’t Always (Much) Better

Of course, plenty of other A/V gadgets offer only minor updates between model years. I can’t count how many times I’ve pushed budget shoppers to last year’s best TVs to save a few hundred dollars, especially in that initial period of retail markup upon release. But a bird’s eye view of the TV segment shows plenty of innovation over time, sometimes even year-over-year, where home theater audio is a bit more stagnant.

Consider that LG’s flagship G4 OLED in 2024 used a Micro Lens Array panel that was, at the time, among the brightest OLED TVs we’d ever tested. A year later, the company threw its MLA tech aside for a new four-stack OLED panel and another brightness breakthrough in the G5. Samsung’s S95 QD-OLED TVs have seen similar leaps in performance to help them compete with ever-brightening backlit TVs. Similarly, wireless headphones have become increasingly masterful at eliminating environmental sounds, while evolving into emerging new categories like open earbuds.

By comparison, the soundbar market has been more or less stagnant for a long time. Sure, folks have been enjoying a wider array of options, but the fundamental technology at its core—smaller speakers packed in bars and designed to bounce sound around your room—hasn’t changed, and neither has the content played on these systems. Netflix hasn’t dramatically improved its Dolby Atmos in years, and HDMI eARC has been a standard that allows easy connectivity between TVs and soundbars for years, too. You still buy a bar, plug it in, and connect a single HDMI cable, regardless of which you buy. Driver technology and acoustic design really haven’t advanced measurably enough to change the acoustic math.

I get why Samsung hasn’t been able to make significant upgrades for years: If you’ve already got the best system in your class by a fairly wide margin and everything is doing what it is meant do to, where do you really go from there?

Far be it from me to steer you away from the latest and greatest tech, but if you’re on a tighter budget, it often pays to look backward. Nowhere is that truer in tech than with Samsung’s intrepid Dolby Atmos masterpiece, the Q990 series. If you’re looking for a big, cinematic system that really fills your room with sound, it honestly doesn’t matter which vintage you go for: This is the system to buy.