LG have chosen CES 2023 to unveil their best soundbars yet – the wireless SC9 and SE6, both of which will integrate hassle-free with the company’s 2023 range of televisions.
Besides the advantages of having a fully wireless audio link with compatible LG TVs, these units expand what LG’s Wowcast technology can do, collaborating on sound delivery via Wow Orchestra, so all speakers on the TV and the Soundbar work in unison to deliver the immersive sound experience today’s listeners need.
Helping to do this in a physical sense, a new mounting bracket lets you position the speaker directly beneath an LG television, no matter if you decide to stand-mount or wall-mount.
One new aspect that really stands out, though, is the ability to access all soundbar settings through your LG TV’s Home Dashboard, for a more intuitive experience than using the small OLED display in front of a sound bar, or even LG’s mobile soundbar app.
Of course, these new units come with the impressive sounds of Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, as well as LG’s specialised triple set of up-firing drivers, but 2023 will also see the addition of triple level spatial sound technology to add a “virtual mid-layer” through channel analysis by an HTRF-based 3D engine.
HTRF – head-related transfer function – is usually found in headphones to understand the shape of a listener’s head and ears in relation to the way they take in 3D sound, so its use with a soundbar is interesting.
The result, according to LG, is “incredibly lifelike sound with a convincing sense of space that puts listeners at the centre of an immersive audio environment.”
On top of this, the new soundbars will further push the sound horizon with a “triple sound optimiser”. This audio up-scaling system can take standard two-channel audio and beef it up to 3D proportions.
Adding to the leap in quality presented by the SC9 and SE6, gamers get the advantage of HDMI 2.1 features such as VRR (variable refresh rate), auto low-latency mode and 4K/120Hz, which have become common on TVs at the upper end of the market, but not so common with soundbars – but LG are obviously keen to fix that.
