WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.400 For years I've been excited by the idea of haphazardly placing your speakers in 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:11.720 your oddly shaped room and then using computational audio to fill in the gaps 00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:16.400 and get a great surround experience. But, the last time I tried to deploy it, 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:20.520 the proprietary protocol caused weird connectivity issues that I was never 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:25.880 able to resolve and I ultimately had to abandon it. My hope is that all changes 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:32.080 today. LG sponsored this video sending over their Sound Suite AI family of 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:34.560 products including the first soundbar 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:40.800 that can act as a lead device for Dolby Atmos Flex Connect, which is pretty much 00:00:37.800 --> 00:00:42.600 exactly what I just said. Wireless 00:00:40.800 --> 00:00:49.280 connectivity between all of your speakers, you kind of put them wherever 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:52.120 you want, you run a calibration and 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:55.040 incredible Dolby Atmos sound that blends right into your living space. Let's 00:00:53.840 --> 00:01:02.960 start with one of the key building blocks that'll make up a system like this, the LG Sound Suite AI M7. The big 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:06.840 selling point here is the connectivity. It works with Spotify, it works over 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:11.560 Bluetooth, and of course works with Dolby Atmos Flex Connect. This, because 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:15.920 it has two full-range speakers on top of its upward-firing speaker, can support 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:20.120 spatial audio and Dolby Atmos with just a single unit. LG boasts that between 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:23.760 their various sized speakers, as well as their lead devices, you can have up to 00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:28.720 50 different configurations. This is a really important thing, by the way. Both 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:30.640 the M5 and the M7 have a hardware mic 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:35.240 switch, so you can turn those off if you want. Also down here is a USB-C input if 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:41.240 you want to like connect your phone and just play music over it. Simple power 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.720 button, bass port, and there you go. 00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:47.320 Nice stealthy power down here. They're designed to really just fit into your 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:50.120 room rather than stand out like traditional hi-fi. They've got a 00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:54.800 touch-sensitive interface at the front, so you can adjust your volume, play, pause, change your input, and then the 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:58.600 little heart is called my button, so you can just set it to do whatever your 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:01.920 favorite thing is. Now that we've pretty much covered this, it's time to move on 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:06.000 to the big guy. Oh, that's really heavy. >> [laughter] 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:10.280 >> One moment, please. As you would expect from any modern year sound bar, this 00:02:07.720 --> 00:02:13.920 thing is absolutely jam-packed full of speakers. They're on the front, they're 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:17.320 on the sides, they're firing upward. Like the smaller sound suite speakers, 00:02:15.640 --> 00:02:21.680 it supports pretty much any connectivity you want, so you know, Bluetooth, 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:27.880 AirPlay, Wi-Fi, but it adds of course HDMI via eARC as well as Dolby Atmos 00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:31.920 Flex Connect acting as a main [music] device. 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:37.840 That is in no small part thanks to its inclusion of LG's Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 00:02:35.440 --> 00:02:42.440 processor, which as far as we can tell is actually the same processing chip 00:02:40.040 --> 00:02:46.640 that's going to be in the new LG G6. We've only got a G5 here today, which 00:02:44.440 --> 00:02:51.520 also supports Flex Connect, but [music] you can do more speakers with the sound 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:56.400 bar. So, you would have to have the TV, a sub, and three speakers, so a total of 00:02:53.920 --> 00:03:00.160 four devices, whereas with this bad boy, we can have four speakers around the 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:02.760 room and a subwoofer, and our sound bar. This is a 00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:06.880 disappointing trend. There's only a single HDMI port on this sound bar. 00:03:05.160 --> 00:03:12.120 I do understand why they've made this choice. It can simplify things for more 00:03:10.120 --> 00:03:16.400 normie TV owners. You just [music] plug this into your eARC and then use your TV 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:19.400 inputs. You don't have to worry about, you know, oh, well, hold on, which 00:03:17.959 --> 00:03:23.519 inputs do I have as a pass-through on my sound bar and which ones am I doing through my TV? But the [music] geek in 00:03:22.200 --> 00:03:28.800 me is just like, more HDMI ins, I want it. Uh I love 00:03:26.239 --> 00:03:34.000 this, though. Another mic switch. We've also got a USB port, power in, and look 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:37.280 at these delightful clicky buttons. Power, volume, input, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:42.320 and another one of those customizable buttons. You know what I'd like to see 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:44.200 sound bars include? Just a couple little like 00:03:44.012 --> 00:03:52.080 >> [music] >> rubber feet, just in case you have a stand in this style, and you don't want 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:54.160 to put it uh right in the front. 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:58.160 LG also does support wall mounting, of course, with an optional accessory, if 00:03:56.080 --> 00:04:03.120 you're more into that sort of thing, but we're going to go this route today. [music] Speaking of accessory ideas, 00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:07.360 let's have a look at what is included. You get a remote, [music] 00:04:04.680 --> 00:04:11.160 power cable, and oh, aforementioned wall bracket, but that's it. Power, [music] 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:15.040 HDMI, and love sound bars or hate them, you got to 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:19.519 admire the simplicity. Look at that. They use the same mold for the remote 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:23.600 for both the TV and the sound bar, but the buttons are slightly different. The 00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:26.240 good news is, if I have this remote, I don't need this one. Obviously, we're 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:31.720 going to have to hook up some more devices and play around with their sound follow feature, especially cuz I'm not 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:35.320 sitting directly in front of it. We'll get to that later, but first, just 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:39.688 initial impressions of the sound bar. Actually, I'm going to go centered for that. 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:44.273 We'll do sound follow later. >> [music] >> Did you guys leave the rears on? No, I 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:46.293 unplugged them, didn't I? >> [music] 00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:54.360 >> That's uh You know, LG, >> [music] 00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:57.160 >> it's not much of a sales pitch for your um 00:04:54.919 --> 00:05:01.303 supplementary surround speakers when the surround is that good with just the 00:04:59.440 --> 00:05:03.323 sound bar. >> [laughter] 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.600 >> Huh. >> [laughter] >> Okay. 00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:24.200 Really good, but 00:05:21.400 --> 00:05:27.360 there is no substitute for actually putting surround speakers behind you, so 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:31.640 why don't we hook up a few more. Not going to lie, we kind of cheated and 00:05:28.919 --> 00:05:37.240 hooked up these M7s on LG's uh little stands beforehand, but the cool thing is 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:41.840 you don't have to. As we saw when we were in their demo booth back at CES, 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:46.240 you can put these on stands, you know, you can put them right behind the 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:48.000 seating position, or you can just 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:50.720 not. One thing I noticed is we weren't using the cable management channel in 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:55.640 the stands though, so we're going to go ahead and do that. Theoretically, this should be as simple as just kind of 00:05:54.200 --> 00:05:59.600 Okay, a little uncomfortable, but this is a normal thing to do. Okay, there we 00:05:57.320 --> 00:06:03.680 go. That's more like it. And then if you're really smart, then 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:07.080 you would also screw it in. There's a little screw hole on the bottom here, 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:10.520 and there's a little corresponding spot here. But, I think we're just going to yolo 00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:13.400 it. Okay. Now we will never drop it off the stand 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:17.840 again. We never did. Yeah, we never dropped it. Glenn wasn't rolling, right? Nope, I 00:06:16.320 --> 00:06:19.960 don't think Nice. Now that we've got two of our surround speakers connected, you can see 00:06:19.904 --> 00:06:25.880 >> [music] >> our test configuration here with the four surrounds and the sub, and you can 00:06:23.760 --> 00:06:29.360 see these ones are green. We're probably going to want to run a recalibration 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:37.800 real quick here. Now we [music] set our distance from the sound bar. Actually, yeah, 2 m sounds about right. 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:37.800 Optimization is beginning. 00:06:40.880 --> 00:06:47.919 Oh, and this is a perfect time to point out that sound follow allows you to move 00:06:45.960 --> 00:06:53.680 and then set your position. So, I could be over here, you know, maybe I don't have 00:06:50.440 --> 00:06:56.480 an optimal living room configuration. I 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:56.480 can go like this. 00:06:57.894 --> 00:07:03.880 >> [music] >> And it moves me. Cool, huh? Let's see how that flyover 00:07:01.200 --> 00:07:03.880 sounds now. 00:07:06.320 --> 00:07:13.680 It's better. It's not as much better as I might have expected. I mean, the sound 00:07:10.640 --> 00:07:15.360 bar does such a good job on its own, but 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:19.760 I mean, that's the thing about height channels and rear channels is that most 00:07:18.280 --> 00:07:22.840 of the movie is up here. >> [snorts] 00:07:26.640 --> 00:07:32.320 >> I love that this guy just makes movies so he can do cool at this point. 00:07:30.645 --> 00:07:35.480 >> [laughter] >> Let's do the whole shebang. 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:40.120 Let's put in more speakers on the sides. Let's put in the sub. I think the W7 sub 00:07:37.680 --> 00:07:43.560 is probably the most self-explanatory part of this entire setup. It's a 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:47.160 subwoofer. It does subwoofer things. One cool thing 00:07:45.640 --> 00:07:52.560 though is [music] you can either stand it up like this or 00:07:50.320 --> 00:07:55.080 it includes optional feet so that you can 00:07:55.640 --> 00:08:03.640 put it like this. You know, whatever works better for your aesthetic. It's got a single 8-in driver 00:08:01.280 --> 00:08:05.760 and makes wubs. I'm going to use these just cuz I can. 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:10.760 >> [music] >> They're cute. I'm expecting utterly better bass. 00:08:10.880 --> 00:08:16.800 All right, we got all our speakers set up. Boom, just like that. 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:26.975 Based on my experience kind of going through the various stages of setup that 00:08:25.320 --> 00:08:30.880 you can build with this, >> [music] >> I'm going to say something that might 00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:32.440 not make LG feel that comfortable in a sponsored video. 00:08:32.215 --> 00:08:42.280 >> [music] >> And that's that the best thing you can do to enjoy your sound suite AI setup is 00:08:39.599 --> 00:08:46.080 to never try the next level up. Because at every stage I kind of went, 00:08:44.280 --> 00:08:48.400 "Oh man, yeah. Like this is totally good enough." 00:08:47.936 --> 00:08:53.120 >> [music] >> And then once I went up another level, I was like, "Okay, yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah, 00:08:51.880 --> 00:08:59.720 it's better. Yeah. [music] Yeah, of course it's better." But that doesn't mean that just the soundbar or just a 00:08:57.080 --> 00:09:03.760 couple of the speakers wouldn't also be pretty outstanding. It's amazing how 00:09:01.520 --> 00:09:07.120 much audio they can pack in such a small package these days. [music] 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:11.839 How is it for something more musical though? That's always a big question for 00:09:08.880 --> 00:09:11.839 me. I love musicals. 00:09:12.826 --> 00:09:18.680 >> [singing and music] >> Dialogue's a little overcooked right now. We might be in the AI upgraded 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:26.760 audio. >> Yeah, I'm going to turn off the AI enhanced audio. It actually did not 00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:30.080 bother me at all just watching a movie, 00:09:26.760 --> 00:09:31.440 but music, it goes a little hard at the 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:35.400 dialogue enhancement, which is going to be great for a lot of people. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:40.400 Not my preference. So, So, me play around with this a little bit. I can 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:40.400 already tell that's better. 00:09:42.160 --> 00:09:48.400 I don't like to get too far into subjective impressions of sound in a 00:09:45.400 --> 00:09:50.400 sponsored video, but what I can say 00:09:48.400 --> 00:09:53.800 objectively is that playing around with the sound profiles a little bit, turning 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:58.360 off sort of, you know, AI voice and dialogue enhancement, I would be happy 00:09:56.400 --> 00:10:01.880 with the musical performance of this, factoring in the convenience of the 00:09:59.960 --> 00:10:04.440 whole thing running wirelessly. So, you're not running speaker wire, and 00:10:03.916 --> 00:10:10.720 [music] considering you can put the speakers anywhere you want. It's [laughter] 00:10:08.920 --> 00:10:15.000 pretty cool. And I'm legitimately excited to see the Dolby Atmos Flex 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:20.080 Connect ecosystem continue to grow. For now, though, it looks like LG has both 00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:26.160 the primo solution for it, and if you just want to go with a pair of M5s or a 00:10:22.280 --> 00:10:27.800 pair of M7s, also more accessible 00:10:26.160 --> 00:10:29.760 solutions, and you can pair those directly to a supported TV. 00:10:29.462 --> 00:10:34.360 >> [music] >> If you guys want to check them out, we'll have them linked down below. Thanks for watching. Thanks LG for 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:37.120 sponsoring this video. Subscribe [music] to ShortCircuit.