LG H7 Soundbar

Design

• Large in size
• Display on soundbar
• Wireless subwoofer

The H7 Soundbar is gigantic, and as I mentioned in my review of the Sound Suite system, it’s pretty long at 120mm, taking up the entire width of the AV table I had it sat on.

There’s currently no compact version of this soundbar, which I’d hope is remedied sooner, as the size of the H7 is only really intended for medium to large rooms. Without a smaller option, LG is missing out on smaller spaces.

Aesthetically, it looks sleek and imposing with its fabric cover and aluminium accents, though compared to the Sound Suite speakers, the fabric takes on a more knitted and abrasive appearance. The feeling that wafts off this soundbar is that it’s more AV-focused than lifestyle-friendly – it carries heft and solidity with a build quality that feels very robust.

LG includes a 1.3-inch OLED display, visible on the left-hand side, providing information of the soundbar’s mode and track formats. On top are controls that cover playback, volume, a ‘MY’ button (for accessing favourites), source selection, Bluetooth pairing and a Wi-Fi direct button. The included remote covers most of the functions, but also adds a Dolby Atmos FlexConnect button and EQ options from presets to Bass and Voice modes, and AI upmixing.

Connections are, as usual for soundbars, in a recessed area around the back; and the H7 connects wirelessly to the W7 Subwoofer. If you find that they don’t connect automatically, there’s a button on the sub to put it into its pairing mode. You’ll want to make sure that the soundbar and subwoofer are connected in the app – I assumed they were and found out a few days that there were not.

Like the H7 Soundbar it partners, the W7 Subwoofer is big, heavy and aesthetically is closer in appearance to the M5 and M7 speakers, with a similar fabric pattern on just one side of its chassis. It has a rear-firing bass port, and for placement in a room, implies bringing it close to a wall to help control the bass.

My preference is to have the subwoofer close to the soundbar for smoother integration of bass with the sub and main bar. It can be placed vertically or horizontally with sensors inside the sub that can detect its orientation.

Given the size of both the H7 and the W7, this partnership could overpower smaller spaces, and as I mentioned above, seems best suited for medium-to-large spaces. A wall bracket is included if you’re looking to hang this on a wall, and an HDMI cable is provided too.

Connectivity

• HDMI eARC
• Google Home support

So, while my perception of the H7 is that it’s more geared to AV set-ups, its connectivity suggests it’s not tailored as much for home cinema fans. There’s an HDMI output to a TV that supports both ARC and eARC standards, but there’s no HDMI input to plug into the soundbar.

Given the price, some may feel that omission to be a disappointment, but neither the Sonos Arc Ultra, Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar include pass-through, while the Sony Theatre Bar 9, Samsung HW-Q950H, and Marshall Heston 120 do – and they’re of a similar price to the LG.

There’s no digital optical output either. The only other physical input is a USB-A port.

The rest of the H7 Soundbar’s connectivity covers wireless options, from Wi-Fi (AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect), Bluetooth 5.3 and the H7 is listed as working within a Google Home system too.

Features

• First FlexConnect soundbar
• No DTS support
• WOW Orchestra

Despite Dolby Atmos FlexConnect being announced back in 2023, it’s taken until 2026 for the first soundbar to be released – and if you haven’t guessed yet, it’s the H7.

Dolby Atmos FlexConnect (or DAFC) allows users the flexibility to place speakers anywhere within a room, and the system will understand where the speakers are and adapt. The DAFC processing is also able to create phantom speakers to position sound where there is not a physical speaker, creating the illusion of sound coming from all around you.

It’s also a modular system in the sense that it can be made up of an array of different supported speakers. You could have the W7 Subwoofer be the only ‘speaker’ to connect to your LG TV, or you could have both the H7 and W7. Or just the H7. The possibilities are plenty and the set-up can be customised to fit your budget, space, or whatever you want to do with the system.

Both the H7 and W7 will only work within an LG speaker and TV set-up, and DAFC is only compatible with select TV models, which starts in 2025 with the C5 and G5 OLED TV. That’s been expanded to support the 2026 models in the W6, G6, C6, CS6, B6, B6E OLED TVs, MRGB 95, 9M, 85 and the QNED85 and QNED82.

For more on how Sound Suite works, you can read my review of that, but for this review, I’m focusing on just the H7 and W7.

I couldn’t get LG’s WOWCAST to work (it was disabled in the sound options), and it’s not listed on the spec sheet so I suspect it may not be supported with this soundbar. There is the WOW Orchestra feature, which is similar to the DAFC in that it connects several speakers to the TV to present a bigger sound. There’s also the WOW Interface where you can adjust settings for the system on the TV itself.

The sound can calibrate for the space its in by giving the Room Calibration Pro feature a go in the LG ThinQ app.

The H7 is designed to be an all-in-one soundbar, with 9.1.6 channels of sound made up of twelve speakers supplied with 500W of power. The W7 adds another 220W on top of that, with frequency response that travels down as far as 25.9Hz.

I briefly mentioned it before but there are a few modes for users to play with. There’s Standard mode, Bass Boost mode and the opportunity to create a custom EQ as well as the ability to adjust the height of the overhead channels.

There’s an AI Upmix mode, which is more suitable for taking stereo content and ‘upscaling’ it so its outputted through all the speakers in the soundbar.

LG doesn’t list much on the audio format side but obviously it’s Dolby Atmos compatible, and there’s Dolby Digital support. There’s no DTS compatibility as LG ditched the format from its line-up a few years ago. For Bluetooth it’s AAC, and the H7 accepts audio signals up to 24-bit/96kHz with Hi-Res content.

Sound Quality

• Powerful, expansive soundstage
• Slightly sharp tuning
• Big bass

I was fairly impressed by the Sound Suite, but the one area where I felt the system suffered is in describing the height channels. Taking the Sound Suite speakers out of the system and having the H7 and W7 on their own, the height performance is much more potent.

I’m not quite sure why this is the case, as the Sound Suite models have upfiring speakers too, but the height channel performance with all the speakers is much less effective than the H7 Soundbar on its own.

With the Sound Suite, it’s freer to push sound and bounce it off the ceiling, though the problem you get with separating the soundbar from the speakers is that it becomes a front-heavy experience – all the action happens in front of your seating position. It’s not a surround sound experience anymore which is rather the point of Dolby Atmos.

An example of the difference in height performance is with a 4K Blu-ray of The Housemaid. There’s a scene with a rumble of thunder in it, and with the Sound Suite, I can’t quite place where this rumble of sound is, but with the H7 Soundbar I can clearly hear it positioned clearly above the TV.

There’s also the slightest change of tone from the Suite system to the soundbar – the Suite sounds smoother and less detailed, why the soundbar is sharper and more detailed. There’s a little less power and punch that the soundbar can summon, but it’s still a spacious presentation without the rear speakers, the H7 pushes sound out in front, to its sides and up above.

For an all-in-one soundbar, the bass performance is strong but add the subwoofer and the bass feels like it’s even stronger than it was with the full DAFC system. With Blade Runner 2049, the soundbar and sub combo provide a huge sense of scale and heft with the opening scene – I can’t emphasise how much more expansive and open the system sounds without the rear speakers. The sound it outputs is huge, dynamic and powerful.

The subwoofer is not exempt from distortion, and 2049 brings out a few rattles and distortion with its deep bass. I ended up dialling it down to level 40 for the bass as it does need to be reined in a little.

Dialogue clarity is clear the most part, and with the selection of films that I tune into (The Housemaid, Blade Runner 2049, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning), there are not many signs of stress, sibilance or harshness encroaching on dialogue. There were moments where it didn’t sound as natural as I’d have liked. In the conversation between K and Sapper Morton in 2049, Ryan Gosling’s K sounds both slightly strained and a bit bassy. Curiously, with the Sound Suite system, dialogue sounded more natural.

With The Final Reckoning, I’d say there’s a slight lack of subtlety about the soundbar. There’s lots of energy and power, but with this film it can sound a little thin and sanded off in terms of detail.

Detail in general can be slightly lacking compared to Samsung’s soundbars but where this system excels is in the power and expansive size it brings to films – there’s a sense of cinematic scale and heft that not many soundbars at this price can match.

With music, the H7 Soundbar feels at its weakest. I didn’t write much about its music performance on account of how tame, thin and hollow music sounded when the soundbar was the main focus. LG hasn’t been the best with music playback – the USC9S was underwhelming too – and little has changed with the H7.

Should you buy it?