S50A

Overview

The HW-S50A is a 2021 all-in-one soundbar from Samsung's S-Series. It is 764 mm wide, 68 mm high and 125 mm deep, comes in deep gray, and can be wall-mounted with the wall mount kit in the box.

It is a 3.0 system with no subwoofer in the box. Samsung lists five speakers, including a center speaker.

The TV connects over HDMI ARC with the included HDMI cable. The listed inputs also include optical, Bluetooth and USB; Samsung lists Bluetooth multi-connection. The box also contains the remote control with batteries, a wall mount template, the power adapter and cable, and the manuals.

Samsung lists the sound modes Adaptive Lite, Music, Standard and DTS Virtual:X. The bar is controlled with the included remote or the touch buttons on the bar, and Samsung lists One Remote Control support.

What the specs mean

• 3.0 speaker setup: three channels (left, center, right) and no subwoofer channel.
• HDMI ARC: the Audio Return Channel sends the TV's sound to the soundbar over the HDMI cable.
• Audio formats: Dolby Digital, DTS and LPCM. Samsung lists 5.1 decoding for both Dolby and DTS.
• DTS Virtual:X: DTS describes it as virtual surround with height and surround effects from as few as two speakers, without a multi-speaker setup.
• No HDMI passthrough: the bar has no HDMI input, so a streaming box or console connects to the TV, which sends the sound back over HDMI ARC.
• No room correction: the HW-S50A has no automatic room calibration.
• Wireless surrounds: the HW-S50A works with the Samsung SWA-9100S wireless rear speaker kit. No wireless subwoofer is listed for it.