- The UK pricing for LG's new Sound Suite Dolby Atmos FlexConnect soundbar and speakers has changed
- Flagship soundbar is now £900, sub is £600 and wireless speakers now £400 and £250
- This puts them in line with Sonos' products, but the system is more flexible
LG has changed the previously announced UK pricing for its Sound Suite modular system of Dolby Atmos FlexConnect soundbar and speakers, and this price makes them a real threat to Sonos' equivalents.
The H7 Soundbar is now £900 instead of £1,000; the W7 subwoofer is £600 instead of £700; and the M7 wireless speaker is down to £400 instead of £450.
One price has gone up, however. The M5 wireless speaker, the cheapest in the range, has been repriced and is now £250 rather than the previously announced £250.
In the US, you're looking at $999 for the H7 soundbar, $599 for the W7 sub, $399 for the M7 speaker, and $249 for the M5 speaker.
I suspect the pricing all around is going to cause some furrowed brows at Sonos HQ: not only are the H7 soundbar, W7 subwoofer and M7 speaker matching or cheaper than the equivalent Sonos products (the Sonos Arc Ultra, Sonos Sub 4 and Sonos Era 300), but they're more flexible too.
That's because Dolby Atmos FlexConnect isn't just a brand; it's a smart way to set up surround sound speakers that means you don't have to play by the old home theater rules.
Why flexibility could be FlexConnect's best feature
Like many AV firms Sonos' surround sound is great, but it expects you to have a straightforward setup: soundbar centred in the front, surround speakers on either side behind you, you perfectly positioned in front of the center of the screen.
And that's one of the reasons I don't have a Sonos setup, because like many homes, my front room is actively hostile to symmetrical layouts. It was built in the 1960s when a 20-inch CRT was considered a big-screen TV.
There's only one spot in the room where my TV can sit, and to accommodate that I have to put my surround speakers in weird and asymmetric places. That's why I went for a wired setup: my AV receiver enables me to specify my speaker heights and distances, and it then runs the sums and sets delays and levels to compensate for the less-than-perfect placement.
If I were buying a new system now I'd definitely consider FlexConnect instead.
FlexConnect essentially does what my AV receiver does, but even more conveniently: I had to get the tape measure out, but provided you have a suitable hub FlexConnect maps the room for you automatically. In LG's case, the soundbar or a new LG T can act as the hub.
This means you can have a soundbar and one rear speaker, or perhaps three speakers in a weird triangle if that's what's convenient to you, and the system will adjust their output to sound like a traditional surround setup.
We're still in the early days of this technology but what we've seen – and more importantly, what we've heard – is very impressive. If it delivers on LG's promises and gets adopted by multiple TV and audio manufacturers it could give the best soundbars some very serious competition.
It leaves Sonos looking like an old fuddy duddy, with its increasingly advanced speaker system still locked to static positions – and according to my colleague Matt Bolton, the LG system sounds the business too…
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English (US) ·