LG SQC2 SOUNDBAR REVIEW

LG’s S-series has represented the best entry level soundbars of the company’s TV range for the last few years now. The 2.1ch soundbar comes with advanced Dolby Digital and the subwoofer is totally wireless. Despite its small size, it claims 300W power  with 2.1 channels and with support for Dolby Digital. Besides utilizing wireless connection with Bluetooth, you can also use optical and usb ports. I was lucky enough to hear many soundbars in action in last 5 years and i can tell that it really delivers sound it promises, but on other hand its important that you are absolutely sure you will not need hdmi connection in the future, because it doesn’t have any hdmi ports, this is not a problem if you just plan to connect it to the tv with bluetooth, but for older devices you will need to manually turn it on and off.

Like the other soundbars from lg, the shiny black finish for the soundbar add to the premium aesthetic of the sqc2.  Unfortunately,  there’s no there is no sophisticated protection on the soundbar itself, but the subwoofer has some kind of protection with fine black fabric mesh and on the back there is a nice carbon style finish.

Sadly there is no advanced display on the soundbar so you will need to work with little led dots with different colors and blinking to show you selected input mode, volume and bass power.

The SQC2 comes with a handful of COOL features for its price point including 3 level 300w bass and ai sound profile which can automatically adjust eq accordingly to the source whenever its movie, show or music. While  bluetooth 5 connection supports auto power connect and turn off when you turn off the tv.

Despite the small led screen, lg has create an easy way to show in which mode you are, so there is no confusion, but this soundbar still has only dot led indicators, so it’s harder to know how loud have you set the bass, but at least it show the lowest and the highest value with long blink so you know where you are.

If we go through all ports on this soundbar, we can easily see that there is power connection on the left side and in the middle of the soundbar are 1 usb, optical and aux inputs. There is a built-in wireless bluetooth connection.  In the top of the soundbar are 4 buttons for changing inputs, volume and power control.

Like its bigger brothers, the sqc2 uses the similar remote control  to deliver an easy control experience. Design wise is nicely compact. Some will say it’s too small, but it has a lot of buttons for its size. Here are almost all possible shortcuts, from power, volume, three sound profiles (AI Automatic, Standard, Movie) and the best buttons for subwoofer bass control. Build quality in general feels very strongly built. buttons feel comfortable and responsive and very nice to press.

When it comes to sound quality the sqc2 can surprise in some low freq. test, because it has a similar subwoofer like its bigger brothers.  For a soundbar alone, the high freq alone can reach some impressive peaks, because it has 2 tweeters and 4 midrange drivers. The sqc2 converts audio signals to Dolby Digital so you can expect standard 2.1 surround effect.

That said, the subwoofer experience is what makes this soundbar stand out. So when you enable all subwoofer options, low bass MOVIE scenes really shock, of course everybody looking for Dolby Atmos may want to spend a bit more, especially if they plan to upgrade the soundbar with more speakers in the future.

General music experience is a treat as well, no matter what you put from dance, trough hip hop and rock, you always have rich lower end support and it’s easy to adjust it with remote control if necessary.

I prefer to use the standard profile with -1 bass, which works great also with movies, cinema profile has the best bass and sometimes even too much bass, so it’s hard to follow dialog after explosion so in this profile I recommend to set -3 bass power.

The sqc2 comes with a lot of features for its price point, Set up is pretty easy considering the subwoofer automatically connects to the soundbar once plugged in. Even though it doesn’t have hdmi arc, it still supports auto connect and turn off via bluetooth. The best part is its subwoofer, which really excels in low bass scenarios, while soundbar also doesn’t disappoint, it’s not perfectly tuned with cinema sound profile, but once you adjust bass power it works very good. I can easily recommend this soundbar, if you have a limited budget and you don’t need hdmi arc, as long you are willing to adjust low bass power manually if needed.

 

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