Samsung HW-K950 vs Creative SoundBlasterX Katana

This soundbar can produce cinema-like surround sound using the latest Dolby Atmos standard. Aside from the rear speakers, it also adds height by producing sound above the listener’s head, through extra speakers that reflect it from the ceiling. The ceiling needs to be flat and relatively shallow for this to work best, though. The sheer number of speakers together creates a more realistic sound bubble around the listener, as opposed to soundbars that can only emulate it with limited speakers. While only Dolby Atmos content takes full advantage of these extra speakers, even standard Stereo or Dolby Digital can benefit from this extra dimension.

Samsung has included an application that you can use to stream music from your phone, online streaming services and even media servers in your home network to the soundbar via Wi-Fi. It’s also possible to set up a multi-room system with other Samsung audio products that are compatible with the app.

The 8-inch driver of the subwoofer outputs 165W and is powerful enough to make windows shake. Since this can be overkill in some use cases, like music listening, you can easily control the subwoofer levels through the soundbar.

There are dedicated digital sound processing modes that can be used to enhance audio from movies, sports or music.

The easy-to-read front OLED display gives you all the relevant status information.

The soundbar notifies you and switches automatically to Atmos mode when it detects a Dolby Atmos signal.

If you have an HDMI-CEC compatible device, you can use it to control the soundbar.

There are two HDMI 2.0 inputs and an HDMI ARC output with 4K HDR passthrough capabilities, as well as an optical and an analog input.

The HW-K950 has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, for wireless media streaming from external devices. It also supports connecting wirelessly to Samsung TVs that support it.

This soundbar supports Dolby Atmos, which has been becoming more popular in streaming services and new Blu-ray releases.

This soundbar has a classic black look with a steel mesh around the unit with brushed aluminum ends. The screen is hidden behind the mesh and illuminates only when there is a change in input or a button is pressed. A blue LED indicates Dolby Atmos signal input.

The rear speakers are approximately the size of average desktop speakers.

Software updates can be done automatically over Wi-Fi, using a dedicated Samsung app.

The main unit can be wall mounted, using the included bracket, but you need to buy separate wall mounts for the rear speakers if you wish to mount them.

It has 16 speakers that combine to deliver the best audio experience for watching and listening to music. Combined, they have a power rating of 500W for a system that consists of a center channel, two front channels, two rear channels, four vertical channels and a low frequency channel. The highs and mids sound clean and clear, without being flat. Movie dialogue is clear and distinguishable thanks to the added central channel.

While the device seems small, it can actually get really loud, without distortion. It uses good quality speakers and external components to maintain this quality. The soundstage is quite good and the subwoofer provides a deep rumble.

As a PC-oriented soundbar, the Katana has an optical input, a USB input for external storage, a micro USB port, and a microphone and headphone port.

To take full advantage of this soundbar's capabilities, when it is connected to a PC via USB, it bypasses the computer's onboard soundcard.

This soundbar has a programmable lighting system called Aurora Reactive, which features 16.8 million colors.

If the soundbar is connected with a USB cable, you can use the downloadable SoundBlaster Connect software to tweak with some sound enhancing settings. You can choose from different presets or manually control the equalizer. The soundbar's RGB lighting is fully controllable via the app, letting you choose between various effects and more than 16 million colors.