LG’s wall-mountable OLED TV for 2020 is about to get a soundbar to suit, and it comes with an angle or two to make it stand out.
It’s been a few months since LG first started talking up what Australians can come to expect from its 2020 OLED range, and while 8K still fetches a pretty penny, 4K OLED tends to be where it’s at, with three ranges of 4K OLED models in Australia this year. There’s the budget “BX” range, the slightly more premium “CX” range, and the wall-mountable “GX” gallery range, providing a few options for folks keen to buy a 4K OLED TV.
LG’s GX line of screens is a little different than its other screens, which uses a “gallery” design, meaning it’s meant to be mounted on a wall. It’s something LG has experimented with prior, offering a similar feature in its wallpaper series of TVs, the “W” range which has since been retired, but it’s one that has also previously arrived with its own soundbar.
Back when the W series was a thing for LG, it would mean buying an OLED would get you a Dolby Atmos-capable soundbar. Not so anymore.
These days, the soundbar isn’t extra unless you spend up big, found with the 8K ZX OLED, which will cost you a pretty penny.
Of course you can bring any soundbar you want to any TV, meaning something like the Sonos Arc or Sennheiser Ambeo can work with any of these TVs (or any TV, for that matter), but if you’re considering LG’s Gallery TV in 2020, you may want to know a soundbar to match is on the way.
Announced by LG this week, the GX soundbar offers a slightly different take on the traditional soundbar, keeping the long and flat speaker take you’re used to, but adding an angle or two in the design.
The width measures the same as the 65 inch LG GX TV, and it can either be mounted to the wall like the GX OLED TV, or sit on a stand for a home theatre unit. It will also come with a subwoofer, making it very different from other all-in-one soundbar units that typically forgo the external subwoofer altogether.
However LG is include support for dimensionality, offering both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, though hasn’t yet said how it plans to get 3D sound working on the soundbar. Our guess is that it will be virtual, though we’ve certainly seen upward facing speakers before, so it’s definitely possible that LG is firing sound up and around, as well.
One thing you will find is support for high-resolution audio, with files as high as 24-bit and 96kHz supported by the LG GX soundbar off the bat. That’s not the highest of high-res audio, but it’s a start, and there’s also a degree of upscaling included, as well.
As for when owners of the LG GX OLED TV can expect this thing — or anyone else, for that matter — LG’s local arm says it’s coming, but won’t say when.
“We’ve seen great uptake with the LG GX Gallery OLED TV, especially with Australian consumers looking for a more minimalistic home entertainment set-up,” said Tony Brown, Marketing Manager for Home Entertainment at LG in Australia.
“The addition of the LG GX sound bar can add even more elevation to the viewing experience whilst still supporting minimalistic requirements,” he said. “Therefore, we are in discussion with our local retail partners and hope to bring this latest innovation to our range soon.”
While that doesn’t mean owners of the LG GX can necessarily go out and buy one of these new soundbars today (or even tomorrow), it does suggest they will come, and we’d guess just before TVs and sound equipment experiences a bit of a change, typically in the back half of the year, around what will now be the shell of an IFA that isn’t happening.
