Hands in the air, I was wrong about Dolby Atmos FlexConnect – at least in one respect

Dolby Atmos FlexConnect has been the subject of much interest for home cinema fans since it was unveiled three years ago at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin.

That’s because it’s a next-generation technology designed to make Dolby Atmos even better in a variety of ways.

So when we finally got the LG Sound Suite system, which features the new technology, into our listening rooms last week, it was a pretty big deal.

Especially as Dolby has made some big claims about the tech, including one promising that compatible speakers will still deliver the “dome of sound” effect, even when placed in suboptimal locations around the room.

I have baulked at this claim multiple times, including when the system first arrived in our test rooms. After all, many companies, including Sony, have made similar boasts about their wireless soundbar systems over the years. And while many have performed better than expected, they still require due care with their placement to deliver the Atmos effect properly.

Which is why marketing material showing the satellites in incredibly silly locations, including having one in front of the viewer’s seat and another two meters behind on a bookshelf, meant I had my doubts.

What can I say? I’m Scott-ish (and by that I mean an RAF brat with roots there who still thanks the stars he has a British, not US accent after years at international school) and naturally pessimistic.

I even said as much in front of Dolby engineers, when I asked them if they were concerned that such strong marketing claims may set movie fans’ expectations a wee bit too high. I’m ashamed to admit I may have even let out an arrogant “tsch” when they affirmed that they were not.

But, you know what, magnanimous home cinema aficionado (snob) that I am, I feel it's important to acknowledge when I’m wrong.

Because, despite our best efforts to trip it up with a prolonged game of move the speaker, FlexConnect’s auto-calibration feature proved to be an admirable performer. No matter how mean we were with our experiments, the system cleverly adjusted its settings, optimising them to our, or the satellites’, new location in the room with a click of a button.

As we say in our Sound Suite review: “Dolby Atmos FlexConnect isn’t a gimmick – it’s an impressively effective technology that (in LG’s hands at least) delivers convincing height, scale and spatial precision even when speaker placement isn’t ideal.”

All in all, while Sound Suite’s slightly brash, shouty audio profile stops it getting a real recommendation from our reviewers, FlexConnect’s room calibration and optimisation, to my surprise, gets a big thumbs up.

Why am I not doing my happy dance (yes, it's very similar to Carlton’s from the OG Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)? Well, for one, while we liked Sound Suite’s calibration and room correction services, we have yet to find a FlexConnect system that we would say sounds really good. Witness this LG’s three-star rating. And that, of course, is a pretty big blocker for us to start recommending buying a FlexConnect system.

Also, we are still on the fence about one other “out there” FlexConnect feature. That is, the promise to let users create Frankenstein’s monster systems using whatever FlexConnect-compatible speakers they want.

The idea here is that people can take any FlexConnect compatible satellite speakers, subwoofers, soundbars, or even in-built TV speakers, and join them together to create a proper Dolby Atmos surround system – whether or not they are from same product line, or even brand.

This controversial feature, which surely opens the door for people to create horribly mismatched systems with speakers that don’t have complementary sonic profiles, is a key concern. And, unfortunately, it's one we didn’t get to test with the Sound Suite.

That's because LG chose to lock its Sound Suite system down and let you pair only certain speakers, soundbars and TVs in a bid to ensure you get a decent experience.

The fact that LG felt the need to do that means I am still concerned about the technology’s supposedly open nature. Especially given my experience helping non-enthusiast friends build systems in the past. Trust me, 99 per cent of the time it’s human error or a lapse in sonic judgement when attempting to match system parts that causes problems…

So opening the door for we gremlins to mess things up further seems a little dangerous, to my mind – or at the very least ill-advised.

Who knows, though? Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong once again when we try making our first FlexConnect system from random compatible parts we find lying around our stock room. After all, I was certainly wrong about Sound Suite and its robust calibration powers. Who's to say pigs won't fly twice?

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