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I’m a sucker for dinosaurs. If John Hammond landed his helicopter outside my home today and said he had spared no expense to fly me out to his latest dinosaur theme park, I’d hop right aboard. It doesn’t matter how many feature-length motion pictures I’ve seen, or how many times Ian Malcolm warns me that it all ends in running and screaming. I’d go anyway.
With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom trailers pelting my news feeds daily, I found myself rewatching the original Jurassic Park this week, this time with a new soundbar from Q Acoustics. The Media 4 Soundbar helped me notice something I hadn’t before: just how hauntingly strange the velociraptors sound.
The M4 delivered those high-pitched velociraptor screams so clearly, I realized that they sounded kind of like dolphins. Turns out, I was right. More disturbing still, they were spliced together from the sound of a male dolphin in heat. And remember those grunts that the raptors made in that kitchen scene that gave me nightmares as a child? Those were partially from a tortoise—a tortoise in the act of mating.
These realistic, visceral (and, now that I think of it, kinda gross) animal sounds were made all the more immediate and threatening with the help of the Media 4.
It’s astounding, and sometimes disturbing, what good speakers can illuminate. I don’t think I’ll hear those raptors quite the same way again, but the power and warmth of the Q Acoustics M4 soundbar helped immerse me in movies like Jurassic Park in a way wimpy TV speakers never have. Like I said in my Vizio SmartCast review, if you don’t yet own a soundbar, you’re missing out. There’s almost no reason to own a big screen TV if you’re not willing to spend a little extra to give it sound to match.
Starting at $340, the Q Acoustics M4 is one of the best home theater audio upgrades you can make for less than $400. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles or amazing three-dimensional depth of a high-end Sonos Playbar or Bose SoundTouch 300, but the Media 4 holds its own very nicely.
The M4 has two powerful 2.5-inch drivers that belt out clear 2.1-channel audio and a rare built-in 4-inch by 6-inch subwoofer, which adds noticeable warmth and some bassy oomph even if you don’t purchase a dedicated subwoofer. (The Q Acoustics wired 7060s Sub will rumble your sofa if you’re ready to go all-in.)
It connects via optical cable setup or RCA cables (no HDMI ARC, sadly) and has a 3.5mm jack, wall mounting hooks, rubber feet, and a dedicated Sub output. I sometimes wished the small Bluetooth remote it comes with had a bass toggle, but all the essentials are here.
The design is basic, but not distracting, and should work well with a number of TV designs. Sitting 3.5 inches tall without the feet (4 with them on), the M4’s black sturdy plastic build and front-facing metal speaker grille is short enough that it can sit in front of most TVs without blocking the screen, but powerful enough that you can crank the volume pretty darn loud if needed. It has a depth of just under 6 inches, but because the edges are angular and taper in to just over an inch on the edges, it can also sit nearly flush under many of the newer TVs with legs, though you should try to find a setup that allows you to keep the rubber feet on to give the downward-firing subwoofer some room to breathe.
The M4 has easy Bluetooth syncing if you want to use it for music, which I highly recommend. When you put it into Bluetooth mode, it automatically opens itself up for pairing, with the power light on top turning from white to blinking blue. The only issue I encountered was when my iPhone would get overzealous and reconnect to it in the middle of a movie when I opened Spotify, though it was easily fixed by hitting the Source button on the M4's remote.
Because of its front-facing design and built-in sub, music tends to have a nice blend of warm bass without losing clarity in the high treble and mids that dominate a lot of rock and pop tracks. I found myself especially compelled by how clearly it played some classic rock tracks I was shuffling through, like “Dream On” by Aerosmith and “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart, which has some beautiful mandolin melodies that sparkle on these speakers. If you prefer modern tunes, I can con firm that the low electronic beats in “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd sound wonderfully deep, too.
The $340 Q Acoustics Media 4 is an outstanding, straightforward soundbar. It sounds cleaner than a lot of sub-$400 soundbars, and the small, capable built-in subwoofer is a sweet little bonus. If you have the cash, there is a $640 M4 bundle that includes an extra, far larger subwoofer. And if you’re short on cash, I’d recommend checking out the Q Acoustics M3 ($250). I have not tested it personally, but based on reviews around the web and the performance of this unit it appears to be a fantastic budget buy, with many of the perks of the M4 and the added bonus of HDMI ARC connectivity.
I wasn’t expecting a lot when I tried the Q Acoustics M4, but this speaker has exactly what you want in a soundbar. I’ve greatly enjoyed listening to TV dramas like the recent Season 2 premiere of Westworld, and I can’t wait to watch the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu with the M4.
If you’re watching shows like these or films like Jurassic Park with tinny TV speakers, do yourself a favor and take the plunge. It's high time you let the shrieks of those velociraptors frighten you you just as clearly as Steven Spielberg intended.
