Customer Ratings & Reviews

Maybe it was my setup but i didn't really like the sound quality. They look nice though.

very dull to say the least, I run Onkyo and Klipche....these Sony speakers should be sold at convenient stores, nothing crisp, nothing throaty.....booorrrring. Best Buy, thumbs up...you got one past me, if it wasnt corona and you were just blindly selling items,out in the parking lot I would have noticed there uselessnesss....how long is my warranty?

Not worth the money not enough contact to use Dolby Atmos and what is out there there is a minor difference from the regular surround sound I will wait for two years or so to see how the technology issues better save your money people for now

I have these paired with a Denon 7.2 receiver from BB Magnolia Room, a Polk surround system with a Yamaha powered sub. I really enjoyed all components prior to hooking these Atmos surround up... In all honesty, I did not realize how under-utilized my system was prior to these. They added such a nice textural element, especially for busy action movies. Dunkirk was fantastic to watch before but even more immersive after. The units a re handsome, small, nondescript and would look great in most any home theater. The units were heavier (in a good way) than I was expecting and than they looked. They have a nice substantial feel that leads to a feeling of quality. In all, I would recommend them, especially if you are a movie watcher.

I did not like this pair dolby atmos speakers. The quality of build are low.

Dolby Atmos or DTS:X are amazing audio formats, they bring some much depth to audio soundtracks. I have been a fan since day 1 and upgrade as quickly as I could when it became available. The only issue is that everyone has a different room for their home theater so you have to try and see what works best for you. That is what I like so much about these speakers they give you the versatility to put them in different spots to give you the best sound for your room. These are Atmos speakers so they will not give you the range that you typically get from a normal bookshelf or rear speaker, So I do not recommend you use these as rear speakers. In my room they worked best as height speakers, I did put them on top of my towers and they do work, but the Atmos effect was more noticeable when I mounted them as height speakers. The speakers did everything I asked of them and they sound great. they also are excellent looking and designed very well.

The two Sony Atmos speakers were replacements for the Left and Right front speakers of my 5.1 surround system. I wasn’t sure how well the Atmos would work on my old system, but after installing the speakers - color me impressed. The difference in sound was clearly noticeable. I performed a couple to tests to see if these improvements would remain consistent. First, I piped music through my 5.1 with my old speakers only, and then a second go-round with the Atmos installed. Sitting in the sweet spot for both of these tests, the Atmos enhanced the music and brought about a robust blending of sound – a difference very noticeable to both myself and my wife. That blending of sound was clearly missing with my old speakers. Second, I performed the two tests again – once with my old speakers and once with the Atmos - but this time with me standing away from the center of the surround sound by about 15 feet – a good distance from the sweet spot. With my old speakers connected, the sound was very “MEH”. With the Atmos installed, the robustness in sound had returned. Essentially, I didn’t have to sit directly in the middle of my surround sound system to enjoy the diversity of sound. Okay, I’m a convert. Enough so that I’m now looking to replace my older rear speakers with two more of these models. The Sony Dolby Atmos speakers are very good in my opinion – especially considering such a compact design. I will be recommending these speakers to family and friends.

These speakers are a nice option to consider for many reasons. For us, the first is they are a Sony product which we have come to rely on for quality and reliability: from everything from our tv's, to portable speakers, to cameras. These elevation speakers do not disappoint in quality with a very solid, all-wood cabinet and a mica reinforced cone. With a price point under $200 they are a great value. The next feature which we find valuable is their design which gives one a compact speaker which is versatile enough to use with one's existing surround sound system. These speakers can be wall mounted and come with the hardware to do that, but we simply placed them on our existing floor speakers. We have not had the opportunity yet, but we are also going to try these outside with our projector and other equipment for poolside movies. For grins we also tried them out playing some music and they did not disappoint. Their compact design just naturally lends themselves to multiple options. Lastly, we found the sound quite pleasing and powerful. It was a warm sound with adequate bass. One does with the right movie get a sense of the sound being around you and above you. You are getting those added, subtle sounds these speakers are designed to add of flowing upward and down off your ceiling. We feel Sony has a winner with these in hitting the sweet spot of quality, price, versatility and a very pleasing sound.

Let me describe my setup: Dedicated media room with 120” screen, 4K projector, flanked by a pair of Polk audio floor speakers, in-wall speakers for the surrounds, and a single SVS sub for the low stuff. Sony STR-DN1080 receiver. For a while now I have been wanting to “complete” my setup by adding in-ceiling speakers for Atmos...but that requires a lot of work to wire them up and quite frankly I’ve just been putting it off. These Atmos enabled speakers from Sony are meant to be placed on top of your existing front speakers, not replace them, and fire sound upwards, bouncing it off the ceiling and thus simulating the effect of sound coming out of an in-ceiling speaker. They also come with brackets and hardware to mount them to your wall, thus the sound will be coming directly at you but from a higher point. It's also worth noting that in addition to Atmos they work just fine for the competing DTS-X format as well. You'll find most 4K blurays are encoded with Atmos but a few (like Harry Potter) are in DTS-X. I simply put the speakers on top of my existing fronts, hooked up the wires, and tested a few things. First, I ran the auto setup on my stereo to make sure the speakers were installed correctly and let the stereo properly set the sound field. Next, I tried the Atmos demos available in the Dolby Atmos app on the Xbox One. These included the Leaf and Amaze demos. I was more impressed with the Leaf demo than the Amaze. There was definitely some additional sound that I wouldn't have heard before without the Atmos speakers. I was the most impressed when I put the 4K disc for Blade Runner The Final Cut in. There's lots of rain effects, thunder, and flying-cars zipping by and you can actually hear the difference. A lot of people describe Atmos as "sound coming from above you" and that may be true if you have a speaker above your head. However, with these, I never felt like the sound was truly anywhere above my head, but you do get the sense of height to the sound effects that the sound engineers want you to hear. There's one scene in particular where there is a lot of dialogue with rain and I realized the rain effects are about the same volume as the dialogue which in stereo would make the dialogue hard to hear. In this case, I felt like I was right there with the characters chatting in the rain. It's hard to explain but the flying cars zipping by sound so much more realistic when the engineers are able to place them in spatial space, rather than being limited to the discrete surround channels of a traditional Dolby Digital track. Overall, I would recommend these if you can't for whatever reason install speakers into your ceiling. These are the next best thing.

These speakers are small, but put out a lot of great clear sound. However you must keep in mind that these are "elevation" speakers, which means that when placed correctly these will add a whole new level of sound saturation for the user. For these speakers to be used correctly they need to either be mounted at the top of your ceiling, angled down, or just simply placed on top of your current tower speakers, aimed at the halfway distance to your target audience. You might find that propping up the back of the speaker a little bit, based on the length of the room will help you accomplish this. Some angling is required to get the best sound experience from these speakers. But well worth it, in my opinion. So far I have been impressed with their design and quality. Overall a great way to add a new level of sound and realism to your home theater, at a descent price.

If you love great sound in movies and music, you know it takes great equipment to produce great results. These 4 inch Sony Dolby Atmos enabled additions are meant to help fill your room with sound. The packaging for these speakers is in a word, plain – brown box, very tight with simple black writing all over. Inside you will find the speakers, snug in foam, along with mounting brackets and pads for either wall or speaker top mounting. The speakers are a bit bulky, but not large. They have a slant which seems to be a design decision to aid in the Dolby Atmos delivery. Installation is simple enough. These are wired speakers. Connect the wiring and you are ready for sound. As for mounting, this can be a difficult decision if you don’t have a system with large left and right speakers. Large enough speakers allow you to easily mount them on top of the speakers, facing up. The true Dolby Atmos experience probably favors ceiling or high mounted speakers. The slanted orientation of the speaker box for these aides in the directional projection of sound. With all of that, I still found it a bit difficult to add them subtly to my existing system. I had to go with wall mount, and that was not very pleasing to the eye. This is one of the hard truths about these speakers: it’s not easy to add them to your system if aesthetics is important. Well, the most important thing is how they sound. The speakers sound great. The sound is clear, crisp, and full. I’m not sure there is a huge effect experienced, and that could be because of speaker location. I already have a 7.2 surround system, and these elevation speakers, while adding sound, aren’t really game changers. I believe ceiling mounting (or high wall) or speaker top mounting would be preferred for the biggest experience boost. Also, you may have to adjust mid-range ohm and cutoff levels to get the right sound blend. I don’t have a Sony system, speakers, etc. – a little mismatched. I was able to achieve good, quality sound, and the quality of sound along with the Atmos technology is definitely present here, and worth a try. It’s just important to remember that setup and fit should be taken into consideration to get the best experience. I would definitely recommend these elevation speakers. They are welcome addition to any home theater.

A whole another level of sound to your home theater system without wiring and installing ceiling speaker. The design of these speakers are really slick. They are really low profile and angled towards the ceiling to provide addition height to the sound. They fit perfectly on top of my existing front speakers. Pairing these speakers with a Dolby Atmos audio receiver and your home theater experience will be enhanced. And do note that a compatible audio receiver is required to get the full benefit of these speakers. Great sound from a small package.

UNBOXING, AND INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: Honestly, nothing “special”, or spectacular, here. The Sony SS-CSE Dolby Atmos speakers are in a plain brown box, with lots of words in black ink over 5 of the 6 sides (the bottom has very minimal print). Unlike some products, which “scream” at you with bright photos, and other glaring graphics, Sony has packaged these speakers in a very subdued way. Upon opening the box, the packaging is straight-forward, and minimalistic, exactly the way it should be. On top of the Styrofoam, you will find 2 pair of mounting brackets (for use in attaching the speakers on top of Sony tower front speakers), as well as a pair of wall mounts (if installing the speakers as “front high” speakers. Technically, which I’ll describe in greater detail, Sony give you three mounting options: on top of Sony front tower speakers (Dolby Atmos); wall, facing up (Dolby Atmos); and wall facing slightly down, towards the listener (front-high). SETUP: There is really only one way to “set up” speakers…simply connect one end of the wires to the receiver, and the other end to the speakers. Ok, joking aside…as mentioned above, there are three ways to set up the SS-CSE Dolby Atmos speakers. The first…and, if you have Sony tower SS-Series speakers, the best…way to “mount” them, is as simple as placing the SS-CSE speakers on top of your tower speakers (Sony’s ‘A1’ option, as they mate perfectly to Sony’s SS-CS5 tower speakers. The second option…and still retaining the Dolby Atmos purpose…is to mount them on the wall (option A2), in the exact same orientation as they would be if placed on top of tower speakers. The final mounting option is to mount them on the wall, facing forward & slightly down (option B). The downside to the ‘B’ option is that, while this configuration should still produce very-good sounding audio for DTS:X, the speakers will no longer provide true/accurate “Dolby Atmos” sound…they will, instead, be “high-front” speakers. The problem in wall mounting (option ‘A2’) is how high from the floor to mount them. The “simple” answer would be 36.3” (ie. the bottom of the speakers) up from the floor (the height of the SS-CS3 tower speakers). The more accurate & (unfortunately) more complicated answer is, “It depends on your ceiling height, the distance of your front speakers to the ‘listening position’, and the distance of the wall to your ‘listening position’. In other words, the answer is just as “complicated” as the placement for all the other speakers, including the subwoofer. If you want “quick & easy”, by all means, wall mount them 36.3” from the floor. On the other hand, if you want “more accurate Dolby Atmos sound”, then it’s time to brush up on your math. In my case, having a standard 8ft ceiling, with the “listening position” slightly LESS than 7ft from the TV, and slightly less than 8ft from the wall, it was decided that 42-46” from the floor should be “optimal”. SYSTEM, CONFIGURATION, & TESTING METHOD: Before I get into the actual “sound quality” tests, I should first describe my system. I’m using a Sony UBP-X800 UHD Blu-Ray player connected to a Sony STR-DN1080 Home Theater Receiver, with video being output to a Sony XBR-55X900E 4K HDTV. On the audio end, with the exception of the new Sony Dolby Atmos speakers, I have been running a 7.1 channel system from Definitive Technology – ProCinema 800 speakers for the front left & right; ProCinema 600 speakers for the center, surround, & rear channels; and a SuperCube 6000 handling the subwoofer duties. For the purpose of testing the Sony SS-CSE Dolby Atmos speakers, I made a couple configuration changes to the setup, which consisted of disconnecting the rear-surround speakers from the receiver, and then connecting the wires to the Sony speakers. Configuration steps after this point will vary depending on your receiver, but, in my case, it meant changing the channel configuration from 7.1-channel, to 5.1 (FD), which is the same as 5.1.2-channel. Next, I enabled the Sony receiver’s “Rear Phantom Surround”, which, to the best of my understanding, does some sort of digital audio trick, taking the side surround speakers, and tricking the listener’s ears into believing they are hearing sound from BOTH side surround AND rear surround speakers. In other words, even though the system is configured as a 5.1.2-channel system, your ears believe they’re hearing movie audio from a 7.1.2-channel system. Finally, I re-ran the speaker Auto-Calibration. After watching/listening to several Dolby Atmos demo videos…ESPECIALLY one in particular, which involves a rain forest…I can tell you that the “phantom” surround audio DOES work, and can be very believable. SOUND QUALITY: Moving onto the actual testing, I watched selected scenes from six different movies, two titles each of the following three media-types: Dolby Atmos-encoded 4K UHD Blu-Ray, Dolby True-HD Blu-Ray (one of which did contain Dolby 7.1-channel audio), & Dolby-encoded DVD. Starting with the DVDs, while there wasn’t a huge improvement (after all, DVDs contained only 5.1-channel audio), there was a slightly-noticeable improvement, as the surround audio also played from the Dolby Atmos speakers. Moving onto the “standard” Blu-Ray movies, there was a considerable improvement, which, while not making me truly believe I was “enveloped in dome-like audio”, made enough of an improvement that I started to believe. Finally, in regards to the 4K Ultra-HD discs, the audio was truly amazing, as it seemed like I was sitting on the floor, in the center of a dome, with sound coming from every direction. I’m not say8ing the audio was like this 100% of the time, as there’s always times where audio is only coming from in front of you…but, in those moments where the Dolby Atmos is supposed to be “doing its thing”…well, it’s “doing its thing”. CLOSING THOUGHTS: I went into this thinking I might be “mildly” impressed, and, while not completely “blown away”, I was impressed enough to say the Sony SS-CSE Dolby Atmos speakers are well worth it. If these tiny $200 speakers can do what they do, I can only imagine what higher-priced Dolby Atmos speakers can do. More importantly, I can only imagine what in-ceiling Dolby Atmos speakers are capable of. FINAL VERDICT: Honestly, I didn’t have high-hopes for these speakers. “Quality” Dolby Atmos speakers typically run $400/pair, or more, with high-end, in-ceiling models costing considerably more…so, how could these compare? Truth-be-told, they are quite good. If I consider only their level of performance, without considering the price, I’d probably give them a ‘7’ on a 1-10 scale. However, adding the price into that consideration, that ‘7’ would jump to at least an ‘8’, and possibly a ‘9’. Am I saying these are outstanding speakers? Hardly. But they do do exactly what they were designed to do, and they do it for a very reasonable price. If you’re an audiophile, they look elsewhere, as you will be sorely disappointed with the Sony SS-CSE Dolby Atmos speakers. For those, you should probably consider something like the Klipsch R-14SA ($320), the Klipsch RP-140SA ($400), or in-ceiling speakers (priced even higher). However, if you’re a movie-lover on a budget (like me), and you happen to have a Dolby Atmos-capable receiver (or are planning to purchase one), then the Sony SS-CSE speakers will work quite well for you. Disclaimer: This product was provided free, or at reduced cost, for the purpose of reviewing the product. Nevertheless, the above review, be it positive, negative, or anywhere in-between, is a 100% honest review, and the price paid played absolutely no part in my review.

First off these are solid, well built speakers. No lack of quality. I used these without the specified Sony speakers they attached to and chose not to mount them on my current speakers or the wall mount option. I placed a rubber mat on my towers and set these up with ease. I currently have a Atmos setup with in-ceiling speakers and love it to death. These worked well considering they reflect off the ceiling. The audio Atmos produces doesn't necessarily require huge or super high end speakers, it's just for ambient sounds. These do the trick and are an inexpensive option for those not wanting to do a ton of work for that Atmos experience.

Overall score: 4/5 Appearance / initial impressions These speakers certainly feel top notch, good weight, great packaging. They include wall mount brackets, but I just put them on top of my front towers. I'm disappointed that they don't use binding posts, but rather have spring clips on the back - this is the only reason I rated these 4/5. It's possible they chose to do this to make wall mounting easier, but it just screams "cheap" to me when I see that. Plus I love the convenience of banana plugs. Setup I've got these sitting on top of my front Pioneer SP-FS51's. The rest of my system is a SP-C21 center channel, a pair of SP-BS21's in surround, and a Denon AVR-X1200W 7.2 receiver. Once I had the Sony's wired into the receiver (via the Surround Back L/R posts), I had to enable Atmos. In my case it was selecting "7.1-channel (front Dolby Atmos Enabled)". I then ran through the full Denon Audyssey, where the receiver does automatic speaker leveling. Testing I first tested with the 4K remaster of the Fifth Element. During the opening five minutes of the film I switched Atmos on and off to try and get a feel for what the difference was. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the best way I can describe Atmos is that it "fills in" gaps I didn't even notice were there. It really helped the audio sound like it was coming from the TV and not from the speakers. Action sequences later in the film didn't really seem to benefit as much. My guess is that any scene that needs to express space is really going to benefit from these. Next I played Black Panther. I'm not sure if it's because it's a much newer film or what, but Black Panther really benefited from the extra speakers. Everything seemed much more detailed and encompassing. Music, background noise, all very immersive. Summary Certainly a worthy addition / upgrade for any home theater system, especially if you already have a full surround setup. This is really the next step in home cinema.

good sound for the size and fit well in the living room of my apartment

I didn't get a chance to hook these up to a surround sound system, but I did get a chance to hook them up to a LG radio I just purchased for my home. The clarity of these speakers are amazing as I can hear vocals as clear as day! I always listen to my radio and I hear mostly bass and mids, but no highs. With these speakers, it makes my radio system sound like a $600 system! I really love listen to my radio now, more than I ever did before! I would definitely recommend these speakers for not only a surround sound system, but if you have a radio system as well! I guarantee if you purchase these and hook them up, you will be pleasantly surprised at how good they sound for such small speakers.

I am not using these in a home theater system but rather on top of the SS-CS5 Sony bookshelf speakers. Simply wire from bookshelves to the Atmos. The improvement is extraordinary! I also am using the Sony Subwoofer. I've listened to many speakers that are far more expensive that don't sound anywhere near as good. The Sonys without the Atmos are very good but now they're outstanding!

We thought our speakers sounded great before we got these. Now it is perfect

These speakers have a good design they blend in with my other speakers n they sound great