Customer Ratings & Reviews

Need subwoofers for base to be able to enjoy a much better sound

In store the sound is better and makes your think that the one, and the geek squad puts it in and the sound it's not the same, said for Sony unless its not installed right, please send sound one out to check it out, thanks

The soundbar kept rebooting and always had trouble connecting to ny sony bravia tv

Remote never worked. Bar failed after five months. Difficult to keep the Bravia Sound Bar connected to / selected by the supposedly compatible television.

I bought the bar and the 200w sub and the two rear speakers. The bar really lacks full range and power. The whole setup certainly does spatial sound but the mid range is non existent. The sub underwelms. For 1600$ i expect to feel the sound. Disappointing. My older polk maxfi puts this to shame.

Sound quality is good, but compatibility is challenging. Not user friendly.

Do not buy! Constantly losing connection and having to be reset. Multiple times a day. Now it’s stuck and won’t reset or repair. $1k brick.

Problems with it staying connected to Sony TV and is very expensive.

I purchased a Sonos Sound Bar Mount, the sales associate suggested this Bravia 8 sound Bar suggesting it would work better with the Bravia 8 TV, however, he did not advise me that this sound bar would not work with the Sonos Sound Bar Mount. So I had to make another trip back to the store to swap this out for the Sonos Arc Soundbar. This meant another 3 hours round trip driving for me...

You can't set it up with out the app. You aren't allowed to adjust the sound bar and there is no center channel. The only thing that sounds ok is music and that is not counting the vocals which sound horrible without a center channel. You have to but an entire system to even use the sound bar including and equalizer two suds and two base as well a a dedicated center. It is not worth the money.

Very frustrating experience so far. Device will not register to Bravia Connects. Fails while “registering a device to your account”. Tier 2 Sony advises known problem and says keep trying. No way to bind SW or RS without that registration. Poor architecture decision by Sony. 4 hours wasted so far. Any one else seeing this?

Terrible experience.. 2nd time i ordered open box in excellent condition and never get the item, just a refund.. both times item was out for delivery and rescheduled multiple times to never come.

Does not actually work. Only turns on half the time. Sub woofer doesn’t work at all!!!

The BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 provides a rich, crisp, and room filling audio with deeper bass than I expect from a soundbar. Design This is not a small sound bar, but that's not a bad thing. The extra width over some other sound bars should give it better left to right separation for audio positioning. It still doesn't extend beyond the sides of my 65" TV. Centered beneath it, there are a few extra inches that would be needed on each side to match the width of my TV. It's connected via HDMI eARC to my TV and even features an HDMI 2.1 pass-though port that means you could connect a device to the soundbar, making up for the HDMI port you lose on your TV. This may even have the advantage of being more accessible than the HDMI ports on the TV, making it easier to work with for connecting laptop for instance. There are feet included, but not required. It says they're included so the soundbar can go over the TV's stand, if it's sitting on a table. I didn't need them for my install but actually put them on anyway. I like the way the front left and right of the soundbar are rounded. Most of the soundbar is wrapped in fabric, not surprising since they're hiding 13 speakers are aiming in different directions to provide better positional and room-filling audio. The look is very clean. You'll see at least one LED lit at the front bottom right on the soundbar when it's turned on. It will be blue when the soundbar is in Bluetooth mode. It also comes with a simple remote. Features - It seems to supports a lot (maybe all) of the current audio standards including Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and IMAX Enhanced. When using it with one of my devices I saw it supports Liner PCM 5.1 uncompressed audio (not sure if that's a subset of one of the others). - The "BRAVIA Connect" app is required for setup and updates. I found it easy to use. You can use it to change a number of settings, inputs, or adjust the Bass. - It also has "DSEE Ultimate" which is upscaling of compressed audio - You can adjust the height of the sound field (I'll talk more about the sound field later) - Night mode, Voice mode, and "Sound field" options that can be turned on or off - "Audio DRC" is set to "Auto" by default, supposed to make soft sounds easier to hear - Sound Field Optimization and Temporary viewing position adjustment Audio Quality Since this is a soundbar, the most important question is really, how does it sound? The short answer is the BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 puts out some amazing audio! I was impressed with the highs, the lows, and the projection of the audio. The volume was excellent too! It can be very quiet, but audible, or very loud but still sound good. Here are three ways I'm impressed with the audio quality. 1. The sound in general was crisp and rich. Highs were crisp, not tinny. Sound reproduction sounded accurate. I tested with different audio sources including my music on my phone via Bluetooth (using Sony's LDAC protocol for high quality Bluetooth playback), a Blu-ray movie, and at least three different network video apps on Google TV. All sounded excellent and I didn't notice any problems. Voices sound clear and natural. All sounds seemed to be reproduced accurately. 2. I don't know what is due to very high quality speakers in the BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 (my guess) or "Audio DRC", but it seems easier to hear audio at low volume, specifically voices. I've had times where I need to turn the volume up louder than I want with other audio systems to hear what people are saying in the audio/video. With this soundbar it seems easier to hear voices at lower volumes. 3. The bass is excellent! I did turn it to max in the app, but wow, with it set to max I am really impressed. I'm not saying this is as good as having a separate sub woofer (which you can buy separately for this soundbar), but I'm not sure if better bass is possible on a soundbar, as least of this size. With the different audio I played , none sounded like the soundbar struggled at all with the bass and it sounded great to me! Surround Sound The surround capability's of the BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 are very impressive to me for only using the soundbar. Having those 13 speakers aiming different directions really helps it project. I think part of the reason it's so good is the way it optimizes the sound field of the room by playing sounds and listening to them with built-in mics. It even uses your phone, via the app, to listen for some of the tones and figure out where you are listening from. I think that's a very innovative solution to get the best audio positioning possible for any content viewing/listening experience. I wouldn't say it's as good as having rear speakers but, like the bass, I'm not sure you could get better without rear speakers. There is definitely a room-filling depth to the audio and I was able to hear objects moving around the room. I struggled to perceive that they were behind me, but I could notice them getting closer or farther. Optional Add-ons If you want to improve the bass or the surround, Sony does offer two different sets of wireless rear speakers to choose from as well as two sub-woofers to choose from. Also, if you have a Sony BRAVIA TV that supports "Acoustic Center Sync" (Produces audio directly out of the display), you can actually have that TV configured as a center channel. Summary If you are looking for a high end soundbar I think you should consider the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9! The sound quality is excellent, it produces a rich, full sound, and it has some great features that can improve the overall experience. Even the fact that you don't need to lose an HDMI port could be a very helpful features. The fact that you can improve the bass or surround down the road by adding additional speakers is great!

Overall, AMAZING! I've tried some more economical soundbars in the past and typically found that they offered only an incremental improvement over the speakers in the TV. However, this bar is like going from laptop speakers to a movie in a theater. On first connecting the soundbar, the improvement in the audio was incredibly obvious. The bass is deeper, the overall frequency range is expanded, and everything feels more immersive. This only improves when you do the audio set-up through the app. Everything gets another level clearer and the settings allow for sufficient clarification of the speech without getting to complicated. For being a single audio source, it does a very good job of producing an immersive audio experience. The dedicated bass control is also nice, though it only has 3 settings (low, normal, high). MINOR QUIBBLES - There is literally no description of what the settings do, so here's what I've gleaned from googling and seeing how these settings may work on other Sony Bravia devices: Sound Field: apparently there is a setting better for music or better for TV/video. There is no indication as to what is represented by on or off, so you have to experiment. Voice: This does a good job of making the dialogue more audible. There have definitely been passages in TV shows where it is unintelligible with this off, and much clearer when it is on. Night: Apparently this is supposed to make everything clearer at lower volumes, but there is no description on how it does this. I don't notice a difference. Connectivity - Connecting through ARC or eARC is very simple. The bar turns on with your TV and the audio starts immediately, you control the volume with the TV remote, couldn't be easier. Ultimately, this means you set your settings as you like and can put away the remote so you don't have another thing sitting around. It also has bluetooth so you can pair it with a phone or tablet and play your music or podcasts. This was a little finicky to get connected, but that may have been because of my phone as the phone has had issues with new devices in the past (despite being a Pixel 7). One thing to keep in mind is the size of this sound-bar. It is 51" wide, so if you are mounting it on the TV itself rather than on a shelf, you need to consider the size of your TV. I have a 65" TV where it's a little shorter than the TV itself (about 57"). If you have a 55" TV, this bar will actually be wider than the TV and may look strange if mounted directly above or below the screen. More of an aesthetic issue, but something to consider. This is an expensive soundbar, but for being a single unit without an accompanying subwoofer, it has better sound than anything I've used since the old Bose systems which were about 1.5' deep and built to have the TV sit on top of it (these haven't been made for a decade or so).

Not what i expected, Best Buy sales team wasn't honest.

So let's jump right into what I liked about this soundbar – if you pair it with a Sony TV it seems to work pretty well via wireless and HDMI. I had no problem hooking up via HDMI all the TVs (LG, Sony, and Samsung). The app is absolutely needed for use – more on that to follow – and is a game changer in the use of the soundbar. The aesthetics and look are very nice just as I would expect from a Sony product. The surround-sound capabilities are very good – given the optimal room design. Now, what I didn’t like – there is no display on the unit, just a few LEDs that I could never really figure out what they meant – this is a real negative if you don’t have a Sony TV. The sound – out of the box particularly the low end leaves a lot to be desired. If you are going to purchase this the addon sub is an absolute necessity. That said at this price point there are others on the market that include a sub. As far as setup – the app is a necessity - The first thing you need to do is use the sound mapping function it takes about 5 min or so to complete but makes a significant change in the sound platform – move it from horrible to actual not bad, cleans up a lot of the sound issues however does tune the sound profile to a location in the room and if you move around the room it does not sound as good (still better than out of the box) Overall this is a decent soundbar, maybe even good if you own a Sony Bravia TV, however for the price there are better options out there

The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 is an all-in-one soundbar which has some unique engineering and design qualities which produce an immersive entertainment experience. Able to decode the advanced Dolby Atmos and DTS-X digital output of modern content sources this unit is able to provide an impressive sound field without the need for surround speakers or an external subwoofer (more about that later). The sound bar contains eleven speakers including four front firing woofers, three front tweeters with a dedicated center channel. To provide the surround components there are two side firing speakers and two up-firing speakers (both with are used to mimic a dedicated Dolby Atmos or DTS-X experience usually provided by numerous speakers. The results are fairly impressive for a sound bar, although the bass is not exactly punchy, it does provide good lower end. Given that the built in amplifier provides 495 RMS watts, it is not underpowered or lightweight. The BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 is also compatible with specific dedicated wireless Sony subwoofers as well dedicated wireless surround speakers. For my use case, I have two distinct areas where we watch television, one room which is essentially our home theater, with dedicated surrounds, a subwoofer and ceiling firing Dolby Atmos speakers all attached to a dedicated AV Receiver. However, in my living room where the acoustics are not tuned and frankly is not meant to be a home theater I have the venerable Sony HT-CT660 sound bar (which was a monster of a soundbar, when soundbars became a thing). This Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 is an evolutionary solution for everyday television watching or music playback (given that this soundbar is Apple Airplay 2, Bluetooth and Spotify Connect compatible). Setup isn’t overly difficult and by downloading the BRAVIA Connect mobile app the setup process will actually use the microphone on your mobile device to calibrate the unit for optimal configuration based on your typical listening position. Originally, I was not overly impressed by the unit, until I determined that my LG OLED TV was passing PCM digital stream and not set to Auto. Once I set my TV to Auto and the soundbar was able to determine the digital audio stream my TV was feeding it, the performance of the soundbar became really impressive, decoding a Dolby Atmos stream. In addition, the soundbar has a few settings which really are useful, including a late night mode which reduces the dynamic range (also good for apartment dwellers), a woofer setting (three different levels), a Sound field and dialog enhancer feature. Some of these which can be accessed by the provided remote control. However, the Bravia app is best to adjust these settings and I found provided the remote control mostly unnecessary (except to provide to my wife for more basic control of the soundbar). Since this unit is ARC compatible, your TV remote can also be used for basic soundbar control. If you happen to have a Sony Bravia TV you can also use (via the provided cable) the internal TV speakers as a dedicated center channel/dialog speakers. In addition, the Sony Bravia lines of televisions will recognize and display some of the functions on the TV screen. One of the overlooked aspects of a soundbar is its ability to passthrough video streams to other devices via HDMI. This unit is compatible with 8K/60Hz and 4K/120Hz video passthrough with support for Dolby Vision, HLG, and HDR10. The soundbar can also be controlled using Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa device. Overall, this is a very good soundbar and provides a rich audio experience in an integrated all-in-one unit. Pros: - Good immersive surround experience, Dolby Atmos and DTS-X compatible - Decent bass, you can get away without a dedicated subwoofer - Easy setup process via the BRAVIA Connect mobile app - Passthrough capabilities - Expandability within the Sony Home theater ecosystem Cons: - Wish the optional subwoofer was included - No indicator lights other than power on the soundbar. - Only one HDMI eArc and HDMI in port.

Neaver buy again didn't work really good waste of time

In recent years, with the advent of object based codecs, the home viewing experience continues to improve at an accelerated rate. It is because of this that, for many audio enthusiasts, the home theatre is an important aspect of their entertainment lives. However, for others who desire an exceptional audio experience but do not have the allurement or ability to purchase multiple speakers, are unfortunately hindered. Thus, soundbars have become somewhat of a perfect solution for such a predicament, allowing you to save space and enjoy better sound than typical TV speakers. As such, I was extremely excited to compare the newly released Bravia 9 Theatre Bar and see how it performs as a main speaker. Upon receiving the Bravia 9, I was surprised that it seemed much larger than expected. At roughly 51.5 inches in length and about 5 inches in depth, I strongly recommend that you plan your measurements accordingly. In addition, the Bravia 9 was much heavier than expected; clocking in at 12 pounds, the bar is massive and definitely feels like a premium product. In the box, the soundbar comes with an HDMI cable and an analog cable for the S-Center feature. It also includes two wall mount brackets and two feet so you can raise the soundbar if your TV feet are in the way. As for setup, unfortunately the Bravia 9 requires the Bravia Connect application along with a Sony account. In addition, your device and soundbar will need to be connected to the same Wi-Fi router for you change any settings. Furthermore, the Bravia 9 only has two LED lights: one for source input and the other is the status indicator. Personally, I think it would have been beneficial if they would have included a small screen on top to display the modes and various inputs. As for setup, while I was not excited about being force to use the application, it did find the bar relatively fast. Once I created my account and attached my Wi-Fi to it, I was ready to go. Once I completed setup, I was ready to test the Bravia 9. Before I begin, I do want to caution you that what I observed here will differ from your experience as our audio perception differs. However, it should provide some idea of its performance. For my test setup, I used two Audioquest Cinnamon 48 Gbps rated cables, both of which are 5 ft in length. The Bravia 9 was connected to my Sony A90J OLED TV via its HDMI 2.1 eARC port; my Sony X800-M2 4K bluray player was connected to the TV's other HDMI 2.1 port . Furthermore, I made sure eARC was enabled on the TV (should be by default); digital output on the X800 was set to bit stream audio sources with secondary audio set to off. You will need double check your particular equipment and adjust accordingly. On the Bravia connect application, eARC should be enabled by default. Connectively, I tried to refrain from changing the sound settings in the application so I could preserve an out of box experience but I did turn DSEE ultimate and Audio DRC off. For the sound field option, I only tested the 360 spatial setting (default). Additionally, I left the bass at medium and the system volume was capped at 30. Lastly, I picked two movies: one with Dolby Atmos and the other with DTS:X; for music I only used my personal FLAC/WAV collection of which has been scanned via spectrogram and verified for proper lossless quality. For my first movie, I decided to watch The Mummy (1999) which features an engaging DTS:X mix that makes effective use of my main home theatre system. As such, I was curious to see how this translates to the Bravia 9 soundbar and for the most part the results are stellar. Upon firing up the movie, you should notice the DTS:X logo at the top of the application's home screen so that you'll know that it is seeing the correct metadata. With the sound field option off, I think the Bravia 9 sounds quite natural; voices are centered perfectly and are crisp and clear. Additionally, the opening battle sequence has some nice bass rumbles throughout. Another good example is at the 9:34 mark when the sword is thrown into the air. On my main setup, that section is isolated specifically on my Atmos speakers, so it was nice to hear that the Bravia 9 positioned up on the top left speaker and shifted it to the right. When you turn on the sound field option at this same section, the background music is pulled way up to the forefront and still manages to position all the sounds accordingly. In addition, the sword is drastically louder and much more aggressive in the mix. The sound field option was quite surprising to say the least. While I normally do not like to add any additional processing to the audio, I was quite shocked at the immediate difference at the 1:00:57-1:01:14 mark where the background brass instruments are brought up front and center and is much more noticeable. When you disable the option in the same section, the music completely shifts further back into the mix and drops significantly in volume. For most, I think most will be quite pleased with the results; even dialogue seemed to improve a bit with the sound field setting. Overall, I was quite surprised at how well the sound field enhanced the audio and was able to provide a much more encompassing sound experience. For my second movie, I decide to use Lucy (2013) which has a robust Atmos track that is certainly demo material; throughout there are some fairly good use of low bass tones. As noted before with DTS: X, you should see a Dolby audio source logo indicating it sees the correct codec, though surprisingly this time around the codec logo changes to an Atmos logo when the sound field is toggled on. I do believe it is still picking up the lossless signal as the X800 overlay still showed TrueHD as its output. Beginning with the sound field off, the discussion that begins at 15:48 really stood out to me as the dialog was perfectly positioned on the top and center speakers. Additionally, you can make out nice echoes on the far left and right top speakers. Another section that caught my attention is the start of Mozart's Requiem at 38:18, where the violins and choir come together. When you enable the sound field setting here, the sound instantly becomes much louder and more encompassing. Violins are pulled much closer to the front and hit some nice frequencies. Another highlight worth noting is the car scrape at 1:01:51; it becomes exponentially louder with the sound field setting on. The same thing occurs again at 1:02:01 when you see the car flip into the air. Lastly, during all of the CGI effects around 1:20:00-120:37, the Bravia 9 performs exceptionally well here: lows and highs are all clear and separate from each other and is quite the experience. Overall, Bravia 9 performs exactly as expected. Shifting to my music test, the Bravia 9 handled every genre that I tested. Bass response was better than expected; some tracks, however, did slightly distort when the bass was set to max, but that was easily remedied by dialing back the setting to medium. As for classical and jazz, the Bravia 9 really stretched its legs: high frequencies were quite detailed including vocals. Overall, the sound stage was quite exceptional. Rock and metal genres, despite some bad compression in the mastering, also played fairly well. One thing I did notice was that using the sound field option here did not sound as good as it did during the movies. It dialed everything back and seemed to overly process and restrict the sound. In addition, all of my files played perfectly, though I do want to mention that on Hi-Res LPCM 2 channel sources at 96KHz and 192 KHz, the output to the soundbar was limited to 48 KHz; this, I assume, is a limitation of the eARC as oppose to bandwidth (or it could possibly be a Sony limitation). While disappointing, this should not affect most people unless you have a fairly large hi resolution collection that exceeds these sample rates. Interestingly, when I tested one of my Bluray Audio discs, both 192 KHz/5.1 and 96 KHz/7.1 DTS MA-HD tracks played with the correct sample rate and channel count as noted within the Bravia application. Connectively, Hi-Res over Bluetooth via LDAC codec also played as intended. The Bravia 9 automatically selected the codec in the application, though I went ahead and manually changed the output setting to quality preferred on my Sony Xperia 5 III. Overall, I think the Bravia 9 performs exceptionally well. If you are coming from basic TV speakers, this will certainly be a revelation. In conclusion, the Bravia 9 soundbar performs exactly as it was intended to do. It provides an exceptional audio experience for those who do not have the space or desire to build a complete home theatre system. In addition, it supports all of the current audio technologies such as Dolby Atmos and DTS: X and supports 4K and 8K signals. I was also quite happy with the 360 sound mapping effect; it certainly enhanced what was already an excellent listening experience. While it is somewhat disappointing that an application is forced on you (as well as an account login) to change its settings, it does seemingly work as intended and felt rather responsive. I was also surprised that LPCM was capped to 48 KHz, though again this should not be much of an issue as the Bravia 9 will more than likely be used primarily for movies. Nonetheless, it was worth a mention given the Bravia 9 price point and its position as an enthusiast oriented product. Overall, if the budget allows, the Bravia 9 soundbar is an excellent choice and I have no doubt most will be satisfied. Thus, the Bravia 9 soundbar comes highly recommended.