Customer Ratings & Reviews

I purchased the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 without the sub or any surround speakers. Although expensive I figured since I already owned a Sony BRAVIA TV, it would make the connection simple and take advantage of any sync'ing abilities between the 2. I was wrong. For whatever reason, the process that should be quite straightforward is anything but, especially when using eARC on both devices. I tried factory resetting the TV and the soundbar, swapping cables, reordering the sequence of actions, etc. I was about to give up when lo and behold it connected, no idea why. The soundbar itself sounds fine and clear, but lacks bass, which I expected. It has a nice, simple appearance and appears to be of high quality. Setting up the soundbar room acoustics and distances is accomplished using an app on your phone, which worked fine. Everything worked fine for several weeks, including the ability to control it with the TV remote, when it suddenly disconnected and I had to start over trying everything to get it to reconnect, taking 2 days. It shouldn't be like this!

Easy set up, stunning sound, I will be getting the Sub Woofer next month

Sony theatre bar is absolutely amazing. The quality of the sound with the surround sound speakers makes a huge difference in viewing the show you are watching. The sound is like being in an I Max and I’m not kidding. Make sure you invest in this product. You won’t be disappointed and your friends will be amazed by it. My son in law is now going to purchase everything we purchased. He is so excited. He has been wanting to update his TV system. The wires show and he is not happy with that and wants a larger screen and better quality overall for his TV viewing.

I was a little reluctant at first as to its size but after hearing a demo in the store, it sounded pretty good. When I set it up at home with a paired subwoofer, it sounded great and filled my large open room more than I expected with a nice clear undistorted sound. At half volume was what I watched movies with. I did try 70 percent volume and still very clear but too loud. I saw no reason to get anything louder unless you have a theater room and want more woofer effect. Well worth it when pairing with a large Sony TV.

The sound is very clear and setup is easy. You can control it with your phone and it pairs nicely with SA-SW5 subwoofer.

Low profile and great sound. Works well in a large room.

This is a hard review to write because this bar 8 should easily be 5 star but it is held back by some bad Sony decisions. This bar beats the A7000 and A5000 hands down from previous generation. The remote is limited and should have included the rear speaker controls maybe Sony didn't expect you to buy the rear speakers. Requires App to install the bar which might lead to future problems if app loses support from Sony. 360 spatial Sound field mode which is the selling point works better if you have a dedicated subwoofer and rear speakers. I have the SW5 and SR5 speakers supporting the bar, which integrates better with the sound field compared with the A7000. if u are watching movies from an uncompressed source like a physical disc, this bar is incredible. this is the best atmos experience I have ever heard from a soundbar. From a compressed source like streaming from netflix or itunes it sounds okay but the difference is really obvious. Sony has removed the sound modes cinema, music, auto in favour spatial sound, dolby virtualizer, and neural x. The latter 2 sound terrible. Sony needs to put in a center speaker control in the app to help increase voice volume. This sound bar needs a firmware update to enhance compressed audio quality and give users more controls like center channel and EQ settings to tailor the sound to how we like it because this 360 spatial mapping doesn't work in every scenario.

Very good quality sound bar. Worth the price. Comes with 2 small "feet" that have soft rubber backing for elevation and not damaging whatever surface it is on. Easy to access HDMI, optical, etc ports. No digital display in it, only 3 dot lights in the lower right (white and blue colors for modes). Its not a 5-star rating because the only control over settings is via a phone app. While overall more approachable than its predecessor (HT9Z sound bar, which had horribly unstable subwoofer connection and which relied only on eARC) and with perfectly reliable subwoofer connections, it doesn't have all the settings it needs to sound right. Sound bar by itself: 2.0 connection. Sounds a bit strained trying to make a subwoofer effect with only treble speakers. Adding in the subwoofer and the woofer balances great but jumps to 5.1 setting... I have no rear speakers in my setup so sounds from "behind" are improperly loud in the side speakers from the Bar. Especially disorienting and frustrating in video games more than tv or movies. And no way to change that setting. Changing it away from "adaptive surround" to just "high quality simulated" helped, but then the volume levels between sources get wonky. I still recommend it because an app is quicker to update than firmware so I think this setting oddity will get corrected before long.

This sound bar creates great sound both with music and dialogue. Good bass notes.

Really love this soundbar, it sounds fantastic in my living room that is prone to echos. The setup is really simple but I do wish we weren't forced to create an account so Sony can collect data for simply wanting to use a soundbar. Once everything is setup though, the connection is a breeze.

I was use to other soundbars where you have to constantly make sound adjustments. So at first I was confused and searching for things to tweak. But soon I realized that after initial set up and having my optimal settings completed, I could just relax and watch my content with minimal involvements on my part other than volume control. I competely understand why some other reviewers are unnerved by not being more involved with the operation of the soundbar. However, this soundbar sounds great with almost no manual input from the user post set up. It is very inteligent that way. Once I realized I could just enjoy the content, I realized what a great soundbar this is.

Great sound, easy setup, and not bad on the pocketbook. I normally wouldn’t buy a matching set (TV and Soundbar) but this one seriously makes you think someone is whispering behind you at times! Definitely would recommend!

I got this soundbar around Christmas and so far I have no regrets. The sound and the deep bass feels great especially when you’re watching action movies, live performances etc It was a great purchase

I love the Bravia 8 Theater soundbar! Super easy to set up and install! AWESOME sound!!!

While I was happy with the sound of my A95L I wanted to give a soundbar a try. I added the Theater Bar 8 and SW3 subwoofer. They sound fantastic and represent a very nice upgrade. I love how well integrated it is with the TV. I can control everything from the TV interface so it is easy for other family members to use ... they do not need to anything it just works. I am using the Acoustic Center channel feature so that the speakers of my A95L are handling the center. With Voice Zoom 3 dialog is crystal clear and voice appears to come from the screen which is exactly what I wanted. I wall mounted the soundbar using the included template. This was also very easy though it does not come with the screws. Setup using the Bravia Connect app was simple and it is nice having both the app as well as the TV interface to control the sound.

Bravia Soundbar 8 delivers perfectly for my NYC apartment needs. Loud enough for really nice effects without having to crank up the volume. So far no complaints - not even from my neighbors! Getting a nice sound field without the separate sub-woofer which may have been too much for my building. Not sure if I missed something in the initial set up but for some reason I was not able to get the Dolby Atmos to pass through via eArc at first. It was not until I bought new HDMI to have that pass through. Which again to be fair might have been some setting issue - not sure. Easy to set up out of the box but like all nice things you need to spend a minute to dial in the features if you want to get every bit of performance out it!

Sound quality is great, not to mention the build in sub is really impressive too.

Absolutely love this sound bar!!! The immersive sound is outstanding. Also the bass it reproduces is very impressive in such a small package!

Great sound, the atmos does fill the room. I did enhance the sound with the Bass and rear speakers (lower model). The only problem is that my Sony TV is from 2021 and so I can't fully control the speaker bar settings. Bought it all on sale so I mark the value higher than I normally would.

I've been using a Theater Bar 8, without a sub or rears, but with the Center Sync of a Bravia 9. Overall I've been very happy with it, particularly for Atmos encoded content. The surround effects have been surprisingly good, although the height effects have been a little lacking. That could be due to my room, which has a vaulted ceiling that is 16 ft at its peak. It took me a while to get the settings dialed in just right. Out of the box it sounded a little thin. But when I got the sound field setup just right, it fills the room with sound without any problem. The only reasons I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars include: - It's not quite as good for listening to music, at least I have not yet figured out what the optimal settings are for that. - There don't seem to be that many options for further customization of the sound. If Sony's preset options don't work for you, you're pretty much out of luck.