Customer Ratings & Reviews

First sound bar I have purchased. Paired with a 65 inch A80K Bravia OLED and a SA SW5 wireless subwoofer. Had an issue with both the TV and the subwoofer but no issues with the sound bar itself.

My review is primarily for the soundbar by itself but, I also review it with the Sony SASW5 300 watt subwoofer and Sony SARS3S rear speakers which are also reviewed separately. A quick assessment: I’m not delving too deep into the specs and features as that is covered in the product’s overview. I’m reviewing how it sounds and ease of operation. When used by itself, the soundbar sounds very clean and is excellent for watching TV and movies. The dialog comes through very clearly but not much bass because of the small bass drivers. Even at the max setting. Adding a subwoofer is a must in my opinion. The HTA5000 sound bar acts as a hub for the optional wireless subwoofer and rear speakers. Sadly, I was disappointed in it for listening to music because it lacks high end when playing music that is otherwise there when watching a movie with music in it. Details about that later The sound bar is well made and well packaged. It survived shipping fine. Following the quick setup guide makes setup quick and easy. Especially if you are setting up any of the wireless speaker options. The soundbar has several input options for TV and music. However, an analog audio input is not one of them. Connecting it to a TV via ARC (Audio Return Channel) or EARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) are the preferred methods as they will not only give you the best sound quality and support multi-channel audio and be able to integrate into the operation of your TV and certain other devices like a Sony Blu-ray player. EARC is the absolute best and preferred way to connect the soundbar if your TV supports it. Most TVs made from 2019 on should have EARC. Sync problems are pretty much eliminated and all audio is uncompressed. Google EARC for more info. You can also connect to a TV with it with a fiberoptic cable if it lacks ARC / EARC. The HTA5000’s audio performance is excellent for dialog in TV and movies. It also has a voice function that makes dialog even clearer. Note: Dialog volume can be adjusted when using DTSX. Sound Field makes sound effects and such seem even more expanded to the right and left while dialog stays in center. Night mode keeps the audio clear but cuts the bass back for listening at low volumes. You can adjust the soundbar’s subwoofers in the soundbar from the remote in three steps. You can select most functions from the remote as well as navigate the on-screen display for all else. Plus, other remotes like TV or Blu-Ray players, can also operate volume and certain functions like play, pause, ect. I tested the soundbar with several devices which included a Sony 4K Blu-Ray player, Smartphone, iPad, Dish Network, USB thumb drive and a Sony ES Series CD player via optical link (I had to set it to HDMI to TV to do that). I think the best audio was from the Blu-Ray player. Obviously newer movie titles will have more in the area of multi-channel sound formats than older ones. You can still play your older DVDs of 50s to 80s movies through it and they will sound great but can vary depending on the transfer to DVD and as to what studio did it, audio format used and when. Any older movie that’s been remastered and enhance should really shine on it. I run my Sony 4K Blu-Ray directly into the HDMI input on the soundbar. Now let’s add a wireless Sony subwoofer for some real Bass! A subwoofer is a must in my opinion of you really want to enjoy action movies. You now have 12 steps for bass volume on the remote. Music now sounds much better on the low end. Add wireless Sony rear speakers for the final touch. Now you have a rockin’ home theater system your friends and family will envy. Setup is super easy. Just plug them up and the soundbar will see them. If not hit Home on the remote, Setup and Easy Setup 123 and click the first option and go from there. You will need to connect the soundbar to your internet router to use the included online music services. See photos. The display on the front is easy to see and read but the buttons on top have lettering that is hard to see in dim light. See photos. Connections on the back are easy to access and labelling is easy to read. For the price a lighted remote would have been nice as for the buttons on the soundbar. Pros: Easy setup, Solid build quality, Excellent voice clarity from center channel, Plenty of input options, easy to use remote, easy to navigate on screen menu, and it will get Loud when need it to. Cons: Weak high end and bass when listening to certain styles of music when compared to a typical stereo when using a subwoofer and no way to adjust EQ. Bass is weak but drivers are small so this is expected. Expensive. Conclusion: If you want a killer home theater sound system that will be including a subwoofer and rear speakers this system will not disappoint you. Especially for action movies. You can start with the soundbar and add the subwoofer and rear speakers later. If you plan on using the soundbar only, it will sound better than most stock TV speakers and has excellent voice clarity. It does have some bass but nothing like having a true subwoofer. Unless Sony can update the firmware and add some EQ options, I’m reluctant to recommend the soundbar for listening to music in any configuration. I would give it 3.5 stars if I could but I’m giving 4 and not 3 because it's part of an expandable system and I think Sony can fix the EQ issue with a firmware update and I hope they do.

It is not working well. Connection with speaker is not good

Phenomenal sound-The Little Brother to the HT-A7000 Overall The Ht-A5000 offers an amazing level of audio. The soundbar itself comes with a total of 9 speakers across. 3 front facing, 2 up firing, 2 side firing tweeters, and 2 front facing subs. It makes for a good sound quality combined even without the extra satellite speakers (Sub & Rears). It handles a wide range of audio tones quite well from bass, mid, and high in any type of media such as games, movies, TV or music. All the typical bells and whistles you expect on a soundbar come with this including an optical input, an analog input, a USB port, a special S-Center for Bravia TVs, eARC HDMI output, and a HDMI 2.1 inputs. But unlike the A7000 however, the A5000 comes in a poly coated fiber similar to vehicle door paneling. The front facing speakers and up firing drivers with a metal mesh, your typical metal meshing that almost every other soundbar comes with. By comparison, the A7000 comes in a black glass finish and combination of black cloth/black metal grille, different than your usual soundbar. Its a massive fingerprint and dust magnet that requires frequent maintenance as any little amount shows easily. To add to the maintenance, the top houses touch controls on both models such as volume, power, source, Bluetooth, and Spotify Connect. Every press is another fingerprint. Setting up the sound bar is a breeze, and practically automatic. Upon boot and with a connected HDMI, it asks if you’d like to calibrate your audio through the sound field optimization. According to Sony, it’s an intelligent calibration that measures the position of the speakers in your room. But I’ll leave it at that with the specs as I’m sure you don’t want to read me describe the features from the product page. At the end of the day, it is an amazing audio device! There’s only 1 small annoyance. After connecting to Wi-Fi and updating firmware, even without setting up, the Amazon Alexa information pop up comes up every time. Power on, there it is. Go to TV then back home, there it is again. Go to settings and back home, there it is once again. There is no “don’t show me this again” check box option or an option to disable the reminder. For someone without any intention of using Alexa, this has become a nuisance. Pros Amazing sound levels, even without additional speakers available to pair with it. Although less elegant, for my personal lifestyle the anesthetics/materials of this unit suits me better than the black glass a cloth A7000. Cons Lack of method to disable Alexa as mentioned before. No apparent auto shut-off. Leave it on TV, HDMI, or on the home screen. It won’t enter standby on its own. Additionally the inherent design that all soundbars should have their inputs recessed in a usually difficult place to reach once mounted, this goes for majority if not all, soundbars on the market. I understand optical cables since you typically don’t change them out very often, but HDMI and USB? It’s no problem at all if you're accessing them before you mount the bar but once there it becomes a hassle. SA-SW5 Subwoofer The Sony SA-SW5 is an Amazing add-on subwoofer for the Sony HT-A5000. It comes ready to pair out of the box upon powering, but if you miss the pairing window a single click of a button pairs the speakers. Pairing takes less than 10 seconds. If it weren't for Sony’s descriptive image cutouts, I would have been left speculating the next section. It comes equipped with 2 subs sporting what Sony calls Σ Magnetic Circuit and Separated Notch Edge, 2 technologies enrich bass and low frequency sounds. The outer construction seems very sturdy consisting of what would appear to be a wooden structure (based on a knock test) with a polymer overly, an added texture, and a fabric covering over the exposed sub. All of this sits a top a reflective pvc like base housing the second, downward facing subwoofer. All-in-all this results in a very nice luxurious sub that doesn’t feel cheap. SA-RS5 Rear Speakers The Sony SA-RS5 adds a simple but amazing surround to the Sony HT-A5000 soundbar. It comes ready to pair automatically upon powering up for the first time. However, if you miss the pairing window a single click of a button pairs the speakers. Pairing takes less than 10 seconds. No mounting hardware is included but it does include a hanging cutout and standard 1/4” mounting screw hole on each speaker. The construction is very interesting as its cylindrical shaped and sleeved with a cloth all around including the top. Hiding beneath its cloth exterior are a combination of top firing driver, tweeter, and ba subwoofer. Conclusion All things considered, the HT-A5000 is a powerful system, whether paired with the external sub and satellite speakers or used on its own. It’ll offer enough power to fill most rooms. In my case they were used in an odd designed living room with an open ceiling. Roughly measuring 20’ x 18’ x 14, except that there isn’t any walls dividing so it’s more realistically about 20’ x 28’ x 14’. It was suited well enough for the space with media from TV, movies, music, and video games.

I got this soundbar set up with the SA-SW5 Subwoofer and SA-RS3S Rear Speakers. The soundbar itself was very easy to set up, plugged the Soundbar into an eARC port on my TV and used the HDMI plugin on the soundbar to plug my gaming console in. Once powered on and I switched to the input, I followed the prompts to add the soundbar to my Wi-Fi, pair and update the subwoofer and rear speakers. During the setup process the soundbar ran a sound field optimization which played multiple tones from the various speakers to give the system the optimal sound setup for my space! With the soundbar setup using eARC on my TV I can easily modify the volume of the soundbar using TVs remote. Thge menus are pretty straight forward in the soundbars menu. Watch gives you TV or HDMI option, which is the HDMI that plays directly attached to the soundbar. Listen gives you multiple options for audio, I mostly stuck to spotify so far in this section, the built-in Chromecast is a nice convenience. While setup gives you the choice to run through the setup wizard or change individual settings in sections such as Audio, HDMI, Network or System update. I've become accustom to those boxed subwoofer experience that I wasn't thinking about it too much when loading up a movie as my first audio experience with this sound system. I started up Free Guy just to compare to my previous soundbar, as I watched it recently while that was setup. The Sony HT-A5000 paired with the subwoofer and rear speakers blew my old sound system away! And that was streaming UHD with Dolby Atmos, I ended up sitting and watching the whole movie (not just because it was a great movie) because the audio experience was much more immersive and sounded like a true home theater experience. A few days later I picked up a few UHD movies on Blu-ray with the holiday sales starting. I started to watch Scott Pilgrim and was loving, not only, the sound of the system in the fights but the music during the band segments also. The immersive audio experience was great also, in that movie there is a part during a fight where the evil ex vanishes and they are trying to tell where the next attack would come from, and you can hear the voice echoing around you elevating the experience. Music is great also, this has become my go to speaker to blast music from while completing chores around the house. I can easily cast from Spotify and control the song from my phone. I have yet to use the soundbar alone, I have used it paired with the additional speakers and sub the whole time. The soundbar remote does have individual volume controls for the Subwoofer and Rear speakers also. The whole system is great, but the soundbar is the star that brings it all together! I am looking forward to picking up more UHD movies during the holiday sales to enjoy the most out of this Soundbar!

Great soundbar, even for smaller rooms, but beware, the soundbar is quite wide. For my current situation, with a Sony 65” X900H, which I use the TV stands for, on a home theatre piece of furniture, the soundbar is so wide, and my furniture does not have enough room for this soundbar to fit. I am actually about to actually mount my 65” TV on a wall soon, but for now, I put the soundbar directly on the floor in front of the furniture the TV sits on. The soundbar itself measures, 48” wide, 5.5” depth, 2.75” height. Just something to keep in mind. That being said, even with my temporary soundbar on the floor setup. The soundbar sounds fantastic. I am coming from nearly 20 years of traditional surround sound setups, including my couple year old Sony STR-DH790 surround receiver with Dolby Atmos, and while with the soundbar itself it can’t quite give you true “surround”, it does sound quite amazing. Even without an optional subwoofer, more on that later in this review, in a smaller room, like my 1 bedroom apartment, this thing sounds great. I get decent bass out of the built in subwoofer in the bar itself. I tested this soundbar with apps directly on the Sony X900H, and for everything that was delivering either Dolby Atmos, or other Dolby codecs, the soundbar did indeed detect, those formats directly from the built in android apps. I did however find that with the Android TV built in Sony apps, I could not get it to “bitstream” any kind of DTS formatted audio formats without it being seen as linear PCM tracks. It is supposed to passthrough, aka bitstream to the soundbar, via the eARC port. Further looking into it, and at leasts on the Sony X900H, this is a known issue. In my case, I don’t really use the the TVs built in Android TV apps, but an NVIDIA shield, which does properly pass thru all Dobly Atmos, and all flavors of DTS tracks, with the soundbar lighting up that it sees those tracks, and not converting to linear PCM for DTS. The NVIDIA shield setup I am using is running into the HDMI port into the soundbar directly. I also have tested this soundbar with both a PlayStation 5, and an Xbox Series X. Both sound great, but have had similar issues if trying to bitstream DTS tracks. However, in this situation, running directly to the single HDMI port also alleviates the issue with DTS tracks. Both PS5 and Xbox Series X, maintain 4K 60fps, and 120fps running thru the soundbar, and if they are hooked up to my TVs HDMI 4 port (only HDMI 3, and HDMI 4 on my TV support full HDMI 2.1 specs). I don’t use DTS on either of my next gen gaming consoles, but this might be something to consider, as this soundbar must be connected to your eARC port. In my situation, I am leaving my NVIDIA Shield directly connected to the soundbar, to get full support for dolby atmos, and the small amount of DTS X content I have. The consoles, I have on the HDMI 4 port, and have a switcher so that they both share that HDMI 2.1 capabilities like 4K 60 / 120 fps gaming. For those that may not want to go that router, I would imagine stepping up to the Sony HT A7000, for not just one HDMI input, but two, plus additional speakers in the bar. For my setup, I am fine with the less expensive HT A5000. My apartment is fairly small. I have neighbors below me. Even without the wireless subwoofer, you get pretty good bass from the soundbar alone. I was very impressed by the dolby atmos movie tracks I previewed from my Sony 65" X900H tv. I would however, absolutely get the wireless rear channels, even in a smaller living room space. While the soundbar alone is great, and there is definitely some ceiling bounce from the atmos movie I watched directly thru the built in Android TV app, Venom Carnage (great demo movie for Dolby Atmos by the way), you really do need those wireless rear channels for real immersion. I have been a traditional 7.1.2 receiver and wired speaker home theatre guy for many years, and this is the first soundbar I have heard that made me put my 2 year old Sony receiver away, once I added in those rear channels. Oh.. and no more wires!! Finally!! Ahhh… The future. Ok, so, I would say GREAT soundbar just on it’s own. You might be able to skip the add on SASW5 wireless subwoofer, especially if you have neighbors under you, but do yourselves a favor, get the rear wireless surround speakers, SARS3S, especially if you watch any kind of Dolby ATMOS shows. Most of the bigger streaming services now are either Dolby ATMOS or Dolby Digital +, and if it is anything action related, you will not regret adding in the rear channels!!! If you do add in those rear channels, when you add them into the soundbar setup, the built in Sony setup will try to analyze your room, for how loud it thinks that those rear channels volume should be, based on your room acoustics. In my case, I changed it, so that the rears are at max level. My first movie with the addition of the wireless rear surround speakers, the Venom Carnage movie, I stopped it, changed the rears to max, and it was like being in a movie theatre. Now… with that in mind, I am doing this without having set up the wireless subwoofer, also sold separately, and it is fantastic in my smaller room. But, I then added in the wireless subwoofer I mentioned earlier. Sony makes two of them, the one I added in is the 300 watt version. I had a 150 watt wired subwoofer before this on my previous wired system, and that was on a fully wired Sony 7.1.2 receiver. This subwoofer, O M G . People let me tell you, this thing really drives this whole Sony soundbar out of the park. It sounds like I went to a movie theatre! I actually have to crank this thing down, as this really adds a tremendous bass hit. For those with people living below them, you may not need, or want this, but ohhhh.. It sounds so good! Luckily, the soundbar remote has separate levels, up and down, directly on the remote itself, for both the subwoofer and the rear wireless surrounds. Thank you for thinking of that Sony!! All in all, yeah this is a fantastic soundbar. But, add in the additional rear channels for sure. You could always just buy the bar on it’s own, and add in later as needed too, but get the rear channels, worth it out of the box day one, unless you just watch non-action oriented content maybe. Now, if you really want to, get that wireless sub, and quite possibly never leave your home for a movie theatre again!

This is overall an incredibly amazing sound bar that greatly exceeded my expectations. The digital display on the front is a nice QoL touch that I didn't think I'd actually need until now, and you can really feel the bass despite that it's a built-in subwoofer. It also comes with a built-in Chromecast which is handy for casting music to the sound bar, much more convenient than bluetooth imo. If you do use bluetooth, know that it does support LDAC for HD audio. Comes also with a Night mode, for flattening volume range a bit, and with a dialogue enhancer for TV shows, which has helped with speech clarity, though you definitely will want to turn it off for music as it will overheighten the midrange. It's also a massive sound bar, something to watch out for if space is a concern, bigger than the width of my X85J 43' TV, but with big sounds to match. I've seen reviews from other websites stating that this soundbar can sound a little weak or flat on the surround sound side, and I thought so too at first until I discovered that you can actually manually calibrate the speakers. The calibration gives you "test tones" that let you hear how every individual speaker sounds a step at a time, and this allows you manually adjust their decibel and their focus distance. So after a good 20 minutes of tape measuring and tone balancing, the surround sound went from "okay" to the most immersive thing I've ever experienced. Even the upfiring speakers sound A LOT better now. The sound bar now completely blows every sound bar I've ever used and I've used many. While there is an automatic calibration, you definitely will want to spend some time with the manual calibration to really get the kind of sound you want for your ears. I'm considering adding the rear wireless speakers and the higher watt subwoofer on my next paycheck to make it a full 7.1.2 experience (or is it 7.2.2?). Besides movies, it's also been really amazing for music. The DSEE does an excellent job upscaling lower quality audio. Many music streaming services offer a free service but with reduced bitrate. The DSEE makes those reduced bitrate audio sound much higher in quality, to the point that I'm not even sure I need to subscribe anymore. My wife who initially said I was wasting money on the HT-A5000 is now constantly casting her music to it instead of the Samsung and LG ones we also own in our other rooms. I've enjoyed my weeks of gloating. My main con for this sound bar is the lack of a proper equalizer. While the sound so far is really good, I do wish I could tweak some of the bands a bit.

I added this soundbar to a Sony XR A80J OLED. I mounted to the wall and the included brackets worked fantastic. They also included a paper template so I was able to line it up perfectly. I also added a Sony wireless subwoofer. Like you expect with Sony, the system sounded great and made TV viewing significantly better. However, I couldn’t get over the constant interface issues I was experiencing. I only had a TiVo and an Apple TV hooked up so nothing too complicated. But, I kept having problems whenever I would turn my system on, the sound bar and all would appropriately power up but instead of going right into watching TV, I would get a black screen with a notice that said I needed to turn on my “cable box”. It acted like it could not find any inputs even though everything was turned on, initialized and ready to go. It wouldn’t start working until I cycled through all of the inputs on the remote and then it would finally recognize that they were powered up. It started to get annoying and despite all of my efforts, I was not able to find a reasonable solution so unfortunately I had to return it to Best Buy. Some thing else that was concerning was my TV started to show a bright green screen and I would have to turn the TV off, unplug it for a few minutes and plug it back in again to reset it. This has never happened to me prior to getting this sound bar. After that started happening, the decision to return it was pretty easy, especially since I had invested over $1000 including the subwoofer. I saved $400 ultimately decided to buy two Apple HomePods (second generation) and I now use them as my television audio system. They work great and are as seamless as it gets.

Lot bigger sound than any slim soundbar should be capable of. If you feed a quality Dolby/DTS signal to the HT-A5000. You will definitely hear far more audio separation (left, right, center plus REAL Atmos height speakers) in the shows, movies and certain music content. Most shows and movies have the bulk of dialog feeding the center speaker. I was very happy that the voices are clear and not muddied by the other channels/speakers that can sometimes have the dialog shared among all front speakers in a soundbar. I can clearly hear the vocals on prime time shows and films. Also pleased that the surround sound that is happening in the background is also very directional to its location on screen. Even movies are more immersive when the action on screen moves around and the sound is also being reflected on various surfaces in the room I setup in. If you only buy the soundbar, it is more than capable for watching tv and movies for a very enjoyable sound experience. However, I do think on its own there was not quite enough bass from the soundbar alone when viewing action content. I would note that Sony does make a few options to add additional speakers for the rear and a subwoofer that can make a complete surround sound package. And all additional speakers can wirelessly be connected to the soundbar. Just plug them into a wall outlet and run the "easy setup" sound setting on the soundbar. All without speaker wires. Fantastic and simple. Its a great soundbar on its own. If you want the fullest movie experience, like I did. I would recommend adding SA-SW5 (subwoofer) and SA-RS3S (rear left and rear right speakers). All together it makes a seamless sound profile that can be easily setup with the setting in the soundbar. Soundbar will even send audio tones to all the speakers to configure the acoustics of the room to get the peak performance out of the room you are listening in.

The Sony HT-A5000 is my new favorite soundbar and an upgrade from my old soundbar/home theater system. This soundbar is nothing short of an amazing all-in-one 5.1.2 sound system. It has 5 internal speakers (3 front facing and 2 upward facing), a built-in subwoofer, and built-in tweeters. It has Sony's 3D Soundfield technology, Dolby-Atmos, and DTS-X. In 2022 through an update there is going to be PS5 3D-Audio compatibility, which as a gamer is a big plus for me. This design makes it a perfect do-all soundbar for those that want an immersive theater experience and a minimalist aesthetic without having to buy extra sound equipment or figure out cable management. I tested it with my 75" LG Nano90 using my PS5 to play a 4K UHD copy of Terminator 2 (one of the best movies ever btw). The set up was easy and when connected to the HDMI eARC offers a whole home menu that displays controls, different audio/music outputs, and audio settings. This was something that took me a while to get used to since my previous soundbar didn't have this and I really like this amount of control. I wish I could post the videos I took because my review doesn't do it justice. The sound quality is amazing with just the soundbar alone, the bass of the internal subwoofer was very good considering its size, and the surround sound field gives me an immersive and booming movie viewing or gaming experience. For those that want to take their experience even further, find the bass or tweeters just not booming enough for their viewing experience/space Sony has a compatible Sub and Two-Tweeter set, but they're pretty pricey. I love my Sony HT-A5000 soundbar and absolutely look forward to showing it off on movie nights, gaming hangouts, or game day viewing parties with my friends and family.

The difference between a $500 soundbar set and a $2000 soundbar set? More than words can describe. Exceeded my expectations by a mile. I mounted and connected the soundbar and also added the rear surround sound speakers and the wireless subwoofer. The onscreen menu on the soundbar is excellent. Allows you to tune, customize and do software updates right on the TV easily. As far as sound goes my old unit was a $500 set and I really liked it until I tried this one. The specs can all be looked up so this review is on the sound quality which is excellent. We have a large living room with wood floors and sound was exactly as claimed. The room was just filled with clarity, bass and sound effects I didn’t know existed. Paired with our OLED TV I can’t imagine any reason to go to a movie theater. This is much better. Mounting was simple. 2 brackets and a couple screws and a level. Remote also works great and arc has been fine so far. This is a definite buy especially if you add the wireless speakers and a subwoofer and these I consider needed for rooms larger than a bedroom to get the full effects.

This Sony 5.1 soundbar pairs well with Sony Bravia tv's, one of which I also recently purchased. The sound when just listening to broadcast/streaming is good but when watching a movie and switching to the HDMI setting, is even better with a "fuller" sound and more bass. I find it a bit frustrating that the soundbar doesnt automatically switch to the correct setting based on the source. For ex., why, when I pop in a bluray, does it not auto switch from "TV" to "HDMI"? I have to do this manually with the soundbar remote. I had a 20+ year old Yamaha home theater receiver that had custom settings for "spectacle", "sci-fi", "5 channel, "concert", "rock", and a few others. Some settings didn't sound much different and I was a bit disappointed that this soundbar doesnt have such options but, being more current technology, it reproduces the sound settings of each movie very nicely. The 5.1 "bubble" that is created based on the room's dimensions is very cool and I'm looking forward to adding the two battery operated rear speakers later this year. Kind of pricey but it was a nice and, for me, logical compromise between Sony's 3.1 and their 7.1 soundbars. Finally, setting up instructions could be clearer, too.

Sound is great when working properly. To many issues with connection issues. Loses connection to much till it finally gave out. Sound bar froze and cant do anything with it right after warranty expires. Not built to last.

One of the best sounds bars I’ve owned, great room filling sound. Easy to use and configure with my Sony subwoofer and Sony TV

This was delivered and i had to swap for the intended unit. That's fine it happens, swap was easy and painless. I did use this for a few days before i swapped for the intended HT-A7000. In fact i kinda regret going through with the 7000 swap now. I read the reviews and they were spot on. The 5000 has a boomier sound image. I watch a lot of action movies so now in hind sight I this the 5000 was better suited to my particular taste. Not saying the 7000 isn't good, it is, but the 5000 just rumbles better during action. Now music i find does sound better on the 7000. But if you're on the fence between the 5000 and 7000, and your budget will be stretched... I promise you'll be just as happy with the 5000. The 5000 isnt as tall as the 7000, so if your using a Sony tv on its stand mount the 5000 fits prefecture under it where as the 7000 doesn't fit under my Sony OLED on its stand.

This is a review of the HT-A5000 w/ and w/o the SW3 and the HT-A9 w/ the SW5. The HT-A5000 alone does provide pretty good surround/immersion experience...As long as you have a small/symmetrical room. It was great in our bedroom with clear dialog, but not so much in our open family. The A5000 with the SW3 did add a punch on the lower end, but that's it. May be the additional wireless surround speakers (RS3S) can over come that issue. The HT-A9 with SW5 is awesome in our open family room. I combine it with the X95K 85" as a center channel and the dialog did significantly improved with Voice mode. Surround/immersion experience is just amazing. This combination is way better than my previous 5.1 setup with towers, center and bi-polar rear speakers...Especially in 7.1 (Dolby Atmos and DTS:X etc.). The openning scene of Dungeons & Dragons make me feel like I was in the middle of a blizzard.

every morning on for soft music, Sony surround sound always as I added SR 5 surround back speakers is absolutely the best part. Use it on all night movies to give you that true theater feel experience.

I looked for months and read countless reviews and Reddit threads, watching all the YouTube videos too. I have a Sony x91j and wanted a powerful sound experience with ease of use so I went with this and the sw5 sub. This setup is in our basement with 9’ ceilings and atmos was incredibly weak. The sub stopped working after a week and I couldn’t listen to this soundbar without it. In my opinion, for the amount of money you pay, Sony just isn’t it. The soundstage on this, even after optimization, is terrible. I’d be sitting on the left side of our couch and felt I couldn’t hear anything in my left ear. I returned all of this for the Bose 900 and base module 700 and even without running adaptive IQ optimization, bose was better than Sony straight out of the box. I really wanted the Sony to work with the ease of connectivity with my tv but that’s all it did well. Overall, it’s underwhelming for the price you pay. The height channel, sound stage, and sub are all miles beyond with the Bose and it isn’t even close. Please avoid my mistake and stay away. The new $600 rears with the Sony wouldn’t help this. With the Bose 900 and 700 base module, there’s so much power, for our room and height, we don’t need the rear speakers. Best of luck with your decision!

I just purchased a nice Sony OLED TV and wanted a nice sound bar to match. I purchased this soundbar with the matching sub and couldn't be happier. The wireless sub is great and set up of everything was super easy. I like that it has bluetooth and I can play music on it from my phone. It makes movies feel like I'm in the theatre and it adds a lot to my TV shows and sports. Very happy with the purchase. I went into the store and the Best Buy reps and I played around with different sounbars and I was very happy with this one.

I know high end soundbars dont usually come with a sub, but the previous generation of Sony soundbars almost all came with a sub. The sound clarity is great regardless but if you want the deep emotional tons you have to add one. Tiny gripe but the HDMIs on this are really susceptible to relatively small amounts of dust and they will transmit the distortion.